Doctors

The good old reflex hammer (like this Taylor model) might seem like an outdated medical device, but its role in diagnosing disease is still as important as ever.

In The Age Of Digital Medicine, The Humble Reflex Hammer Hangs On

5:00am May 28, 2017

by Bret Stetka

Nearly 130 years since its inception, a modest knob of rubber with a metal handle is still invaluable in diagnosing disease and avoiding expensive testing. But its history is anything but simple.

As baby boomers age, more older Americans are visiting the emergency room, which can be an overcrowded, disorienting and even traumatic place.

Can Comfort Care At The ER Help Older People Live Longer And Suffer Less?

4:57am May 26, 2017

by Melissa Bailey

Many older patients have problems that an emergency room is ill-equipped to handle, but often there is nowhere else to go. So some hospitals are adding palliative care consultants to the front lines.

Medicine and maternity can make for an uneasy mix, female physicians report.

Doctors Who Are Moms Say They Face Discrimination At Work

1:09pm May 15, 2017

by Alexandra Sowa

Female physicians with children say they have almost all experienced discrimination at work because of pregnancy, maternity leave or breast feeding.

Those ubiquitous drug ads are selling cures to ills we'll probably never have.

Those TV Drug Ads Distract Us From The Medical Care We Need

5:00am April 29, 2017

by John Henning Schumann

Doctors spend lots of time answering questions about the latest drug ad, and that means less time answering questions that could really help your health, a primary care physician says.

The current health care system focuses too often on financial incentives over health or science, says Elisabeth Rosenthal in her new book, An American Sickness.

How U.S. Health Care Became Big Business

1:26pm April 10, 2017

by Terry Gross

Writer Elisabeth Rosenthal has worked as a physician and says it's far more lucrative in the U.S. health system to provide a lifetime of treatments than a cure. Her new book is An American Sickness.

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Competition for scarce funding and tenure may be prompting some scientists to cut corners.

How Flawed Science Is Undermining Good Medicine

9:21am April 06, 2017

U.S. taxpayers pay $30 billion a year to fund biomedical research aimed at finding better treatments. But competition for scarce funding and tenure may be prompting some scientists to cut corners.

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Doctors who trained in foreign medical schools often end up practicing in rural or low-income areas in the U.S. with a shortage of physicians.

Let's Hope That Match Day Brings Us Lots Of Foreign-Born Doctors

11:18am March 17, 2017

by John Henning Schumann

About one quarter of medical residents in the U.S. are graduates of foreign medical schools. Many practice medicine in communities that have a hard time recruiting doctors.

Medical graduates from Iran, in Philadelphia on research fellowships, anxiously await results of their U.S. medical residency applications. The Trump administration's immigration executive order has put added stress on "match week" for them.

Travel Ban Adds Stress To 'Match Week' For Some Doctors

2:16pm March 16, 2017

by Elana Gordon

A medical residency program is the next training step for newly minted doctors, and awaiting "the match" can be tense. For some international students, Trump's travel ban has made that tension worse.

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Medical worker in scrubs, sitting in a locker room.

Rookie Doctors Will Soon Be Allowed To Work Up To 28 Hours Straight

5:09pm March 10, 2017

by Colin Dwyer

The group that sets rules for training doctors is scrapping a 16-hour cap on shifts worked by first-year medical residents. The move, which will be implemented in July, has its fair share of critics.

Advocates of paying a family doctor a flat monthly fee for office visits and some lab work say it saves patients money when coupled with a high-deductible insurance plan.

Some See 'Flat-Fee Primary Care' As A GOP-Friendly Way To Provide Routine Care

12:21pm March 01, 2017

by Michelle Andrews

In "direct primary care," a model favored by HHS Secretary Tom Price, patients pay a monthly fee to doctors for basic health care. But does that really provide better value?