The Medical Professionalism Blog
Category Archives: The Profession & Society
Trying to Make Professionalism Real And Parsimonious
There has been a lot of both positive and negative reaction by physicians and others to the recently released American College of Physicians (ACP) Ethics Manual that states: “Physicians have a responsibility to practice effective and efficient health care and to use health care resources responsibly. Parsimonious care that utilizes the most efficient means to [...]
Exploring What Works to Improve Care: Hold the Money, Pass the Praise
On November 18th, the American Board of Internal Medicine, through a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the ABIM Foundation, conducted a conference entitled, “Physician Level Assessment and Recognition: What Works?” The basis of the conference was a yet-to-be-published systematic literature review that compares the efficacy [...]
The Media’s Role in Educating Patients About MRI Overuse
This article is being reposted courtesy of KevinMD.com. Thankfully, there have been more news stories recently illustrating the overuse of tests. Specifically with cancer screening, the PSA test and mammograms have come under increasing scrutiny. I think this type of media attention is long overdue, as the public needs to be aware of the potential [...]
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 [...]
Experience Trumps Policy in Changing Our Health Care Beliefs
Every day in the U.S. countless experts discuss plans and policies to contain the cost of health care using words and concepts that run counter to our (the public’s) experiences with finding and using care. Most of us ignore the steady stream of proposals until one political party or the other crafts an inflammatory meme [...]
Will We Be Bold Enough?
The 150 individuals assembling at the 2011 ABIM Foundation Forum: Choosing Wisely: The Responsibility of Physicians, Patients and the Health Care Community in Building a Sustainable System are sure to have lots of excellent ideas about how to design a system that is affordable, without overuse, misuse and underuse.
From Conversations on the Sustainability of Health Care to Bold Actions
“Transformation occurs when leaders focus on the structure of how we gather and the context in which gatherings take place. Each gathering needs to become an example of the future we want to create. The small group is the unit of transformation… Peer-to-peer interaction is where most learning takes place; it is the fertile earth [...]
Population-Based Medicine: Lessons Learned from “My EKG”
In March 2011, mere weeks after the launch of The Medical Professionalism Blog, I wrote a personal account of a baseline EKG I received from my former primary care physician. Based on my knowledge of national guidelines, I felt it was an unnecessary test. I asked my readers to share similar experiences of unwanted tests [...]
Part-Time Women
In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Dr. Karen S. Sibert opines that female physicians working part-time are contributing to a physician shortage and are “not making full use of their training” and the societal resources invested in medical education and residency. She also has the following message for current and aspiring female [...]
It’s a Mad, Mad World: Medicare and Cost-Effectiveness
The recent establishment of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) stipulates that its findings from comparative effectiveness research cannot be construed as mandates for coverage recommendations and that the government cannot use these reports to determine coverage and payment decisions. This in effect, prohibits PCORI from determining cost-effectiveness of alternative treatments. This explicit stipulation in [...]
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