Here is a short video introducing one of the themes of Critical Decisions: the challenge of making shared decisions when physicians unwittingly deluge their patients with too much jargon laden information. Feel free to forward the link to your friends.
KARAN: Though I hope our readers all read your book, for those who haven’t just yet, I want to start with an example that touches on the issues it discusses. I recently got a bad ankle sprain. The following week, I went to a local orthopedic surgeon for it. He was a very old-school doctor; before…
Shutterstock Cancer screening can save lives: Mammographies reduce the chance women will die of breast cancer; and colonoscopies reduce the chance people will die of colon cancer. But should my 93-year-old father receive a screening colonoscopy? The test is uncomfortable, carries risks, and costs money. Even more importantly, my dad probably won’t live long enough…
I had the great pleasure of speaking with Tess Vigeland, host of Marketplace Money. We discussed my book Critical Decisions in the context of what shared decision making means about patients paying attention to the cost of their medical care. Listen to the whole segment, because she is a great interviewer. And find out why…
Imagine picking up a telephone and hearing your doctor tell you there is a “999 out of 1,000 chance that you’ll be dead within a decade.” That’s what Leonard Mlodinow experienced in 1989, when his routine HIV test didn’t turn out the way he expected. Mlodinow tells this story in his 2008 book, The Drunkard’s Walk,…
A recent study of men with early-stage prostate cancer found no difference in 10-year death rates, regardless of whether their doctors actively monitored the cancers for signs of growth or eradicated the men’s cancers with surgery or radiation. What does this study mean for patients? Based on research we have conducted on prostate cancer decision-making,…
JoAnn Pushkin’s breast cancer was diagnosed at an advanced stage because the density of her breasts obscured the tumor on her mammograms. That was shocking news to Pushkin, who only learned that her breasts were radiologically dense at the time of her diagnosis. Activated by this revelation, she has become a leading advocate of legislation,…