The Medical Professionalism Blog
Category Archives: Physician Responsibility
In Defense of Doctors’ Feelings
An op-ed piece written by by Danielle Ofri in the March 28 edition of the New York Times relays the emotional toll having “difficult conversations” with patients can have on a physician. In one anecdote, Dr. Ofri mentions that she, and the rest of the patient’s health care team “fell short of the Charter on [...]
A Question of Worth
Costs of Care (Twitter: @CostsOfCare), where this post was originally published, is a Boston-based, non-profit organization that helps caregivers deflate medical bills and provide high value care. As part of the 2011 Costs of Care Essay Contest, more than 100 anecdotes were shared by patients and providers around the country that illustrate the role of cost-awareness [...]
Putting the Charter into Practice Grantee: American College of Physicians Center for Ethics and Professionalism
This is the final entry in a series of posts written by the ABIM Foundation’s Putting the Charter into Practice grantees, which describes their motivation to pursue projects related to stewardship of resources. The ACP Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee recently completed the sixth edition of the ACP Ethics Manual, published in the Annals [...]
Healthy as a Horse No More: My Recent Patient Experience
I knew that I would come to rue the day I wrote my post on my EKG claiming I was a healthy individual with no apparent illnesses. On November 3, I had my first surgery in 40 years – a procedure for a detached retina (vitrectomy with a scleral buckle and pneumatic retinopexy; I read [...]
Choosing Wisely
Today the ABIM Foundation announced the launch of the Choosing Wisely campaign. The goal of the initiative is to encourage conversations between physicians and patients about the overuse or misuse of tests and procedures that offer little benefit and may sometimes inflict harm.
Putting the Charter into Practice Grantee: National Physicians Alliance
This is the second in a series of posts written by the ABIM Foundation’s Putting the Charter into Practice grantees, which describes their motivation to pursue projects related to stewardship of resources. I’ve been interested in good stewardship as long as I can remember. It must be connected to the admonishments of my parents not [...]
Putting the Charter into Practice Grantee: Costs of Care
This is the first in a series of posts written by the ABIM’s Foundation’s Putting the Charter into Practice grantees, which describes their motivation to pursue projects related to stewardship of resources. As a medical student, I heard murmurs in hospital wards about certain services being expensive or potentially uncovered. But I never imagined how [...]
Physicians and the Ethical Dilemma of Federal Cuts to Health Care
In about two weeks, we’ll know whether Congress’ 12-member bipartisan “Super Committee” has succeeded. If it can’t find $1.2 trillion in federal deficit reductions over the next decade, we face reductions of the same magnitude as across-the-board cuts. Either way, we can expect federal funding cuts to impact value decisions at every level of health [...]
Compassionate Care Requires Compassionate Systems
In the article, “An Agenda For Improving Compassionate Care: A Survey Shows About Half of Patients Say Such Care Is Missing,” published in Health Affairs (September 2011, Vol. 30 No. 9), Beth Lowen et al. make a good case for the connection between compassionate care and quality outcomes and patient experiences. The authors also conclude [...]
A Milestone on K Street
The October 19 Health Affairs briefing entitled “Saving Medicare Dollars and Improving Care,” sponsored by the ABIM Foundation and other funders, was a watershed moment in which ideas that would require less spending on health care that would actually improve care for patients were discussed on K Street. This is a great message for patients and, it so happens, for the super committee deliberations a [...]
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