KevinMD.com

Influencing future doctors away from primary care starts from the earliest stage of medical training.

Cancer screening tests should be reserved for situations in which they save lives. Dialing back on screening tests is not a step backward, it is a step forward in treating only those who need to be treated and not harming anyone else in the process.

Progressive reformers, who generally espouse comparative effectiveness data and evidence-based medical practice as a means to control costs, should be very worried about the backlash the breast cancer screening guidelines are eliciting.

How important is it for doctors to have computer skills? It's imperative.

Communication is a skill that can be learned, in the same structured way that performing a lumbar puncture, or interpreting an ABG, or reading an EKG can be learned.

There is no good use for Vytorin, and it may even cause harm, not because of safety, but because the LDL goals achieved with Vytorin may lead to fewer heart attacks that could be prevented with a more potent statin.

This issue highlights another way obesity contributes to spiraling health costs. Resources would be better spent preventing obesity in the first place — before patients reach the point of needing more costly, oversized ambulance equipment.

Breast cancer screening has been scaled back, according to the recent recommendations of the USPSTF. Although women aged 50 to 74 years should receive a mammogram every 2 years, evidence of breast cancer ...

Discussing the pros and cons of medical testing with patients and their families, and coming to a shared decision - the way it should be - is difficult, and all the incentives within our health system are stacked against going down that route.

Physicians are increasingly bringing their views on healthcare reform into the examination room. Others are distributing flyers or taping up signs in the office. Given that healthcare reform has become ...

If providers and insurance companies don’t work together, everyone suffers. Doctors do not receive their well-earned compensation. The insurance companies cannot sustain themselves financially because they will lose members. ...

There are no differences for in-hospital mortality rates, number of days patients spent in intensive care units or on ventilator support, or minutes spent undergoing resuscitation for trauma patients treated in July compared with other months.

Upwards of 60 percent of patients first consult the internet for their health issues. This is leading to more educated patients, taking an increasing role in their own health care. And that's a good thing. ...