Doctors // Current

Woman died after doctor punctured neck vein

An inquest has heard that 20 year old Sally Thompson died after a doctor punctured a vein in her neck. Thompson suffered from a... more

ClareW
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15 minutes ago

Half of Primary Care Doctors Would Leave Medicine if Possible

This is why our health care costs skyrocket and we are spending so much money on health care without getting the quality results of every nation. We do not focus on prevention. People have a mindset of who needs a primary care doctor? I'll just wait until I'm sick...Therefore, insurance companies do not reimburse primary care doctors as much and it is a shame.

"Nearly half the respondents in a survey of U.S. primary care physicians said that they would seriously consider getting out of the medical business within the next three years if they had an alternative.

The survey, released this week by the Physicians' Foundation, which promotes better doctor-patient relationships, sought to find the reasons for an identified exodus among family doctors and internists, widely known as the backbone of the health industry.

A U.S. shortage of 35,000 to 40,000 primary care physicians by 2025 was predicted at last week's American Medical Association annual meeting.

In the survey, the foundation sent questionnaires to more than 270,000 primary care doctors and more than 50,000 specialists nationwide.

Of the 12,000 respondents, 49 percent said they'd consider leaving medicine. Many said they are overwhelmed with their practices, not because they have too many patients, but because there's too much red tape generated from insurance companies and government agencies.

And if that many physicians stopped practicing, that could be devastating to the health care industry. Video Dr. Gupta: Watch more on the looming doctor dearth »

"We couldn't survive that," says Dr. Walker Ray, vice president of the Physicians Foundation. "We are only producing in this country a thousand to two thousand primary doctors to replace them. Medical students are not choosing primary care."

Dr. Alan Pocinki has been practicing medicine for 17 years. He began his career around the same time insurance companies were turning to the PPO and HMO models. So he was a little shocked when he began spending more time on paperwork than patients and found he was running a small business, instead of a practice. He says it's frustrating.

'I had no business training, as far as how to run a business, or how to evaluate different plans,' Pocinki says. "It was a whole brave new world and I had to sort of learn on the fly.' "This is why our health care costs skyrocket and we are spending so much money on health care without getting the quality results... more

dmambo5
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2 hours ago

Doctor admits he is 'a terrorist'

An NHS doctor accused of attempted car bombings in London and at Glasgow Airport has admitted that according to English law he is... more

bonemachine
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23 responses

1 day ago

Big pharma pays "think tanks" to push pills during health meetings

"An article published in the British Medical Journal has revealed the extent to which pharmaceutical companies go to turn... more

juanzitosv
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3 days ago

The Good Doctors of the Leprosy Colony in India

These are selects from a project I am working on about two doctors who have dedicated themselves to visiting Leprosy colonies... more

jeffjohns
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1 response

6 days ago

Assisted suicide: Washington legalizes, doctors rebel

"Voters in Washington may have made their state the second in the nation to legalize assisted suicide but that doesn't... more

DeliaTheArtist
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38 responses

10 days ago

Doctors are prescribing placebos instead of Vitamins

Doctors in the US are not playing ethically when they prescribe placebos instead of Vitamins to their patients

juanzitosv
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18 days ago

Man's nose saves his life

During a struggle, robber David Cummins shot Daniel Greenwood in the head at close range. The incident, in which the gun was fired... more

ClareW
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18 responses

19 days ago

RI free clinic seeks doctors offering charity care - Boston.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—A free medical clinic in Providence is asking doctors to provide its patients with no-cost care as the... more

bedeboop
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19 days ago

United Kingdom Talk Video Thursday 30th Ocober 2008

Thursday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats. In... more

ChrisReardon
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19 days ago

Daylight Savings Time Could Cause Heart Attacks

Turning your clock back one hour for the end of daylight saving time could do your own ticker some good. Researchers have found... more

thedismembermentplan
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19 days ago

I Like Surgeries

I have had many surgeries over the years and every one of them have turned out spectacular. So, I have decided that I love... more

glassdesk
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2 responses

23 days ago

3 Weeks on T, Changes, and a little life update

Witness my transformation from female to male

JaceTurnerFilm
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3 responses

23 days ago

Long Island widow says doctors snatched dead husband's brain

Here's a brain teaser to beat all - where in the world is Tom Purifoy's brain? Purifoy died in his Long Island home... more

GETTINGOUTOURDREAMS
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24 days ago

Dr. Dave

Dave Ores pays $700-a-month for low income housing on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, owns two Harleys, and has a tattoo of a... more

BrianMcD
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2 responses

29 days ago

Half of Doctors Routinely Prescribe Placebos!

Half of all American doctors responding to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. The results trouble medical ethicists, who say more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients in order for placebos to work.

The study involved 679 internists and rheumatologists chosen randomly from a national list of such doctors. In response to three questions included as part of the larger survey, about half reported recommending placebos regularly. Surveys in Denmark, Israel, Britain, Sweden and New Zealand have found similar results.

The most common placebos the American doctors reported using were headache pills and vitamins, but a significant number also reported prescribing antibiotics and sedatives. Although these drugs, contrary to the usual definition of placebos, are not inert, doctors reported using them for their effect on patients’ psyches, not their bodies.

In most cases, doctors who recommended placebos described them to patients as “a medicine not typically used for your condition but might benefit you,” the survey found. Only 5 percent described the treatment to patients as “a placebo.”

The study is being published in BMJ, formerly The British Medical Journal. One of the authors, Franklin G. Miller, was among the medical ethicists who said they were troubled by the results.

“This is the doctor-patient relationship, and our expectations about being truthful about what’s going on and about getting informed consent should give us pause about deception,” said Dr. Miller, director of the research ethics program in the department of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. William Schreiber, an internist in Louisville, Ky., at first said in an interview that he did not believe the survey’s results, because, he said, few doctors he knows routinely prescribe placebos.

But when asked how he treated fibromyalgia or other conditions that many doctors suspect are largely psychosomatic, Dr. Schreiber changed his mind. “The problem is that most of those people are very difficult patients, and it’s a whole lot easier to give them something like a big dose of Aleve,” he said. “Is that a placebo treatment? Depending on how you define it, I guess it is.”

But antibiotics and sedatives are not placebos, he said.

The American Medical Association discourages the use of placebos by doctors when represented as helpful.

“In the clinical setting, the use of a placebo without the patient’s knowledge may undermine trust, compromise the patient-physician relationship and result in medical harm to the patient,” the group’s policy states.

Read the rest at link...Half of all American doctors responding to a nationwide survey say they regularly prescribe placebos to patients. The results... more