Unofficial Prognosis

Doctors versus Big Pharma : is it justifiable to judge research by its authors?

Doctors use different standards to judge scientific research depending on who funded it. They judge research funded by industry as less rigorous, have less confidence in the results, and are less likely to prescribe new drugs than when the funding source is either the NIH or unknown – even when the apparent quality of the research is the same.Those were the results of a study published by Harvard researchers Dr...

When a patient encounter hits too close to home

“Sometimes, how you feel at the end of an interview can be clinically revealing,” my preceptor says. “How does this patient make you feel?”***“Mr. M?” I ask gently, knocking on the hospital room door...

Convergence (reflections on second year)

“You are a red blood cell in the left subclavian artery, on your way to the brain. What vessels will you pass through?”One by one, the ten or so of us in the neuroanatomy lab bay recited the vessels in the Circle of Willis, answering additional questions about nerves we would pass by and parts of the brain we would supply energy for...

Study shows gender bias in science is real. Here s why it matters.

Unnatural selection: is prenatal testing a triumph for reproductive freedom or brazen discrimination?

On Sunday, Slate republished an article from New Scientist , written by Harriet A. Washington, that reflected on the “anxieties and dilemmas” that may stem from peeking into a fetus’s genome before birth...

But who will the doctor confide in?

He was a family practitioner. He had a good relationship with the couple, helping to deliver their first baby two years earlier. He was happy to learn the reason for their appointment was that were expecting another.The second pregnancy could not have gone worse...

When should medicine talk about race? Part 2: Seven guidelines

In my last post, I discussed whether there is a place for race in medicine. I wrote that while sensitive consideration of race may sometimes be justified, the burden is on the medical researcher to explain why that is.That raises the question: what’s the next step?...

When should medicine talk about race?

Race is everywhere in medicine. Most health statistics are broken down by race. We routinely characterize diseases by which populations they affect more and less and medications by which ethnicities respond better or worse.It’s so ubiquitous that it’s easy to take for granted as justified...

The downside of politicians talking about science

I remember when I first started reading about climate change. It was around my sophomore year of college and, predictably, I had a lot of questions. How we can determine causality, as opposed to correlation, and how we can develop forecasts decades into the future were questions that puzzled and interested me...

Why do most medical students support the Affordable Care Act?

How do medical students feel about health care reform?In September 2011, researchers surveyed 1,232 medical students at ten schools across the nation about their opinions on the Affordable Care Act (ACA)...