Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:

Swine flu death rate similar to seasonal flu, likely lower than earlier estimates. Seasonal flu has a death rate of less than 0.1 percent -- but still kills 250,000-500,000 people globally every year. Mortality from H1N1 swine flu, ranges from 0.007 percent to 0.045 percent. http://bit.ly/3DMEvb

Less than half of health-care professionals get the flu shot each year http://bit.ly/wqtd1

Low sex hormone–binding globulin (SHBG) is a strong predictor of the risk of type 2 diabetes http://bit.ly/sOYnb

"ECMO Machine for Breathing Troubles May Aid in Swine Flu Care, Researchers Say" http://bit.ly/9mcNT

Timeline for how to apply for a job after IM residency but good stuff for any resident - start one year prior http://bit.ly/bjRVI

Physicians’ Beliefs and U.S. Health Care Reform — A National Survey http://bit.ly/f78PO

Less TV Brings More Parent-Child Interaction: Communication drops by 20% when the TV is on http://bit.ly/b2KQj

10 Symptoms Too Dangerous To Ignore http://bit.ly/TGRdp and http://bit.ly/3UwvjK

Happiness Project: Ten Tips for Getting Along with Your Mother-In-Law. http://bit.ly/12jm9s

"Top 10 Useless Human Organs" http://bit.ly/n2Bnk

Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

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What do patients want from their doctors? Do we need "tips and tricks" or more time?

From KevinMD:

"According to a 2006 study, patients want their doctors to be “confident, empathetic, humane, personal, forthright, respectful and thorough.” But in the age of conveyor-belt medicine, and the standard 15-minute office visit, it’s becoming apparent that today’s physician will have trouble fitting that mold."

Kevin offers some tips a busy doctor can use, modeled after a NYTimes piece. For example:

Tips a busy doctor can use include “greeting [patients] warmly by name, asking briefly about important events in their lives, maintaining eye contact, focusing on the patient without interruptions, and displaying empathy through words and body language.”

Is this the right solution? Is it enough? What do you think?

See BEST: a communication model from BMJ Career Focus, 2006;333:35:

Begin with non-verbal cues. Soften (smile, open arms, forward lean, touch with arm, handshake, eye contact, nod)
Establish information gathering with informal talk
Support with emotional channels
Terminate with positive note

References:
What do patients want from their doctors?
Well-Chosen Words in the Doctor’s Office
How do patients define quality physicians?
The "BEST" Communication Model
Image source: Wikipedia

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:

A mainstay of diabetes care for nearly two decades, metformin may have a new life as a cancer treatment. http://bit.ly/YbY1B

Living With a Lifesaving Drug's Side Effects (Gleevec) http://bit.ly/1KdgMZ

Indacaterol, once-daily LABA for COPD, improves lung function and reduces breathlessness compared to tiotropium http://bit.ly/13jukK

A Gallery of Google Health Oneboxes http://bit.ly/6GEBP

Technology addiction among young people is having a disruptive effect on their learning. Among students aged 11 to 18, 63% felt addicted to the internet and 53% to their mobile phones. 17% of students said they spent at least 3 hours on their mobile phone http://bit.ly/15WNvU

Americans with job-based insurance can expect to pay more for less next year. U.S. Employers to shift the cost of care to workers in 2010 through higher premiums, deductibles and co-payments. Average annual premium for family coverage in an employer-sponsored plan is $13,375, double since 1999. http://bit.ly/QZTfu

Poll: doctors are among the biggest supporters a public option in the U.S. health care overhaul. http://bit.ly/csB2t

Positive-paper bias: Reviewers keener to give thumbs up to papers with positive results http://bit.ly/ig48H

The Secret Life of Teens: A Special Report http://bit.ly/dgW9M

Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. The inclusion of a Twitter update (tweet) is not an endorsement or agreement of any kind. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

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Social Media Related Tweets and Insights

From my Twitter account:

"The NYTimes discovers that, yes, blogs are businesses: http://bit.ly/2nWPKX" via @jeffjarvis

The Web's Widening Stream http://bit.ly/AZHBY

Mashable: "It seems that the Danish government opted for quite a radical approach in luring tourist to the country" http://bit.ly/RyM92

RT @davewiner: "JUST HAD A NEW IDEA. UPPER-CASE MONDAY. SPREAD THE MEME. :-)" - This is what Twitter is good for...

Gone are the days when search engines provided mostly textual information - meet Bing Visual Search http://bit.ly/trhHy -- Bing, Microsoft's search engine, just launched visual search http://bit.ly/3sSQdB

One more reason to use Google - the company has a Data Liberation team that lets your take out your data anytime http://bit.ly/CqiO5

"This is the age of blogging. People don't have the time or reason to wait any more" http://bit.ly/19U4H1 - Is this good or bad?... :)

"Tweeted and Deleted: Obama Rebukes Kanye West" - Moran "prematurely" tweeted. Memo to journalists: from now on, please send only "matured", on the record, tweets... :) http://bit.ly/3SI7U7

Tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Physicians, fed up with the costs of their practice, quit medicine and shift careers

An ObGyn doctor to CNN:

"After 24 years, I'm working longer hours than ever," she wrote. "Insurance payments for patient care have stayed virtually the same for the last 15 years, while the cost of doing business, including health insurance, staff salaries and supplies have risen.

Wah hit her "peak" income year in 1990. Then she took a pay cut every year from 1993 onward, to eventually take no salary for two months prior to permanently shutting her office.

A first-ever survey of 12,000 primary care physicians showed that 10.1% of respondents planned to seek a job outside of health care in the next one to three years.

It takes a minimum of 10 to 12 years of training to become a doctor. Medical residency programs are mostly funded by Medicare to the tune of $9 billion to train about 100,000 residents annually."

Please read the whole article: Rx for money woes: Doctors quit medicine. CNN.

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.