MD Whistleblower

Ohio made national news twice in one week, and the Cuyahoga River wasn’t even on fire. First, Obama and his entourage flew here to headline the conference, Winning the Future Forum for Small Business, when he addressed small business leaders. He referred to the ‘reinvention of Cleveland’, a term that suggests we are experiencing a renaissance here, an event that most of us are unaware of. In any event, when a president flies in, it offers an opportunity to think, particularly if you are held hostage on the highway awaiting the presidential motorcade. Then, you can ponder how late you will be for your destination. Education, one of my preferred issues, also made headlines. A Mount Vernon, Ohio teacher was accused of infecting his curriculum with creationism, among other allegations which readers can discover with a single click after a Google search. Ohioans follow the creationism issue closely and pride ourselves on being more enlightened than many spirited evangelists from the Sunf...

This is a family blog. At times, I have had to expunge comments for inappropriate content. My criteria for comment eradication include: Raw language Personal attacks Overt commercial objectives There was a time in my lifetime when breasts were considered an inappropriate topic in public discourse. You never saw Little Ricky suckling his mother’s milk on I Love Lucy. These days, of course, breast references and actual images are chic and ubiquitous. Relax, parents. The remainder of this post will remain family-friendly, so there is no need for you to consult your 14-year-old on how to implement parental controls on your computer. Here are 3 recent breaking breast developments that all inquiring minds will want to be abreast of. Landmark medical study concluding that many women with breast cancer do not need to undergo pain and expense of removing lymph nodes. They do just as well if their nodes are not disturbed. Why does this matter? See prior landmark Whistleblower post. U....

Recently, every newspaper in the country reported on a landmark development in breast cancer treatment. It is now clear that certain breast cancer women do not need to undergo removal of lymph nodes from the armpit as part of their treatment. This would spare them from the risk and discomfort of an unnecessary procedure. It is welcome news, particularly for those of us who argue that in medicine, less is more. This is an example of the benefit of comparative effectiveness research , a tool that can separate what patients truly need from what the medical profession believes they must have. Let’s hope that breast cancer breakthrough metastasizes across the medical profession. Here’s what it accomplished. It spares women from unnecessary surgery. It saves money. It demonstrates that physicians and medical professionals can serve the public interest. It gives hope that all medical specialties will critically evaluate and justify the tests and treatments that we recommend to our pati...

I recently posted a piece entitled, Health Care Reform in the Crosshairs , when I opined that Sarah Palin’s political ads with crosshairs superimposed on selected congressional districts were acceptable political discourse. Click on the link above to view the image that accompanied the post. A reader sent me a private email suggesting that the crosshairs image was distasteful, particularly as one of the crosshairs was placed over Congresswoman Giffords’ district. The congresswoman was attacked by an evil murderer, and we all pray for her continued recovery and for the other victims and their families of this unspeakable attack. In the private commenter’s own words, I think you should take down Sarah Palin's targets map on your most recent blog post. I don't understand its connection to what you're writing in any case. But the targets are aimed at congressional districts, one of which is Rep. Giffords’. Since she was actually shot and almost died, in seems a bit distast...

Many folks criticize pharmaceutical companies for providing physicians’ offices with free drug samples. They claim that this giveaway harms consumers because drug companies must raise their prices to cover the costs of these freebies. Of course, this is undeniable. Any business expense, such as payroll or advertising, has to be covered and is expectedly borne by the consumer. If a company chooses not to advertise, outsources manufacturing to a country with cheaper labor, offers limited benefits to its employees, then they can sell their product at a low price. In this hypothetical example, anemic sales may doom the company quickly. Naturally, free samples are not really free. The rest of us pay for them. While this is true, I don’t think it is evil. Unlike the U.S. government, at least drug companies are covering their costs and not simply borrowing money every year to meet budget. Interesting concept. Two of the community hospitals I work at have undergone transformations. One is ...

Last summer, at the Cleveland Film Festival, I saw a movie called The Lottery, which is still swirling in my head. It is a documentary about the enormous obstacles that true education reformers confront when they try to help our kids learn. The film was raw and powerful and made me angry. It led to many family discussions about the state of education in America and a search for a way forward. The film is certainly not a balanced view on this issue, and teachers’ union supporters who view it will need to have industrial strength antacids available. I found The Lottery to be more powerful than the more popular movie Waiting for Superman, which addresses the same theme. Assuming the facts are as presented, viewers are shocked to learn how long and how expensive it is to remove an incompetent teacher. The New York Times reported that governors across the country are seizing on the public mood and are working to dismantle the teacher tenure system, where jobs are protected regardless o...

My daughter, Elana, home from college on winter break, offered me a book to peruse from one of her classes. She correctly suspected that her father, the Whistleblower, would enjoy reading a book authored by a Whistleblower pro. The book, Overtreated, by Shannon Brownlee, should be required reading for first year medical students, who have not yet acquired views and habits that promulgate excessive medical care and treatment. For those of us already in practice, this book should be a required element of board recertification. The theme of the book appears as a subtitle on the cover. Why Too Much Medicine is Making us Sicker and Poorer Brownlee understands the medical system well and describes a culture of excess, conflicts of interests, absence of universal quality control mechanisms and fractured and disorganized care with no one in charge of a particular patient. She presents some chilling anecdotes of medical tragedies that have occurred at our most prestigious medical instituti...