In the last few decades, medical schools have been teaching us doctors to inform patients about their treatment alternatives, so our patients can pick the alternative that best fits with their individual values. Which raises the question: Should doctors take the time to figure out the cost of treatment alternatives and communicate such information to their patients?
There is a good debate starting up on a website called Prepared Patient Forum, about how much information patients should get when facing important medical decisions. You might want to click on this link and join in.
WHYY in Philadelphia has a report out on a new study I participated in, led by my good friend Scott Halpern. The study revealed the strange lengths to which physicians will go to help their patients, even if it hurts other patients. To see what Scott and I have to say, click on this link.
Risk isn’t all it is cracked up to be, as Amanda Dillard argues (with me as a co-author) in a new paper available on line at the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. At high risk for breast cancer? May not matter, in terms of getting you interested in taking a pill to reduce that risk. But FEELING at high risk? That is a different story. As Amanda shows quite persuasively, after you control (statistically speaking) for women’s actual risk, it is the way they feel about that risk that determines their behavior.
I had a chance to talk to the host of the public radio show, Sound Medicine. You might want to listen to the broadcast. Then again, you might want to enjoy the spring weather (if you are in the Northern Hemisphere). Your choice!
Brian Zikmund-Fisher took the lead on a study published this week in which we found evidence that when people face tough decisions, it helps for them to break the decision into smaller pieces, and take it one step at a time. Here is a link to some media coverage in India.
An interesting article by Peter Schwartz in the latest Hastings Center Report on whether patients, facing difficult medical decisions, ought to get precise numbers on the risks and benefits of their alternatives. I contributed a commentary, urging researchers to keep developing better ways to help patients make rational use of the numbers.
A bunch of media outlets are beginning to report on a new study of mine (conducted with a couple of great colleagues) in which we found that docs choose different treatments for themselves than they recommend to their patients. Kinda scary stuff. This Marketplace report is worth listening to. Check out the ‘News and Press’ page for links to some of the other reports.
Here is a news article discussing a paper I wrote with Michael Volk, in which we try to find ways to keep doctors from harming patients by finding and then getting all worked up over what we in medicine call incidentalomas–unexpected and ultimately benign findings that show up with unnecessary tests. The article is in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week.
This weekend, I had the pleasure of being a guest on Peoples Pharmacy, a great public radio show that hails out of Durham NC. We had a far ranging, rapidly shifting conversation about lots of things. Check it out if you are interested. The show even gave me a chance to learn a new skill. I have a nasty little virus, and by the end of the show I had mastered what radio people call the cough button!
