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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

QD: News Every Day--when evidence and politics collide

ACP Internist's daily digest of news and events continues with health care reform and how it intersects with the primary care shortage.

Health care reform
As far as the poll numbers are concerned, the public wants improvements to the healthcare system. (Who wouldn't want improvement, to anything?) But they don't want to pay for it themselves. (Los Angeles Times)

Primary care shortage
While waiting for the Senate to pick up the health care debate, newspapers' opinion sections are humming with analysis. ACP President Joseph Stubbs, FACP, and former ACP chapter governor for Massachusetts, Allan Goroll, MACP, say that health care reform is essentially a discussion of a primary care shortage. ACP's Tennessee chapter governor, Kenneth Olive, FACP, watches as his chapter's members struggle with the issues of cost, access to care, and inadequate numbers of primary care physicians on a daily basis. Sabitha Vasireddy, ACP Member, agrees. For the patients at her free clinic in Danbury, Pa., health care access is just as important as reform. It can't be worse than Oklahoma, which ranks 50th of the states in terms of active medical doctors per 100,000 population and last in primary care doctors. (The Hill, Kingsport Times-News, Danville News, Oklahoma City Journal Record)

H1N1 influenza
Despite an increase in deaths in Canada, official believe flu season may peak there earlier than predicted; 20% of the population has been vaccinated. (Reuters)

In case you missed it ...
Politicians are using evidence-based medicine as political fodder. Monday's announcement in the Annals of Internal Medicine stated that breast cancer screening recommendations should change. Now, opponents of health care reform are using it as evidence of government interference in health decisions--one slim step away from "death panels" and other easily disproven myths. (ACP Internist, Los Angeles Times)

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Blog log

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Also known as the Green Journal, the American Journal of Medicine publishes original clinical articles of interest to physicians in internal medicine and its subspecialities, both in academia and community-based practice.

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The Public Library of Science's open access materials include a blog.

White Coat Rants
One of the most popular anonymous blogs written by a doctor.

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