Friday, August 20, 2010

Separate Doctors from Industry

UMass Memorial Chief Medical Officer Stephen Tosi and I argue, in this Boston Globe Op Ed, that it is now time for all teaching hospitals and medical schools to place more appropriate restrictions on the relationships between physicians and the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.  We cite UMass Memorial's positive experience as a reason why these organizations have nothing to fear by doing so. 

Perhaps some might take note.  The Atlantic Wire, (which "focuses on the columnists and commentators leading the national dialogue") listed the piece as one of its 5 Best Monday columns.  See the others here

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

More on End of Life

In another great piece of writing that we have come to expect from Atul Gawande, he grapples with end of life decision making, and exposes how ill prepared our medical system is for dealing with this issue. 

"Modern medicine is good at staving off death with aggressive interventions—and bad at knowing when to focus, instead, on improving the days that terminal patients have left."
 
You can find the New Yorker article - entitled Letting Go - here.