Tags: healthcare
Blog Posts (47)
Apr 19, 2012
Cancer Patients Are Mum About Care Problems
A study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology reports via Reuters Health today that cancer patients rarely tell anyone about the problems with the care they receive.…
Oct 10, 2011
Saving the USPS by Cutting Healthcare Costs?
What does the postal service have to do with healthcare? Sure, the USPS delivers medical supplies to individuals and organizations. But that is not the connection that the nation’s postmaster general is making between healthcare and the viability of the postal service.…
Jun 06, 2011
The (In)Justice of Cancer Treatment
It is striking the juxtaposition of the two major headlines today regarding cancer treatment:
Apr 28, 2010
Ethics of Rationing End-of-Life Care: Can We Ever Agree?
A PBS forum with Arthur Caplan and others asked the BIG question about rationing end-of-life care, and perhaps rationing in general: can we as a society ever agree as to what the rational goals of health care can be at the end of life?…
Apr 15, 2010
AJOB's April Issue is Now Online!
Just in time to coincide with National Healthcare Decisions Day, AJOB’s April issue is now online featuring an editorial and a target article discussing advance directives and patient decision-making.…
Mar 05, 2010
End of Life-ology
William King is dying from MS. His two twenty-something sons, Ennis and Malcolm, already lost their mother to cancer 15 years earlier and now must deal with his slow deterioration.…
Nov 23, 2009
Caplan: Pay Up for Quality Care, Or Else
The trent toward concierge medicine is not a good thing, says Art Caplan, today on MSNBC.com. Why not just draw a big bright yellow line across the street that indicates that “the haves” can get quality care over here and “the have nots” cannot get quality care over there?…
Oct 08, 2009
In New York, You Get the Shot Or Walk the Plank
As Art Caplan’s most recent MSNBC column explains, New York is taking a hard line on health care workers getting their flu vaccinations this year.…
Aug 12, 2009
Caplan: Health Care Debate Goes Beyond Awry When Nazi Imagery Is Invoked
If anyone has been paying attention to the news lately, they’ve seen vicious town hall meetings with Senators and Representatives around the country, and even the President, met by furious citizens attacking proposed plans for universal healthcare.…
Jun 29, 2009
Caplan: Think Big on Health Care
Arthur Caplan reminded us last week not to get bogged down in the details and to “think big” on health care.…
Published Articles (5)
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 10 Issue 5 - May 2010
Bioethics and President Obama David Magnus
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 8 Issue 12 - Dec 2008
Review of Ezekiel J. Emanuel. Healthcare Guaranteed: a Simple, Secure Solution for America. Joseph White
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 8 Issue 10 - Oct 2008
And Health for All? Soren Holm
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 8 Issue 3 - Mar 2008
Ethics and Rural Healthcare: What Really Happens? What Might Help? Ann Freeman Cook
American Journal of Bioethics: Volume 6 Issue 1 - Jan 2006
The Doctor-Patient Relationship in the Post-Managed Care Era G. Caleb Alexander
Resources (2)
Office of Minority Health & Health Disparities
Aims to eliminate health disparities for vulnerable populations.
GeneClinics.org
An NIH-funded site providing free information on medical genetics. Includes laboratory and clinic directories and educational materials.
News (44)
May 22, 2012
Vial of Ronald Reagan's blood up for sale, UK auction house claims (MSNBC)
If you’ve ever wanted a vial of Ronald Reagan’s blood, now’s your chance — although this sale is being called unethical. A vial supposedly containing the late president’s blood is up for auction on PFCauctions.com, which is based in the United Kingdom. The website claims the blood was taken from Reagan following the assassination attempt against him in 1981.
May 21, 2012
Massachusetts hospitals launch patient apology program (American Medical News)
Seven Massachusetts hospitals have joined forces to implement an “I’m sorry” policy to improve transparency and reduce medical liability lawsuits. The program — Disclosure, Apology and Offer — was modeled after a similar effort at the University of Michigan Health Care System and will start sometime in 2012. Each hospital will begin the program on its own at undetermined dates.
May 16, 2012
Tracing the Path of Jewish Medical Pioneers (New York Times)
The note is displayed in an exhibition called “Trail of the Magic Bullet: The Jewish Encounter With Modern Medicine, 1860-1960,” on view at Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan. The exhibition offers a rare look at a topic few patients ever stop to consider: the emergence of European and American Jews as innovators in medicine, despite their status as outsiders frequently scorned by the medical establishment.
May 16, 2012
Gay Marriage is a health-care issue, too (Washington Post)
A team of public health researchers looked at health-care patterns among gay and bisexual men before and after Massachusetts legalized same-sex unions in 2003 (this was prior to the state’s health insurance expansion). Health-care research has increasingly looked at how policy interventions that change the larger environment impact health-care outcomes. In this case, they wanted to know whether legal same-sex marriage — which had the potential to reduce risk factors such as stress — might have an impact.
May 15, 2012
Making Gene Mapping Part of Everyday Care (Wall Street Journal)
The cost of mapping a person’s full genetic profile has been dropping quickly. Now, doctors are struggling with a new question: how to use the information to improve people’s health. Genetic profiling, known as genome sequencing, already is helping researchers diagnose rare or mysterious illnesses. Other specialists use the process to tailor drug therapies for advanced cancer patients. The latest research focuses on how to use genome sequencing in basically healthy people, especially those who may have a family history of disease but no symptoms.
May 08, 2012
A Regime’s Tight Grip on AIDS (New York Times)
Ms. García is alive thanks partly to lucky genes, and partly to the intensity with which Cuba has attacked its AIDS epidemic. Whatever debate may linger about the government’s harsh early tactics — until 1993, everyone who tested positive for H.I.V. was forced into quarantine — there is no question that they succeeded.
May 07, 2012
Health disparities persist as overall care quality slowly improves (American Medical News)
Health disparities continue to plague the U.S. health care system, but small gains are giving federal officials some hope that progress will be made in years ahead with implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released its ninth annual National Healthcare Disparities Report and the National Healthcare Quality Report on April 20. The reports showed that although overall quality improved at a rate of 2.5% per year between 2002 and 2008, access to care did not.
May 06, 2012
Patients' Complex Moral Issues - Doctors Need Mediators (Medical News Today)
According to a study in The American Journal of Bioethics, physicians and patients need assistance in order to deal with complex moral issues. Physicians often have the tendency to label their patients as ‘difficult’ when things become difficult, however, according to the author of the new study it actually the system that is at fault and not the patients.
May 02, 2012
MedSmart Members Launches OurHealthcareSucks.com (Albany Times Union)
While politicians debate healthcare reform – and the Supreme Court ponders its constitutionality – MedSmart Members has launched its flagship website, OurHealthcareSucks.com, to alert consumers to the hidden dangers in American healthcare that have little to do with healthcare reform. These include what it describes as the dual threats of financial exploitation by unscrupulous doctors and medical mistakes that are often hidden from patients and their families.
Apr 30, 2012
In UK survey, doctors support denying treatment to smokers, the obese (MSNBC)
A majority of doctors in a United Kingdom survey supported measures to deny non-emergency medical services to smokers and the obese, The Observer newspaper reported Sunday. Although the survey by the networking website doctors.net.uk was a self-selecting poll, the site’s chief executive called the response “a tectonic shift” for the profession. The results feed into a British debate about “lifestyle rationing” by the National Health Service, the Observer reported.