Drawing on a variety of demonstrated correlations between happiness (or “wellbeing”) and health, John Appleby recently argued that “improving individual, and hence national, wellbeing might best be achieved through improving […]
US healthcare
Suzanne Gordon: Encouraging all members of a medical team to speak up
The oval, mahogany table dominates the center of the large conference room. A number of chairs circle the table and dot the perimeter of the room. Every week, a group […]
William Cayley: Where lies greatness?
Recently while driving to work, I was bemused (or should I say, dismayed) to pass yet another presidential campaign poster promising to “make America great,” just as I was hearing […]
William Cayley: What happened? A US doctor on Brexit
What just happened? Sitting in my clinical office in rural Wisconsin, the outcome of the “Brexit” vote seems quite far away—yet the day after 23 June’s vote, the shock and surprise […]
William Cayley: Whither the communication of evidence in the social media world?
Notwithstanding the epistemological inconsistency inherent in discussions of “my evidence” vs “your evidence” (after all, if “evidence” is not about an objectively verifiable shared reality, then it’s not evidence”), I […]
Shelby Quast: Is cosmetic labiaplasty in adolescents just FGM under a different name?
Labiaplasty in girls younger than 18 has become increasingly popular in the US in recent years. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of girls aged 18 and […]
Shared appointments: Medical utopia or dystopia?
In simple supply and demand terms, there are now more people living with chronic disease than there are doctors and other professionals around to help them. So how can the […]
William Cayley: Evidence based medicine—are we really there yet?
“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof, but on the basis of what they find attractive.” Blaise Pascal Can we make evidence based medicine […]
Jeanne Lenzer: The Backstory—Is US healthcare a frontier for a new civil rights movement?
When the Lown Institute first signaled its plan to build a “movement” four years ago, it seemed to be an unlikely group to succeed. The founding conference was attended largely […]
William Cayley: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” One commonly hears the mournful refrain that American healthcare is “broken”—whether demonstrated by reports “hospitals have been gaming the system to make their […]