Having recently been selected to introduce a new emphysema drug into Northern California (the other practice centers are in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego), I attended an investigator’s meeting as well as a practice meeting in the Research Triangle area in North Carolina. Although I have communicated with several firms from Research […]

Programming Minds: The magazine Civilization reports the uncivilized results of subliminal messages on your TV screen and what can now be done about them. These 2-3/32 second scenes are oftentimes responsible for violence. For instance, in Tokyo, the photograph of cult leader Shoko Asahara that flashed across the screen during a national cartoon broadcast was […]

Not to optimally relieve pain is tantamount to moral and legal malpractice according to Dr Edmund Pellegrino in the May 20, 1998, issue of the Journal of the AMA. New York’s Governor George Pataki has signed a bill eliminating much of the red tape doctors encounter as they prescribe painkillers for severely ill patients. Doctors […]

According to insurance executives, doctors, once among the most dependable workers in America, are leaving their jobs in sharply rising numbers to collect disability benefits, sometimes earning more on disability than by working. Surgeons, known for continuing to practice though suffering from arthritic hands, formerly ranked with lawyers, accountants, and architects in occupations most favored […]

A 20-year-old college student is the first known person to survive a rare operation in which surgeons completely removed his heart, cut out a malignant tumor, then re-implanted the repaired organ in his body… It’s always been easier to do repairs at a work bench. Dentistry may be one of the oldest professions as reported […]

Within two weeks of its introduction, sildenafil citrate, given the name Viagra by Pfizer, hit 30,000 prescriptions a day threatening to replace world leader Prozac, which held steady at 50,000 a day. Pfizer states Viagra only works if the right stimulus occurs and therefore is safe to take daily. Pfizer might, of course, benefit from […]

As pressure builds for some form of “universal access” under a government system, even by some branches of organized medicine, some reminders of the effects of such a one-tiered system worldwide are timely. Canada: 1997 found 11% more patients waiting for treatment than in 1996. Statistics in Canada found that more than 1 million Canadians […]

A Fortune 500 company reports that their health plan documents permit them to accept or reject assignments at their discretion. This simple maneuver has saved them millions of dollars. They report, “There is an abundance of evidence correlating fraud and abuse with assignments. . . We see this most commonly in the areas of chiropractic, […]

What goes on between office visits is the second best deal in health care delivery–it’s free. But isn’t it delusional to believe that someone with any significant disease can receive yearly care in two five-minute office visits plus about 45 minutes of uncompensated time from the physicians between office visits? No wonder for-profit HMO Executive’s […]

The office visit has been the best deal in medicine–but that was when it lasted 15 minutes. Reduction to 10 minutes was a bit tight. Now Chicago University Professor Richard Epstein states he heard a rumor that managed care office visits in California were down to 5 minutes–about 300 seconds. He suggested perhaps that was […]