Updated– Should doctors tell patients that they are walking time bombs? We all know this is a commonly used metaphor. When it comes to the heart people are often told they have a “ticking” time bomb. Here’s one recent very public example from a story about statins by Jane Brody in the New York Times: “My friend Richard…
Does Anyone Really Think Industry Funded CME Is Independent?
October 28, 2015 by 2 Comments
Does anyone really think that commercially supported continuing medical education (CME) is truly independent? Or does anyone really think that it has the primary goal of delivering quality medical education? A few weeks ago John Fauber and colleagues wrote an important story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and MedPage Today about the role of CME in helping…
Why Bad Doctors Are Like Bad Writers: The Curse Of Knowledge
September 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist and best-selling author, has a wonderful essay in the Wall Street Journal about why smart people are so often bad writers. Although the essay doesn’t touch on the subject of doctor-patient communication, every single word applies to doctors and the way they communicate (or fail to communicate) with their patients. Here’s the core…
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