Category: Doctors

MEwens
Quality-of-life questions are becoming increasingly important in medical care, especially when it comes to helping patients make decisions about treatments, today’s Informed Patient column reports.
Since the 1970s, researchers have been using quality-of-life measurement tools for a wide variety of medical conditions, primarily in population studies and clinical trials. Outside the U.S. they are […]

MEwens
Doctors who need to drop pounds themselves may be less likely to bring up the topic of weight loss with their obese patients, a new study suggests.
The study, published in the journal Obesity, covered 498 primary-care physicians. Of them, 47% were normal-weight, 38% were overweight and 15% were obese, based on their body […]

MEwens
In the Big Issues special report on health care, the WSJ explores the pros and cons of proposed patient identification numbers.
The numbers would be assigned to every individual in the U.S., similar to a Social Security number, but for use by health-care providers. Proponents say that as medical records go digital and […]

MEwens
For patients diagnosed with cancer and other serious diseases, a second opinion can make the difference between getting the right and the wrong care, today’s Informed Patient column reports.
Diagnostic error is of increasing concern, studies show. A new report from QuantiaMD, a mobile and  online physician community, found that almost half of 6,400 […]

Laura Landro
Gut Brain: The health of the gut is tied to more than digestion, with links to processes and conditions including bone formation, learning and memory, Parkinson’s disease and, in lab rats, depression and anxiety, the WSJ reports. Researchers call the enteric nervous system the “gut brain” and note that about 95% of […]

MEwens
In an upcoming Big Issues special report on health care, The Wall Street Journal will explore the pros and cons of email communication between doctors and patients.
Although patients overwhelmingly have said they would like to be able to use email to discuss clinical issues with their doctors, only 31% of practices say […]

MEwens
The jobs picture last month improved overall — and the health-care sector, which has been a bright spot throughout the downturn, continued to grow.
As the WSJ reports, nonfarm payrolls rose by 200,000 people in December as the unemployment rate, calculated using a separate survey, fell to 8.5% from 8.7% in November.
Here’s […]

MEwens
With more than 900 posts, it’s been a busy year for the Health Blog. We thought we’d close out the year by highlighting a few of our (and our readers’) favorites. As with our “best of” last year, this is a thoroughly unscientifically determined list, with posts chosen by subject matter, quirk factor […]

MEwens
A doc fix is looking like an increasingly unlikely holiday present for the nation’s physicians — and the patients they treat.
Last year at this time a one-year patch for scheduled cuts to Medicare reimbursement was all squared away with a bow on top.
But it’s been a different story in 2011: as the Associated […]

MEwens
“Health and medicine books tend to be long on advice and how-to, and short on compelling narrative and literary merit,” writes Laura Landro in her Informed Patient column today.
But the books she’s picked as her top five of the year prove to be exceptions. They range from a gripping history of surgical practice […]