Medicine
It is customary for bloggers to highlight their most popular posts at year's end (see, for example, this recent compilation of posts from the AFP Community Blog, several of which subsequently appeared on Common Sense Family Doctor), but this year I've decided to buck the trend. Instead, below are links to six of this year's "unheralded" posts that weren't read as much as I thought they deserved. If you missed any of these, I hope you enjoy them the second time around. Thank you for reading, and have a very happy New Year!
1. The best colorectal cancer screening test is the one that gets done (May 21)
Not only does screening colonoscopy cost a lot more money, it hasn't been shown to be more effective than flexible sigmoidoscopy. In fact, screening colonoscopy has never even been tested in a randomized trial, and may never be.
2. Changing unhealthy habits requires changing environments (June 4)
Strategies to stabilize, and eventually, reverse, national obesity rates will need to change obesity-promoting environments on the individual and community levels.
3. How would you rate your health care team? (June 7)
One way for physicians to meet the health care needs of a burgeoning and increasingly complex patient population is to delegate many of their traditional responsibilities - such as patient education, lifestyle counseling, medication titration, and medication-adherence counseling - to other health professionals.
To make a fully informed medical decision, whenever a doctor says, "Test X will reduce your risk of disease X (or death from disease X) by 20 percent," patients should always ask, "20 percent of what"?
Hospitals and large specialty practices have financial and material resources, while community health centers have the experience and know-how to manage care for high-risk patients with chronic conditions who generate a disproportionate share of health care costs.
6. In health care, little details make all the difference (December 4)
People are fallible, but health systems need not be. Despite the staggering complexity involved in flying passenger jets and constructing skyscrapers, commercial airline accidents are rare and building collapses even rarer. (So it should be in health care, also.)
- Lung Cancer Screening: Understanding "relative Risk"
Enthusiasm for lung cancer screening has never been higher, following publication of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) report that heavy smokers who underwent 3 rounds of low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening were 20 percent less...
- In Health Care, Little Details Make All The Difference
When I heard in October that Superstorm Sandy was projected to make landfall somewhere in the vicinity of DC and Maryland, I prepared for the worst. I stocked up on non-perishable goods and evacuated to higher ground. (The rest of my family was already...
- The Best Recent Posts You May Have Missed
Every other month or so, I post a list of my top 5 favorite posts since the preceding "best of" list on this blog, for those of you who have only recently started reading Common Sense Family Doctor or don't read it regularly. Here are my favorites...
- "the Best [colorectal Cancer Screening] Test Is The One That Gets Done"
Last week was a busy one for cancer screening. I could choose to criticize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's premature guidelines to screen all baby boomers for hepatitis C (which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer) or the less-than-sound...
- The Best Recent Posts You May Have Missed
Every other month or so, I post a list of my top 5 favorite posts since the preceding "best of" list on this blog, for those of you who have only recently started reading Common Sense Family Doctor or don't read it regularly. Here are my favorites...
Medicine
The most unheralded posts of 2012
It is customary for bloggers to highlight their most popular posts at year's end (see, for example, this recent compilation of posts from the AFP Community Blog, several of which subsequently appeared on Common Sense Family Doctor), but this year I've decided to buck the trend. Instead, below are links to six of this year's "unheralded" posts that weren't read as much as I thought they deserved. If you missed any of these, I hope you enjoy them the second time around. Thank you for reading, and have a very happy New Year!
1. The best colorectal cancer screening test is the one that gets done (May 21)
Not only does screening colonoscopy cost a lot more money, it hasn't been shown to be more effective than flexible sigmoidoscopy. In fact, screening colonoscopy has never even been tested in a randomized trial, and may never be.
2. Changing unhealthy habits requires changing environments (June 4)
Strategies to stabilize, and eventually, reverse, national obesity rates will need to change obesity-promoting environments on the individual and community levels.
3. How would you rate your health care team? (June 7)
One way for physicians to meet the health care needs of a burgeoning and increasingly complex patient population is to delegate many of their traditional responsibilities - such as patient education, lifestyle counseling, medication titration, and medication-adherence counseling - to other health professionals.
4. Lung cancer screening: understanding "relative risk" (August 15)
To make a fully informed medical decision, whenever a doctor says, "Test X will reduce your risk of disease X (or death from disease X) by 20 percent," patients should always ask, "20 percent of what"?
5. Welcoming health centers to the medical neighborhood (August 22)
Hospitals and large specialty practices have financial and material resources, while community health centers have the experience and know-how to manage care for high-risk patients with chronic conditions who generate a disproportionate share of health care costs.
6. In health care, little details make all the difference (December 4)
People are fallible, but health systems need not be. Despite the staggering complexity involved in flying passenger jets and constructing skyscrapers, commercial airline accidents are rare and building collapses even rarer. (So it should be in health care, also.)
- Lung Cancer Screening: Understanding "relative Risk"
Enthusiasm for lung cancer screening has never been higher, following publication of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) report that heavy smokers who underwent 3 rounds of low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening were 20 percent less...
- In Health Care, Little Details Make All The Difference
When I heard in October that Superstorm Sandy was projected to make landfall somewhere in the vicinity of DC and Maryland, I prepared for the worst. I stocked up on non-perishable goods and evacuated to higher ground. (The rest of my family was already...
- The Best Recent Posts You May Have Missed
Every other month or so, I post a list of my top 5 favorite posts since the preceding "best of" list on this blog, for those of you who have only recently started reading Common Sense Family Doctor or don't read it regularly. Here are my favorites...
- "the Best [colorectal Cancer Screening] Test Is The One That Gets Done"
Last week was a busy one for cancer screening. I could choose to criticize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's premature guidelines to screen all baby boomers for hepatitis C (which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer) or the less-than-sound...
- The Best Recent Posts You May Have Missed
Every other month or so, I post a list of my top 5 favorite posts since the preceding "best of" list on this blog, for those of you who have only recently started reading Common Sense Family Doctor or don't read it regularly. Here are my favorites...