Obama’s Health Care Summit Follies

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Friday February 19, 2010 · 9:27 AM PST

2010/02/19 · 09:27

The Health Care Summit meeting will take place this Thursday, February 25th. It will be free entertainment on live TV, not even 'pay-for-view'. While it has been called a 'Health Care Reform' conference, it will have very little to do with health care or actual reform. Am I qualified to make this judgement? Probably not since I am only a physician who has been in practice for 20 years. We don't know nearly as much about health care as politicians.

MKirschMD

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Sunday December 06, 2009 · 3:09 PM PST

2009/12/06 · 15:09

Which doctors practice defensive medicine? Only those who are still breathing. The president, however, wasn’t convinced of this reality when he spoke to the nation on September 9th at a joint session of Congress.

"I don’t believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs."

May be contributing? Mr. President, if I 'may', in the gray and nebulous world of medicine, one truth is certain; defensive medicine cost billions of health care dollars every year. Physicians hold this truth to be self evident.

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Are physicians justified to practice defensively to minimize the risk of a lawsuit?

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Yes, but only under limited circumstances

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Mammography Mania: Medical Rationing or Evidence-Based Medicine?

MKirschMD

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Sunday November 29, 2009 · 7:15 AM PST

2009/11/29 · 07:15

Two weeks ago, the revised U.S Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) mammography guidelines monopolized newsprint and airtime. Was this truly Page 1 news? For a few days, mammojournalism pushed aside stories on the war in Afghanistan, double digit unemployment, Iran’s hidden nukes, the president’s foreign nation tour and the war on terror.

Of course, it’s not the science of mammography that is white hot – it’s the politics of breast cancer that is volatile and combustible. Medical guidelines in every specialty are revised regularly, yet no conflagration erupts in the public square, as occurred last week. When my own specialty revises colonoscopy guidelines every few years, the public and the medical community respond with a collective yawn. Not so for breast cancer,which has lobbyists and political muscle that fights to make sure that their cause remains a national priority. Even mainstream medical organizations and public advocacy groups are in their corner, including The American Cancer Society, The American College of Radiology and the National Cancer Institute .

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Obama’s Health Care Summit Follies

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Mammography Mania: Medical Rationing or Evidence-Based Medicine?