Saturday, February 7, 2015

Revoke the license of any doctor who opposes vaccination - The Washington Post

Arthur L. Caplan is the director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center's Department of Population Health.

Amateurs and hucksters are not the only people telling parents not to vaccinate their children. Unfortunately some doctors — men and women sworn to the Hippocratic Oath — are purveying junk science. They say that vaccines cause autism, as in the famous case of Andrew Wakefield, whose study drawing the link has been retracted. Or that measles isn't that bad, so your child can skip the shots, as Jack Wolfson, a cardiologist in Arizona, says, adding that "the facts" show vaccines to be full of "harmful things" like "chemicals." Or that, according to some parents, vaccines cause "profound mental disorders," as Sen. Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist, warned before he walked the statement back. Or that vaccines cause "permanent disability or death," in the words of Bob Sears, a pediatrician in California. 

Thankfully, only a few physicians in America have embraced fear-mongering in the middle of this dangerous and costly measles epidemic. They deserve a place of honor next to climate-change skeptics, anti-fluoridation kooks and Holocaust deniers. They doubt the facts, ignore established evidence and concoct their own pet theories. They shouldn't be allowed near patients, let alone TV cameras. But because their suggestions are so surprising and controversial, they often find themselves on cable news shows and in news reports about the "anti-vaxx" crowd. Their power, therefore, is radically disproportionate to their numbers.

Doctors who purvey views based on anecdote, myth, hearsay, rumor, ideology, fraud or some combination of all of these, particularly during an epidemic, should have their medical licenses revoked. Thankfully, states have the right tools to do so. It's time to use them.

Going after doctors for speaking their minds is a tricky business. Doctors use their judgment and experience all the time to recommend things to patients that regulatory bodies have not approved or that their peers might think inadvisable: "Yes, there are risks involved, but I don't wear a helmet when I ride my motorcycle, and I understand if you don't want to, either."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/revoke-the-license-of-any-doctor-who-opposes-vaccination/2015/02/06/11a05e50-ad7f-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.html?

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Why your doctor is always late - Business Insider

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is tardiness. I hate it when other people are late. It's as if they are not respecting my time.

But you know what? I hate being late myself even more. In fact, I cringe at the thought. Conscientious, successful people are on time.

Always.

So you can imagine that nothing irks me more than being late myself.

But I am late - 10 minutes, 30 minutes, sometimes even an hour. And what's worse? It happens on a daily basis. Yes, I'm late almost every single day as a primary care doctor.

This makes me feel overwhelmed and frustrated. It's the one aspect of my profession I truly wish I could fix.

But I've had to accept this unacceptable situation as the reality of working in primary care in the United States. It's a complex problem that is out of my control and it's a hard pill to swallow. However, that doesn't mean I can't try to offer a solution. And this podcast episode is my attempt to do just that.

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Dying Shouldn’t Be So Brutal - NYTimes.com

"Travel safe!" It has become a nearly reflexive wish I give to friends who are coming or going. This fall, I noticed myself holding back from saying it to Michael, a dear friend who was wrestling with incurable cancer. The journey metaphor was too poignant.

I also avoided "Stay safe." After all, dying is inherently precarious.

Instead I said: "Be well. I'll be thinking about you." That was true. I could have added, "and worrying about you." That was true, too. Michael was receiving state-of-the-art treatments at a renowned cancer center in New York City. As he became sicker, the treatments got more intense. Each decision came with more difficult trade-offs and uncertainties. Each step to stay alive risked making things worse.

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http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2015/01/31/dying-shouldnt-be-so-brutal/?