I find a lot of things I like in the New York Times. This article resonated with me as few others. First, there is the purpose of the human profiled. Changing medicine into data science? God save us all.
Sometimes I feel the best thing I do for a patient is to be human. Just to have the pretension (a pretension which I do not take lightly) of being one human being in a room with another human being, trying to make them feel better. This does more, I think, to make most of my patients “better” than all of the pills I have spent years studying about. All those years studying normative use of medications on large populations of humans. And they work enough to please the powers that be.
Filed under medicine, News, Psychology, Research by on Jul 3rd, 2017. Comment. 
The first psychiatric office I rented had two mildly to moderately comfortable chairs in the center, facing in the same direction. We all know that psychiatry started with the patient lying on a couch, staring at the ceiling, and remains that way in “New Yorker” cartoons. Those of us in the know, we know that Freud was actually a pretty shy guy, not liking to stare his patients in the face, but rather letting their subconsciouses roam freely while staring at the ceiling.
We also know that the subconscious is a scary entity, full of (imagined) murder and rape and pillaging and such. The ideal when I trained was to sit face-to-face across a desk from the patient. Nobody I know actually did that. The reality slipped into 90 to 120-degree angles, exactly like what the classical psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan recommended. Read more on High Tech-High Touch Psychiatry…
Filed under News, Psychiatrists by on Jun 21st, 2017. Comment.
Blue Cross of Georgia does not always want to pay for people’s visits to the emergency room. The question, clearly is what they pay for and what they do not. To a certain extent, there are alternatives now that folks saw rarely if at all in the past.
Alternatives like urgent care. In the trade we call it a “doc in a box.” Long waits are not uncommon — it is generally one doctor present at a time, with many nurses and technicians who have enough time to at least have an authentic — if brief — interpersonal relationship with the patient. Sometimes people get wheeled into such places. By definition, patients are usually ambulatory in a “walk-in clinic.” I have worked in such places that specialized in psychiatry, where you could see pretty much anything, although prescription refills were clearly dominant. Read more on Avoiding Emergencies In Georgia…
Filed under Doctors, Government, News by on Jun 16th, 2017. Comment.
I value those behind-the-scenes programs on TV, especially when they warn you of dangers that you may never know. Here is a little behind-the-scenes story that you will really want to read because it might involve you! One of my chief interests in making sure patients are not only treated properly but that all the safeguards and protections are observed.
Filed under Doctors, Government, Healthcare reform, News by on Jun 15th, 2017. Comment.
By now I think folks on the business management level of health care are at least aware that we Americans spend a lot of money on health care and seem to get very little in return. The author of a provocative piece in Forbes thinks “unnecessary health care” is our worst problem. This statement hit me broadside. This does seem pretty true for the example she chose, even though it is decidedly outside of my field.
As far as I can figure, this sort of planned emergency delivery she talks about brings nothing to obstetric science or to the quality of human life whatsoever. Around the net, I see estimates of how much of what we do is actually science. It usually comes out as about 50 or 60%; maybe a little over half. This is happening as part of what seems to be a massive drive towards EBM, known as “Evidence Based Medicine.”
Filed under Government, Healthcare reform, News, Psychiatrists by on Jun 12th, 2017. Comment.
Too many Americans can’t afford to and simply do not–take their medicines as prescribed. That estimate is based on information from the (American!) Centers for Disease Control). I have had patients come into my office who take their medications –in both cases, for life-threatening infectious diseases — only every other day, simply because that is all they can afford. I explained to each one individually the idea of the half-life of a drug. They only stay in your body for a certain length of time, then they leave your body in waste products. That is why taking a drug every other day is not really effective. They both gave me almost exactly the same response — It was all they could afford, and it was probably better than nothing. Read more on Big Pharma Is Capitalism Out Of Control…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, Education, Government, Hepatitis C, medicine, News, politics, prescription drugs, Psychiatrists, Psychotherapy by on May 29th, 2017. Comment.
Chantix is a prescription smoking-cessation aid and has a lovely official website that will give you the information about the drug that the company that makes it provides for patients. This is the package insert a doctor is supposed to read before prescribing. You will love paragraph 6, about neuropsychiatric side effects. Read more on Drug Companies HAVE To Tell You The Bad News…
Filed under News, prescription drugs by on May 27th, 2017. Comment.
It is only a dim memory for me. Sitting around the black and white television with my folks, watching Alfred Hitchcock walk into his profile, and say things to America in a snarky sort of tone that I could never have used with anybody. Strange, I don’t remember the content of she shows. Not too surprising — I was only two years old when he came on the air. Read more on Was Alfred Hitchcock the best pharmaceutical rep ever?…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, News, prescription drugs by on May 26th, 2017. Comment.
Okay, those lovable folks at Purdue Pharmaceutical decided to claim that Oxycontin, one of the favorite drugs at least of the street addicts I have seen and treated at an addiction center, is less “addictive” and less “abusable” than similar drugs.
Filed under Addictions, Alternative Medicine, big pharma, FDA, Government, News, prescription drugs, Substance Abuse by on May 25th, 2017. Comment.
The lyrics start:
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Doctors, medicine, News, Research by on May 23rd, 2017. Comment.