Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
© Elaine Schattner, 2009, 2022 By : Template Sell.
I almost liked the latest installment of the Big C. Cathy swims, for starters. I could relate. She’s wearing goggles, no less. That’s universal “code” for seriousness about swimming, or acting. She swims well and pretty fast. Within seconds she befriends the competitive girl-swimmer in the next lane and, wouldn’t you know it, the girl’s team needs […]
ML learned a new word on Twitter last week: cybrarian: “a person whose job is to find, collect, and manage information that is available on the World Wide Web” My source is the on-line, ever-handy Merriam-Webster dictionary. (H/T to Dave deBronkart, who sent the term flying across cyberspace.) —– Related Posts:Twitter, The Notificator, and Old Social […]
Today’s word comes from Nature News that the NIH is dropping a proposed requirement for universities to disclose researchers’ financial ties to industry on websites. This is a loss for patients, who may not be aware of their doctors’ relationships with pharmaceutical companies and others who fund clinical trials, fellowships, conference junkets and other perks […]
Tonight the Discovery Channel will begin its annual Shark Week festival on TV. “Show me your teeth,” dares a singing woman, repeatedly, in the preview. Show Me Your Teeth I’m reminded of my thoughts on the advice – if you can call it that; it holds as a puzzle with me – from the recently-troubled […]
We’ve reached the second half of our discussion on Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care. The authors of the NEJM paper, Drs. T. Smith and B. Hillner, go on to consider how doctors’ behavior influences costs in Changing Attitudes and Practice. Today’s point on the list: “Oncologists need to recognize that the costs of care are […]
I feel compelled to write at least a short note on Amy Winehouse, a young woman who was found dead in her London apartment a few days ago. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but the truth is I was never a big fan of her music. I wasn’t fond of her […]
This week I’ve come across a few articles and varied blog posts on screening mammography. The impetus for rehashing the topic is a new set of guidelines issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. That group of women’s health providers now advises that most women get annual mammograms starting at age 40. Why […]
This is the sixth post on Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care, based on the 10 suggestions put forth by Drs. Smith and Hillner in the May 26 NEJM. We’re up to number 5 on the list for changing oncologists’ behavior: by limiting further chemotherapy to clinical trial drugs in patients who are not […]
On the local, national and nutritional fronts: How refreshing, in this heat, that Fairway opened a new store on East 86th Street yesterday. Coincidently, Michelle Obama’s push to eliminate “food deserts” – places where it’s hard to find affordable fresh produce and other healthy foods – was highlighted this week when several big retailers signed […]
In this week’s episode, Boo!, Cathy wakes up in the morning eager and ready to start treatment on a clinical trial. The day doesn’t go well – the local treatment center doesn’t have needed information about her insurance, which can’t be tracked down on time, her 15 year old son gets in trouble at school, […]
Live, from New York, it’s med-blog Grand Rounds, volume 7, number 43! As I’m staying home for the summer, I’ve asked bloggers to share images of where they’re from, or where they go, so we could take a virtual tour together: We’ll start with a post from the Washington, DC-based Prepared Patient Forum, where Jessie […]
This is the fifth in a series of posts on how we might reduce the costs of cancer care, based on 10 suggestions offered in a May, 2011 NEJM sounding board. We’re up to point 4: oncologists should replace the routine use of white-cell-stimulating factors with a reduction in the chemotherapy dose in metastatic solid cancers. In […]
The latest NEJM features a big story about a small trial, with only 39 patients in the end, on the potential for placebos to relieve patients’ experience of symptoms. This follows other recent reports on the subjective effectiveness of pseudo-pharmacology. My point for today is that placebos are problematic in health care with few exceptions. First, […]
This week the Times ran a leading story on a new med school admission process, with multiple, mini-interviews, like speed dating. The idea is to assess applicants’ social, communication and ethical thinking (?) skills: …It is called the multiple mini interview, or M.M.I., and its use is spreading. At least eight medical schools in the United […]
This is the fourth in a series of posts on Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care, by Drs. Thomas J. Smith and Bruce E. Hillner, in a recent NEJM health policy piece. The authors’ third suggestion: to limit chemotherapy to patients with good performance status, with an exception for highly responsive disease, is surely one of the most […]
This is the third in a series of posts on Bending the Cost Curve in Cancer Care, based on the late-May NEJM health policy piece. Today we’ll consider the second of the authors’ suggestions: to limit second and third-line treatments to sequential monotherapies for most solid tumors. This particular suggestion, one of the few proposed with which I […]
Yesterday’s post was not really about Avastin, but about medical journalism and how patients’ voices are handled by the media. L. Husten, writing on a Forbes blog, cried that the press fawned, inappropriately, over patients’ words at the FDA hearing last week, and that led him to wonder why and if journalists should pay attention to […]
A journalist who covers medical matters of the heart grabbed my attention on the Fourth of July. In The Voice of the Patient: Time To Bring Out the Muzzle?, Larry Husten at Forbes’ Cardiobrief blog, insinuates that the women who spoke at the FDA’s Avastin hearings are simpletons. In his short strip, Husten skips the possibility […]
My cousin testified before the FDA oncology advisory board on Tuesday about her experience taking Avastin. This is a tragedy, to deny the only drug that is keeping a 51 year old woman alive. You have to wonder, are the advisory panel members so rational in all their behavior and choices? Are they always so […]
Last night the Big C returned, not surprisingly with an opening dream sequence. Laura Linney, portraying Cathy Jamison in the Showtime series, is running. The scene turns out to be a nightmare, and she awakens with a headache and her husband by her side. OK so far. Within a few minutes, Cathy’s young oncologist informs […]
