The Annual Appointment Loses Some Relevance
By TARA PARKER-POPEStuart Bradford
For nearly three generations, women have been taught that annual Pap smears, mammograms and visits with their doctor were essential to good health.
Now all that is changing. National guidelines are urging less frequent screening for breast and cervical cancer. The declining use of menopause hormones means that older women no longer need to check in with their doctors to obtain annual refills. Women are delaying childbirth, and some birth control methods are effective for five years, giving women even less incentive to schedule a regular appointment.
For many women who have been making annual gynecological visits since their teens, the advice that it’s no longer necessary is unsettling.
“I worry this is the wrong message,” said Miriam Richards, a 52-year-old nurse in Raleigh, N.C., who was treated for precancerous dysplasia as a result of an annual Pap smear. “I think it’s a bad road to go down because I feel like women, especially young girls, need to stay vigilant.”
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/the-annual-appointment-loses-some-relevance/?pagemode=print
Guest Post: A Doctor on Transvaginal Ultrasounds
MARCH 20, 2012 BY 243 COMMENTS
A friend of mine is a physician who wants to speak about transvaginal ultrasounds but whose position makes it precarious to speak publicly about it. So I’m letting this doctor borrow my site for an entry to speak anonymously on the matter. Obviously, I will vouch for the doctor being a doctor and being qualified to speak on the subject.
—
Where Is The Physician Outrage?
Right. Here.
I’m speaking, of course, about the required-transvaginal-ultrasound thing that seems to be the flavor-of-the-month in politics.
I do not care what your personal politics are. I think we can all agree that my right to swing my fist ends where your face begins.
I do not feel that it is reactionary or even inaccurate to describe an unwanted, non-indicated transvaginal ultrasound as “rape”. If I insert ANY object into ANY orifice without informed consent, it is rape. And coercion of any kind negates consent, informed or otherwise.
In all of the discussion and all of the outrage and all of the Doonesbury comics, I find it interesting that we physicians are relatively silent.
After all, it’s our hands that will supposedly be used to insert medical equipment (tools of HEALING, for the sake of all that is good and holy) into the vaginas of coerced women.
Fellow physicians, once again we are being used as tools to screw people over. This time, it’s the politicians who want to use us to implement their morally reprehensible legislation. They want to use our ultrasound machines to invade women’s bodies, and they want our hands to be at the controls. Coerced and invaded women, you have a problem with that? Blame us evil doctors. We are such deliciously silent scapegoats.
116 billion reasons to be for the individual mandate
By Ruth Marcus,
The most compelling sentences in the Obama administration’s brief defending the constitutionality of the health-care law come early on. “As a class,” the briefadvises on Page 7, “the uninsured consumed $116 billion of health-care services in 2008.”
On the next page, the brief drives the point home: “In 2008, people without insurance did not pay for 63 percent of their health-care costs.”
Those figures amount to a powerful refutation of the argument that the individual mandate — the requirement that individuals obtain insurance or pay a penalty — exceeds the government’s authority to regulate interstate commerce. To me, $116 billion seems like a whole lot of commerce.
But let’s leave the Supreme Court justices to hack their way through the underbrush of the Commerce Clause. Because those numbers are not only relevant to Commerce Clause jurisprudence, they illuminate the fundamental irrationality of public opposition to the individual mandate
Paul Ryan, helping the poor by hurting them
By Dana Milbank,
Paul Ryan, outlining his latest budget proposal in the House TV studio Tuesday morning, said the policies of the Republican presidential nominees “perfectly jibe” with his plan, which slashes the safety net to pay for tax cuts mostly for wealthy Americans.“Do you wholeheartedly believe they will accept your budget?” NBC’s Luke Russert called from the audience.
“Absolutely,” the House Budget Committee chairman replied without hesitation. “I’m confident.”
Makes perfect sense, in a way. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, is on record as saying, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” And Ryan has just written a budget that supports Romney’s boast.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/paul-ryans-budget-hurts-the-poor/2012/03/20/gIQAX73LQS_print.html
Daily aspirin 'prevents and possibly treats cancer'
Taking a low dose of aspirin every day can prevent and possibly even treat cancer, fresh evidence suggests.
The three new studies published by The Lancet add to mounting evidence of the drug's anti-cancer effects.
Many people already take daily aspirin as a heart drug.
But experts warn that there is still not enough proof to recommend it to prevent cancer cases and deaths and warn that the drug can cause dangerous side effects like stomach bleeds.
Prof Peter Rothwell, from Oxford University, and colleagues, who carried out the latest work, had already linked aspirin with a lower risk of certain cancers, particularly bowel cancer.
Nurses balk at bid to guide dealings with patients
In a push to improve patient care and make it more customer-friendly, hospitals are training nurses to be courteous, listen carefully, and check on patients at least every hour. But some nurses say their employers - in an effort to boost scores on patient satisfaction surveys and the revenue that can come with high ratings - have gone too far.
Nurses unions say an increasing number of hospitals nationwide are asking nurses to adhere to standard scripts when talking to patients, down to how often they use a patient’s name (at least three times per shift).
At several Massachusetts hospitals, nurses have been given laminated cards to hang around their necks with the words they should utter at the end of every visit: “Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave? I have the time while I am here in your room.’’
GOP Medicare plan borrows from and repeals Obama's
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A new Republican budget would repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul but put future retirees in a version of Medicare that strangely resembles one of the key cogs in that same plan.
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