Is High Health Spending Justified?
An international analysis has found that the higher cost of cancer care delivery in the United...
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Business of Medicine
Most Female PCPs Better Off Being a PA
A new report published in the Summer issue of Journal of Human Capital found that most women would...
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A Shortage of General Surgeons: Coming Soon?
There is much hand-wringing about the shortage of primary care physicians. But primary care is not...
Read MoreA Look at Specialty Drug Insurance
Healthy people appear to be willing to pay high insurance premiums for generous coverage of specialty drugs. A survey showed that respondents were willing to pay, in effect, $2.58 in generous specialty drug coverage for every...
Read MoreWhatever Happened to Personal Contact?
Not long ago, I attended a retirement party for a former colleague. He had been a surgeon for 43 years at a hospital where I was once chairman of surgery. A number of old friends and colleagues whom I hadn’t seen for a long time...
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Physician Decision-Making: Damned If You Do…
Here’s a little story from the early days of my first job as a chairman of surgery. Shortly after...
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Managing HIV: A Call to Action for Primary Care Physicians
Click here to listen to a podcast of Dr. Wong discussing the growing need of support for HIV care....
Read MoreOur Broken Healthcare System – Feeding the Fat Cats
We have a cat. He’s fat. His name is Zander, but we call him “Cat,” “Kitty,” “Loaf of Bread” (because that’s what he looks like when he lies down and his fat spreads), Lard Butt, and “Fatso Catso.” In the picture above he is...
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Pregnancy Among Women Surgeons
A paper reporting the results of a survey of women surgeons on the topic of pregnancy appears in...
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Complications & Collateral Damage
“Collateral damage: the effect of patient complications on the surgeon’s psyche”...
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Jilted: We No Longer Accept Your Health Insurance
Dear patients on insurance company X: I am very sorry to give you the bad news: effective...
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An Error Occurred. Suspend All Surgery in the U.S.?
Here is an extreme “system error” type of response to an event that seems to have been a human...
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68% of Physicians Unsatisfied with Affordable Care Act
A recent survey from staffing company Jackson Healthcare found that 68% of physicians gave the...
Read MoreThe Effect of Racial Bias From Clinicians
A team of American researchers has found that markers of poor visit communication and poor ratings of care appear to be associated with clinician implicit attitudes about race as well as race and compliance stereotyping. General...
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Misinterpreting Benefits of Cancer Screenings
According to results from a national survey, improved survival and increased detection of cancer...
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Fat Physicians Need Not Apply
Texas-based Citizens Medical Center recently made the decision to refuse employment to obese...
Read MoreAre You Afraid to Be Wrong?
Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal, wrote a thoughtful essay offering guidance for new medical students. (Full text here.) Although it was published in 2003, someone just brought it to my attention via...
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Wide Disparity in Hospital Charges for Appendicitis. Why?
If you wonder why hospitals are under fire for outrageous and often baffling accounting practices,...
Read MoreA Quality Indicator Toolkit for Hospitals
The AHRQ has release a toolkit to guide hospitals in the use of the agency’s Inpatient Quality Indicators and Patient Safety Indicators for improving care. The toolkit, available for free at www.ahrq.gov, includes a “roadmap”...
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Malpractice Trends: Good & Bad News for Docs
Recent data on medical malpractice claims showed both good and bad news for physicians – but even...
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