Andrew Griffith's Blog, page 10

Take Two Pills and Charge Me in the Morning | Innovations

A good survey article on some of the developments in mobile health and apps, starting with Scanadu, the first device to approximate the tricorder of Star Trek, along with some examples of interesting apps. Quote: Scanadu is already making comparisons to the innovation of the family thermometer back in the 19th century, an invention that [...]

Patients don’t care what you know until they know that you care

Nice post on doctoring and the importance of the human touch: Listen and never lose compassion for people; remember you are human; even doctors make mistakes; please be patient with yourself; look for health, not just disease; warm your hands; don’t be afraid to use your intuition; put down the pen, turn off the computer, [...]

The telephone is obsolete: How my patients contact me today

A good example of a hyper-connected doctor who is using both traditional communications (snail mail, telephone) and social media and texting. Not sure how she manages it all as part of her regular work day but the range of ways her patients can use is impressive. Quote: The only caveat with all these different modes [...]

A Breakthrough Against Leukemia Using Altered T-Cells – NYTimes.com

This story has understandably been attracting wide attention given the novel use of immunotherapy: using a disabled form of the AIDS to reprogram the immune system genetically to kill cancer cells (using T-cells). The poster child (a bouncing 6-year old named Emma) for the experimental treatment is doing well, although not all patients have had [...]

People overestimate benefits of prevention | Yahoo! Health

Not surprising that people overestimate the benefits of early preventive screening, given that most patients are not provided hard numbers (either relative or absolute risk), earlier messaging on screening, the normal tendency in our society to have more information because ‘we can’, and the optimism bias: “Most people would overestimate because they’re told about their [...]

Does the use of digital medicine preclude human connection?

On how doctors can use technology to enhance their connection with their patients, beyond the standard physical exam. It is always a challenge to find the balance between productivity improvements engendered by technology and slowing down for the human side (think how many of us in offices stay in front of our computer emailing colleagues [...]

Don’t overwhelm patients with unnecessary detail

On use of ‘medi-speak’ and the need for plain language in doctor-patient communications. Tongue-in-cheek in parts (the example is funny). Quote: So docs: if you are frustrated that patients no longer accept your advice as if coming from a demi-God, just sprinkle in a few more big words, discuss a few more rare complications of [...]

Men more likely to die of cancer: study – Yahoo! News

For you men out there, the ‘cheery’ news of the morning. No firm theories as to why but the following quote suggests reasons and recommends we pay more attention to our health and lifestyle: The new study can’t show what’s behind the differences in cancer deaths, but possible theories include men’s higher rates of smoking [...]

Suffer. Spend. Repeat. – NYTimes.com

A good piece on the shopping experience, and all the tricks that retailers use to loosen our wallets. Hard to be immune. My worst shopping experience was getting stuff for our then teen-age kids at Abercrombie with the mind-numbing loud music that made me want to run out the door as soon as possible (fortunately, [...]

Would you make your DNA and health data public if it may help cure disease? – The Globe and Mail

A good in-depth overview piece of some of the issues around genetic testing related to the Canadian Personal Genome Project, a study of about 100,000 people linking genetic information to the background and environmental of participants. Covers some of the ethical and privacy issues related. Most interesting aspect for me was the definition of normal, [...]