Insights

<p>A doctor who can't prescribe drugs is like a fish that can't swim. It's usually a sign that something is wrong.</p>

<p>I wrote a <a href="/blogs/130">post</a> earlier this week about a <a href="http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100952">Nieman Reports</a> article by <a href="http://www.townsendletter.com/June2008/nutmed0608.htm">Dr. John Abramson</a>, a clinical instructor at Harvard and outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical industry. After serving in the National Health Service Corps, Abramson worked as a family physician for 20 years in Massachusetts.

<p>Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) on Friday gave an engaging speech on his <a href="http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/Legislation/Healthy_Americans_Act.cfm">h… reform plan</a> at the <a href="http://www.healthjournalism.org/calendar-details.php?id=175&amp;EventTy… of Health Care Journalists conference</a> in Seattle, getting in a nice laugh line when he called <a href="http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.HTML">COBRA insurance</a> “the only federal program named after a poisonous snake.”</p>

<p>Doctors see a lot of naked people.</p><p>It starts in medical school when they see a lot of dead naked people, and one would think that after cutting into a cadaver and examining body parts in great detail a naked body would lose a little of its allure.</p><p>Not so for <a href="https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/providercredentialsearch/ProviderDetail_1.a…. Kamal F. Aboulhosn</a> of Yakima, Wash.</p>

<p>The decision by Astra Zeneca to stop the so-called <a href="http://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/crestor-outcomes-study-jupiter-clo…; trial of its Crestor cholesterol medication last year garnered a ton of press attention. The New York Times captured the general tone of the coverage with this lead on a front-page story. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/initiatives/text/i1000.pdf">Initia… 1000</a>, the so-called "Death with Dignity Act," took effect in Washington state on March 5, after being approved by voters in November. And it has put hospitals in a strange position. Hospitals are considered the place where doctors and staff do everything in their power to keep a person alive. Now hospitals are being asked to allow their patients to kill themselves.

<p>Dr. Neil Hollander of Huntington Beach, Calif., looked to be just another doctor who had misplaced his notes in November 2003 when he agreed to settle a Medical Board of California case by taking a record keeping course. </p>

<p>The catastrophic 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Italy, the recent 4.3 temblor near San Jose and a rash of small quakes in Southern California made me wonder about something I haven't thought about in quite a while: What's going on with hospital seismic safety in quake-prone California? We're already overdue for "the big one."</p>

<p>If you do a Google News search for the word "octomom," you will get more than 4,000 results on most days. </p><p>What is lost in much of the coverage of <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2009/03/hospital-staff-fired… Suleman</a> and her expanding brood is how completely expected this all should be. No one should be surprised that a woman with six kids could order up another eight more or that she could find a doctor willing to help her. </p>

<p>Public hospitals have been closing at an alarming rate. Last month, the troubled <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-week15-2009mar15,0,7991787.stor… Luther King Jr. Medical Center</a> in Los Angeles announced it was preparing to reopen after years of quality concerns, but it has lived on the precipice for more than two decades.