DrO's blog

I wanted to profile a comment that a rep for The National Dialogue on Health Information and Privacy left on our site:

"We are going to invest in information technology to eliminate bureaucracy and make the system more efficient."
- Barack Obama, October 15, 2008

The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD) has written to Medpolitics to invite our bloggers to participate in a conference call with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson and Kenneth Thorpe, Ph.D., Executive Director of PFCD.

As an influential blogger that covers health care issues, I wanted to invite you to participate in conference call sponsored by The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD) on Tuesday, September 30, at 2 pm EST.
With the financial meltdown dominating the news lately, PFCD wants to discuss the warning signs of a pending meltdown of America's health care system.
The call will feature former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, as well as Kenneth Thorpe, Ph.D., Executive Director, PFCD.

If you are a registered Medpolitics blogger, and would like to participate, please leave a comment, or send me a network message, and I'll provide you the call-in information.  If you're not a registered blogger doctor yet, you can always join the festivities.

Here's a TED talk by Jonathan Haidt, associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, that looks at the psychological roots of political orientation. Dr. Haidt perhaps takes too many jabs at conservatives in the beginning, but he does go to the solid center by the end of this interesting lecture. **Update: The video for now doesn't seem to work, here's a link: Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives...

I was reading Peggy Noonan at The Wall Street Journal, and I wasn't sure where we, the doctors, fit in.

Democrats in the end speak most of, and seem to hold the most sympathy for, the beset-upon single mother without medical coverage for her children, and the soldier back from the war who needs more help with post-traumatic stress disorder. They express the most sympathy for the needy, the yearning, the marginalized and unwell. For those, in short, who need more help from the government, meaning from the government's treasury, meaning the money got from taxpayers...

Democrats show little expressed sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes to help the beset-upon mother and the soldier and the kids. They express little sympathy for the middle-aged woman who owns a small dry cleaner and employs six people and is, actually, day to day, stressed and depressed from the burden of state, local and federal taxes, and regulations, and lawsuits, and meetings with the accountant, and complaints as to insufficient or incorrect efforts to meet guidelines regarding various employee/employer rules and regulations. At Republican conventions they express sympathy for this woman, as they do for those who are entrepreneurial, who start businesses and create jobs and build things. Republicans have, that is, sympathy for taxpayers. But they don't dwell all that much, or show much expressed sympathy for, the sick mother with the uninsured kids, and the soldier with the shot nerves.

Peggy Noonan: The Master Has Arrived...

An article in the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) seems to suggest that it would be best for this site to shut down, so no one will  be exposed to unpleasant voices of  doctors who want to frankly blog about their profession.

From Mark Otto Baerlocher, MD and Allan S. Detsky, MD in CMAJ:

It seem like healthcare can easily derail the speaking skills of even the most gifted orators. Watch this:

The New York Times has an article on the contentious relationship that doctors and patients have developed in the last few decades.

The relationship is the cornerstone of the medical system — nobody can be helped if doctors and patients aren't getting along. But increasingly, research and anecdotal reports suggest that many patients don't trust doctors.
About one in four patients feel that their physicians sometimes expose them to unnecessary risk, according to data from a Johns Hopkins study published this year in the journal Medicine. And two recent studies show that whether patients trust a doctor strongly influences whether they take their medication.
The distrust and animosity between doctors and patients has shown up in a variety of places. In bookstores, there is now a genre of "what your doctor won't tell you" books promising previously withheld information on everything from weight loss to heart disease.

Read the rest at NYT...

John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis and an adviser to the McCain campaign, has published an editorial in today's WSJ that goes into many details of McCain's health plan. According to Goodman, what McCain proposes is nothing short of "radical", as "health-policy analysts believe that Mr. McCain is proposing the most fundamental health-care reform."

Full editorial: McCain Is the Radical on Health Reform...

Someone seems to be doing a Sicko-like movie, but about Canada's health system.  Its clearly a response to Michael Moore's flick, and its cool
to see that people are debating healthcare using full featured films,
be that for better or worse:

Sick and Sicker...

Here's a great way some physicians are fighting back for their economic freedoms. Fewer patients, more income, and better lifestyle. Check out the video:

More fromPaulHsiehMD's blog: Concierge Medicine ...