Atrial fibrillation is a mysterious disease. We know a lot but surely not enough. We look at AF but are we really seeing it? I believe there are hard truths to this disease. Hard in a way that neither patients nor doctors like. More on that later. First to some news on a major AF […]
The Choosing Wisely campaign began in 2009 when the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation invited medical societies to own their role as “stewards of finite healthcare resources.” The movement aims to promote care that is supported by evidence, not duplicative, free from harm and truly necessary. That sounds delightful, and I wrote enthusiastically […]
The British Medical Journal published a monumental study on screening mammography this week. It’s garnered a ton of media coverage because the findings provocatively question the sacrosanct idea that early detection of breast cancer saves lives. Imagine that…Imagine if the entire pink machine was misguided. Of course, for people who have been willing to squint […]
Now that the ‘healthiness’ of products sold at CVS stores is a matter of public discourse, it seems a perfect time to mention the common pain relievers known as Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs). It just so happens that two FDA advisory committees are meeting today and tomorrow to discuss the cardiovascular risks of NSAIDs. The […]
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Learning what not to do…
Ali Almossawi is a young metrics engineer at Mozilla. He collaborates with the MIT media lab. He has done something quite remarkable, uplifting and useful. (And isn’t that a good thing these days.) He wrote a book called An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments. More than 500,000 people read the online version. Now there is […]
…one could be pessimistic. PBS NewsHour did this story last night. Adjunct professors, many of them with doctorates, are struggling to make a living. A French literature professor uses food stamps. An English professor just up and quit. This video got me thinking about the word “value.” The MacBook delivered this as the first definition: […]
Yesterday, CVS Caremark announced that its 7600 stores will stop selling tobacco products. Company leadership said that selling tobacco is not consistent with being a health company. This decision, which takes effect in October 2014, will result in 2 billion less revenue. I am no business person, (though, as an observer of humans, I follow […]
Editor’s note: What follows is a guest post. Michael Zhang is an MD-PhD student studying at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He is one of my go-to experts on matters of cell biology and stem cells. (His bio is below.) As you may have heard, this week brought striking news in the field […]
“There has been a change in your prescription,” said the eye doctor, a wise and bald man, who could have been mistaken for an economics professor at Princeton. “It’s improved?” the 30 year-old cardiologist asked. Better, improved, always the reflex for athletic cardiologists. “Doctor…you have been to the pinnacle and passed it. Your eyes, like […]
The purpose of this post is to clarify important issues about cardiac devices as they relate to deactivation. As I wrote yesterday, Paula Span of the NY Times covered this important issue earlier this week. Her coverage came about because of this Mayo Clinic paper published in JAMA-IM, which showed most patients with cardiac devices […]
The news came via a direct message on Twitter. “You got a plug in the NY times. Congrats.” (Thanks Dr. Jay Schloss.) Paula Span, author of the NY Times’ The New Old Age Blog, reported today on the issue of cardiac device deactivation in patients who are approaching end of life. The role I had […]