I have met many doctors over the years and none of them appeared to be the type to purposely give anyone lower quality care due to race or ethnicity. The key word in my mind is purposely. Doctors are professionals who take their work seriously. Most of the racial bias in medicine is unintentional. I believe the key to reducing racial bias – or any other type of bias in medicine – is awareness. This is especially important in primary care.
Category: Doctors & Hospitals
Friday Links
- Placebos seem to work even when patients know they are taking a placebo. HT: Tyler
- Sen. Blackburn tweets on the Goodman/Gossage WSJ editorial.
- Amy Finkelstein, et. al. find that Jeff Brenner’s “hot spots” experiment in Camden, New Jersey can’t be duplicated.
- House Republican health care legislation gets a few things right.
- AI discovers a new structural class of antibiotics. HT: Tyler
- An AI pendant worn around your neck grades you on your interactions with others and tells you how to improve.
The Dark Side of Telemedicine
I love telemedicine. I have long been an advocate of being able to talk to your doctor on the phone when you have a health complaint. The alternative is often driving across town and waiting in a crowded waiting room with other sick people. I have long believed the natural progression of telemedicine would be (or at least should be) people buying Bluetooth devices that check vital signs and connect seamlessly to your doctor’s computer to make telemedicine even more robust. This would help your doctor know even more about your medical complaint than listening to you on a cellphone or seeing you through a grainy video feed.
More Physicians Want to Work in Medical Business, Not Medical Practice
A recent survey found that more than half of both medical students and nurses in training prefer not to work in patient care. In the United States 63% of medical students and 60% of nursing students report hoping to work in non-clinical areas of medicine, such as public health management, research or business consultancy.