Monthly Archive for February, 2010
You Have a Right to Choose if we Agree
My first encounter with informed medical consent came as a young law student. I was assigned to assist a lawyer in the defense of an older man who had refused treatment for leukemia. His daughter objected, and asked the court to appoint her to be his conservator so she could compel him to undergo treatment.When the father spoke to my supervisor, his position became clear. His atypical choice was informed by his cultural background and personal character. An immigrant from Eastern Europe, he was adamantly against yielding control of his life to his daughter. He had tried the medicines, and found they sapped his strength and made him weak. He would rather go on strong for as long as possible and remain his own master.
Measuring Quality in Primary Care
Increasing attention is focused on the quality of healthcare provided in the United States, as well as options for controlling costs. Quality and cost measurements are important in assessing access to and satisfaction with healthcare services and managing cost and payment practices; a sufficient sample size of patients is necessary to reliably interpret the results and statistics. Making matters difficult is the fact that most physicians in this country do not see enough patients to detect meaningful differences in cost or quality performance, according to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make Me A Match – The NRMP Main Residency Match
Each spring, thousands of medical students across the United States render their fate into one of the most bewildering processes of higher education: the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). The program was developed in 1952 as a means to “relieve the pressure and inequity of free market recruitment, and to establish a uniform playing field with educational boundaries” with regards to residency training programs. Prior to this, the process of achieving a desirable residency spot was fraught with chaos, with multiple different application forms and processes, not to mention false promises and false information.
Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 – The Five Myths
“The dramatic rise in prescriptions [of psychotropics for children and young adults] has alarmed several commentators,” according to Lakhan and Hagger-Johnson. In their article, they trace this problem to five erroneous myths that influence prescribing:1) Children are little adults. During adolescence, the brain changes rapidly. As a result, therapeutic benefits, potential adverse occurrences, and drug interactions can vary with age. Adolescents, in particular, have unique characteristics meaning inconsistent results and effects. For example, SSRIs are being prescribed less for adolescents because studies have identified increased suicide risk among adolescents taking them.
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- The Love Drug
- Women After Sex
- Fatty Acids and Suicide Risk
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- Risks of Personalized Medicine
- Is Giftedness Nothing More than Good Genes?
- Intelligence - Are You Holding Back Your Brain?
- Behind the Masks - The Mysteries of Dissociative Identity Disorder
- The NeuroSocial Network
- Inside Your Brain on Holiday
Future Posts
- Drug-Induced Mystical Experience
- Facebook – Coming to a 12-Step Program near You?
Latest Posts
- Therapeutic Analysis of Dreams – A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach
- Small Groups Make Women Stupid
- Psychotherapy and Clinical Boundaries
- The Brain’s Buying Power
- Aging Intelligently
- A Nicotine Patch a Day Keeps the Cognitive Impairment Away
- The Many Emerging Roles of Astrocytes
- Diabetes Impairs Cognition
- Media Violence Leads to Real Violence
- Intelligence – Are You Holding Back Your Brain?
Comments
- Psicologos Barcelona: Richard, tu español es muy bue
- Lage: Alexis,What evidence do yo
- Adi: Hi, with my best intentions an
- Tamara G. Suttle, M.Ed., LPC: Thanks so much, Richard, for d
- PhD: The title of this article is o
- Niobe Chacks: Well;the article is good but i
- Alexis Remm: LageI think that you don´t
- Lage: Alexis,You still never ans
- JamMiester1711: Be careful not to be miss info
- Ron: If there is such a thing as a
- Cory: How about how TV commercials t
- Caoimhin: This was extremely satisfying
