I recently asked whether, in light of the relative drop in the number of trainees entering family medicine in the US compared to other specialties, we can continue to find ways to bolster the strengths of primary care, both in medical education and practice—since we know that primary care “helps prevent illness and death.” Some […]
Category: US healthcare
William Cayley: What’s in the future for US family medicine?
Once again, after waiting with bated breath, hope, and anxiety, medical students and residency programs alike have received the results of the annual residency “match.” After months of seemingly endless interviews and paperwork, and the submission of preference lists to the computer based algorithm at the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP), we finally know what […]
Jeanne Lenzer: The Backstory—The New York Doctors’ Riot
Harriet Washington, a medical ethicist and author, opened a recent talk saying, “Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, heroes of the newly minted American Republic, did not spend 15 April 1788, penning the Federalist papers, nor were they holding forth on the virtues of a free press while bedecked in morning coats and powdered wigs. Instead […]
Steve Ruffenach: Electronic health records—time for machines to start sharing
Las Vegas hosted the Healthcare Information and Management System Society (HiMSS) annual meeting again last week. With more than 45,000 people in attendance, it is at once intense and unwieldy. It is also the meeting where every company and organization that controls, distributes, or touches medical information of any sort or in any way shows […]
William Cayley: Single payer healthcare—is it here already?
Despite all the hand wringing and arguments over single payer healthcare in American social debates past and present, what most observers seem to miss (but patients and doctors know very well) is that we already have a long established single payer system of healthcare financing in the US—our healthcare is already paid for by the ubiquitous […]
Huw Green: Schizophrenia—what doesn’t exist?
Jim van Os provides an excellent summary of why many clinicians and researchers (especially the latter) have become frustrated with the imprecision of the term schizophrenia. Among scientists, calls to abandon the diagnosis have sounded for more than 25 years and will probably eventually be heeded. Few scientists would bet that it will retain its currency […]
Jeanne Lenzer: The Backstory—When is patient consent needed?
While I was reporting on a study for The BMJ, I suddenly felt as if I’d walked through Alice’s Looking Glass. You’ve possibly heard about the study by now: researchers found that patients treated by sleep-deprived resident doctors were no more likely to die or suffer serious complications than patients under the care of doctors […]
Saurabh Jha: Britain’s junior doctors are not apprentices
It was Boxing Day weekend. The consultant surgeon summoned the on-call team. “We face a calamity,” he said. The house officer had called in sick. The locum wasn’t going to arrive for another 12 hours. This meant that I, the senior house officer, would have to be the house officer. The registrar would take my […]
William Cayley: Complexity and care
Words that sound wonderful can come back to haunt you. As a case in point, I recently responded to Elizabeth Wortley’s eloquent blog “Please refrain from using that kind of language” with the question: What if we decided to try to become “experts” in treating the difficult (patients)? That sounds great in a conversation, but those […]
Deborah Kirkham: Abortion in America—are church and state really separate?
Never talk about religion, politics, or sex the old adage goes. The continuing debate about abortion covers all three, which may go someway to explaining the fervor with which all sides defend their viewpoint. Planned Parenthood in America appears at first glance to be an unremarkable organisation. It offers contraception, testing, and treatment of sexually […]