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By BOB WACHTER, MD Dr. Robert Wachter is widely regarded as a leading figure in the modern patient safety movement. Together with Dr. Lee Goldman, he coined the term “hospitalist” in an influential 1996 essay in The New England Journal…

Alzheimer’s is a disease of the very old: While only 5% of people between 65 and 74 have the disease, nearly half of those who are over 85 have it.
So we were interested in a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine that looked at Alzheimer’s, aging and the brain.
Researchers in [...]

If you’ve even remotely paid attention to the FDA in recent years, you’ll have noticed that the FDA gets a lot more criticism than praise. The agency has been accused of approving too few new products and of approving products too hastily, of taking too many cues from industry while at the same time acting [...]

The controversy over work limits for medical residents rolls on. An editorial in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine argues that studies haven’t clearly shown whether the caps imposed in 2003 have improved outcomes for patients.
Residents are newly minted med-school grads doing their intensive clinical training. Even under the caps, residents are allowed to [...]

Cleveland Clinic via Associated Press
Connie Culp, shown before and after her surgery.

Connie Culp, the first U.S. patient to get a face transplant, appeared in public for the first time today. As the result of a gunshot wound, she had no nose and no palate, and could not breathe on her own or eat solid food. [...]

Abraham Verghese will be answering your questions at my next live Q&A.
Dr. Verghese, a Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine, is one of the most accomplished and admired physician educators today. His pieces have appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, [...]

Midland Memorial Hospital
A doctor uses the IT system at Midland Memorial.

As the New England Journal of Medicine reported in a study last month, only 1.5% of U.S. hospitals have adopted “comprehensive” electronic health records throughout their facilities and another 7.6% have basic systems installed in at least some portion of their operations. A key stumbling [...]

The following op-ed was published on April 23rd, 2009 in the USA Today.
As a primary care doctor, it’s heartening to hear President Obama call for “the largest investment ever in preventive care.” That means more people, for one, will be undergoing tests to screen for various forms of cancer. But this might be one of [...]

The New England Journal of Medicine has just come out with perhaps the most definitive comparison of low-fat, Mediterranean and low-carb diets ever, and the findings dovetail very nicely with what we’ve been discussing here recently about the merits of the Primal Blueprint. I think it also…
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Even a booster of electronic systems like David Blumenthal, who just started his Washington post as the national coordinator of health IT, points to a myriad of challenges when it comes to digitizing the nation’s medical records.
Just take a look at his piece this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, in which he [...]