PeoplesPharmacy.com in NYTimes: “Not All Drugs Are the Same After All”

December 20, 2009 · Filed Under Why PM, news & gossip, pt/doc co-care, trends & principles · 6 Comments

We’re thrilled to see our Joe and Terry Graedon, of PeoplesPharmacy.com, in the New York Times (“Not All Drugs Are the Same After All”) telling a truth that the FDA hasn’t figured out: generics don’t always work the same as the brand name drug.

Joe and Terry exemplify the participatory medicine movement. He’s a pharmacologist, and she’s a PhD medical anthropologist, studying what people do in a given culture (in this case, ours). Our founder “Doc Tom” Ferguson lists them as his advisors in his White Paper’s acknowledgements.

Theirs is a story of conversion based on undeniable evidence gained by listening to patients: Read more

Tags: Brand Name, Discussion Forums, Enthusiasts, Fda, Insurance Company, Medical Advisors, Medical Anthropologist, Medication Changes, Medicine Movement, Misadventures, New York Times, Nine Years, Nytimes, Pay Attention, People S Pharmacy, Pharmacologist, Same Active Ingredient, Syndicated Newspaper Column, Terry Graedon, Times Article, Tom Ferguson, Undeniable Evidence

Social Healthcare: “Medicine in the Age of Twitter”

June 14, 2009 · Filed Under general · 2 Comments

Physician Pauline Chen writes about “Medicine in the Age of Twitter” for the New York Times. The article suggests the need for our upcoming peer-reviewed Journal of Participatory Medicine:

…a quick scan through peer-reviewed journals reveals only a handful of articles, and no evidence-based guidelines, to guide doctors on the use of social media. It is unclear whether such engagement adds to or detracts from a therapeutic patient-doctor relationship, and clinicians are unsure about what constitutes good standards of care and professional responsibility on these platforms.

More physicians and hospital are using, or thinking about using, social media, such as Dr. Sean Khozin of Hello Health, a system that mixes office and online visits. He’s quoted in the Times article as saying “there are so many layers of bureaucracy between health care providers and patients.”

We can use social media to coordinate care with patients and with different specialists, all using the same platform. I can monitor my patients, and they can also use these tools to become empowered through a better understanding of their own disease state and active engagement.

Our own Danny Sands is quoted on the down side of social media for patient communication. “Maybe letting your patient get too close isn’t always good for the therapeutic relationship,” he says, and he goes on to note that busy physicians are not eager to add the new time commitments social media would entail without a clearer idea of the value. The highest-value healthcare application of social media may be in supporting patient communities, where, Sands says, “we can aggregate across space and across the world and create a safe environment for support.” He calls referral to a patient community like the Association of Cancer Online Resources an “information prescription.”

Tags: Cancer Online Resources, Clinicians, Health Care Providers, Healthcare Application, Information Prescription, New Time, New York Times, Patient Communication, Patient Communities, Patient Community, Patient Doctor, Pauline Chen, Peer Reviewed Journal, Peer Reviewed Journals, Professional Responsibility, Quick Scan, Therapeutic Relationship, Time Commitments, Times Article, Twitter

Cyberchondria: Old Wine in New Bottles

December 2, 2008 · Filed Under news & gossip, understanding statistics · 16 Comments

Just before Thanksgiving, Microsoft released a study entitled, “Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of Medical Concerns in Web Search.” Ryen White and Eric Horvitz took advantage of a data set that few people have access to (log files from Microsoft’s Live Search engine and MSN Health and Fitness) as well as a survey of 515 Microsoft employees. They also did a great service to those of us who have a problem with the term “cyberchondriac” since they define cyberchondria as “the unfounded escalation of concerns about common symptomatology, based on the review of search results and literature on the Web.” That does not describe most internet users and therefore, people might think about retiring the term from general usage. Read more

Tags: artificial intelligence, cyberchondria, Diana Forsythe, microsoft, New York Times, search

All MRIs Are Not Created Equal

October 20, 2008 · Filed Under e-patient stories, hc's problem list · 12 Comments

Gina Kolata’s must-read article, “The Scan That Didn’t Scan,” in last week’s Science Times points out vast differences in the quality of MRIs as well as vast differences in the expertise of the radiologists who interpret them.

Patients need to understand this, because physicians sure as Hades aren’t going to tell you.

Kolata uses sports injuries as examples. With suspected cancers, the stakes are life and death.

One of the first physicians to almost get my teenage daughter killed was the well-intentioned local radiologist who assured us that the odd lump on her left forearm was “probably not” cancer, although he could not specify exactly what it was. Due to location of the tumor (near the ulnar nerve), the radiologist recommended that we NOT have the bump removed. “Don’t worry, mom….”

Tags: e-patients, New York Times

A project of the