Monday, December 9, 2013

Enhanced Medical Care for an Annual Fee

"creating a science-fiction metropolis in which only the best-off remain, living the longest and healthiest lives..." Enhanced Medical Care for an Annual Fee - NYTimes.com: 'via Blog this'


Also of interest:

EDITORIAL-When Bishops Direct Medical Care
A lawsuit filed on behalf of a Michigan woman highlights the conflict between religious mandates and a hospital’s duty.
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Exercise as Potent Medicine-"results consistently showed that drugs and exercise produced the same results"
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F.D.A. Questions Safety of Antibacterial Soaps

The agency said it was taking the step after some data suggested problems like bacterial resistance and hormonal effects.

Glaxo Says It Will Stop Paying Doctors to Promote Drugs By KATIE THOMAS 

The announcement, an apparent first for a major drug company, would end a common practice that is criticized for posing a conflict of interest.


Should We Toss Our Vitamin Pills? By RONI CARYN RABIN 

Remember how good we thought they were supposed to be for us? Well, not really, some doctors say, with one medical journal editorial arguing that they were a waste of money.


Three Biological Parents and a Baby By KAREN WEINTRAUB

Progress in fertilization techniques intended to avoid birth defects has rekindled a debate on genetics. Mixing the DNA of two women in a single baby can’t be ethical, one critic says.

By SUSANNAH MEADOWSA Disability, and a Mother’s Embrace

In her memoir, an Upper West Side intellectual whose son has Down syndrome attempts to set people straight: it is a disability, not a tragedy.

What Price Love? By JOYCE WADLER

Aids like the little blue pills are so expensive – and coverage so limited — that calculations must be made.

No, There Won’t Be a Doctor Shortage By SCOTT GOTTLIEB and EZEKIEL J. EMANUEL

There are good reasons to be skeptical of predictions of doctor shortages in 10 years.

Are Today’s New Surgeons Unprepared?

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THE PROBLEM WITH KNOWING HOW MUCH YOUR HEALTH CARE COSTS

Can asking patients to consider costs actually help make affordable, high-quality health care more available?

2 comments:

  1. Since i'm not an author, I can only comment on a post that has already been posted. I wanted to share this since I feel like some people will find this story relevant to what we will (hopefully) be discussing soon in class.

    Last night I saw legal advisers on CNN debate whether a decision that a hospital made regarding leaving a brain-dead, pregnant woman against her and her family’s will on life support is justifiable. The debate was divided equally between those who favor the decision and those who do not. The family from Texas composed of a mom, a dad, and a child, was planning on having another child. Both parents have been working as paramedics; both have encountered life and death situations and agreed that if something were to happen neither of them would want to be hooked up to life support. One day the husband finds his wife, with a 14 week old baby, unconscious on the floor. As of today, the wife has been on life support for about 4 weeks. The husband and the family want the hospital to unhook all the equipment and let the dead body rest in peace. However, the hospital says that doing so would be against the law, which states that the ‘’life-sustaining treatment cannot be withheld from a pregnant patient, regardless of her wishes or the age of the fetus’’. Advisers have argued whether this law applies to the case since the woman is not in a persistent vegetative state but is brain dead, which by all medical standards is defined as death. This does not exemplify life support but rather death support. Here is where ethics, law, and medicine come to a junction. It will be very interesting how things unwind from this point. More on the story can be found here:
    http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/24/health/pregnant-life-support-texas/
    And here:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/us/pregnant-and-forced-to-stay-on-life-support.html?_r=0
    Who should have the final say?

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  2. Glad to see you chomping at the bit to get started, Nikita. Me too!

    If nothing else, this story reminds us all of the importance of declaring a "Living Will"... Each of us should have the "final say" as to the level of terminal care we can "live" with.

    See you Thursday.

    ReplyDelete