patient point of view, health policy, science-based medicine
I am a long-time health reporter, currently blogging at PatientPOV.org. I am extremely interested in what matters to patients, telling their stories in their own voice, and helping thoughtful patients stimulate positive changes in the healthcare system.
My blog is at http://www.patientpov.org.
Patients on Medicare with chronic conditions and disabilities will no longer have to show improvement to get the services they need, thanks to a proposed settlement in a groundbreaking class action lawsuit.
Dense breasts are common among women in their forties, the exact same demographic for whom mammography guidelines have been hotly contested. Now, some advocates are pressing for right-to-know laws and want access to additional imaging. Will this best serve women?
<p>If ever there was a bombshell at a National Institutes of Health Consensus Development meeting, it happened at this week's panel on active surveillance for prostate cancer.</p>
<p>Here we are discussing the prostate cancer screening guidelines, but what bothers me is that the patient is brought in as a footnote at the end of the analysis.</p>
<p>If Americans could vote with their feet, I think too that they would want urologists to treat the truly important areas in urology, rather than a disease that the odds are will not cause trouble for most men.</p>
<p>Millions of American women were put on hormone replacement therapy before science evaluated the benefits and harms. Will men over 45 try testosterone replacement therapy too? Aggressive marketing of testosterone is on the rise.</p>
<p>After three days of listening to expert neurologists, demographers, caregivers, and policy people on Alzheimer's disease, journalist Laura Newman raises tough questions for journalists to consider to avoid oversimplifying this complicated topic.</p>
