Doctors

Tips to Prevent Medical Errors – AHRQ

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The largely ineffective Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has a list of 20 Tips to Help Prevent Medical Errors  http://www.ahrq.gov/consumer/20tips.htm Number 20 on the list is  “Learn about your condition and treatments by asking your doctor and nurse and by using other reliable sources.” It then suggests to ask your doctor if the treatment is based on the latest evidence. The way this is presented it seems to say that doctors and nurses often do not always present treatment options based on the latest evidence. As argued by Shannon Brownlee, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.brownlee.html the U.S. is clearly in need of an “… independant agency that would fund systematic reviews of the medical literature, as well as clinical trials to test the comparative effectiveness of everything from drugs to treatments” Unfortunately the current AHRQ is not performing this service as it … Read more

The War on Healthcare: Patients Who Hate Doctors

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Dr. Maurice Bernstein on his Bioethics Discussion Blog has an interesting discussion going on about people who hate doctors and their reasons. Reading through the large number of responses located at http://bioethicsdiscussion.blogspot.com/2005/06/i-hate-doctors.html , a common theme emerges: those who are well educated and particularly those with a PhD really hate those with an MD degree. This is no surprise to me as the current American healthcare system pits patients vs. doctors in a battle. Here a few snippets from the comments: 1 of the comments: “I hate arrogant, sadistic, amoral, money-grubbing scumbags, and unfortunately, it seems far too many of these types have weaseled their way into the medical profession. I am one of the millions of people with chronic pain in this country who is at the “mercy” of the American medical profession, and thus cannot get my pain … Read more

Dumb Americans Trust Their Doctors for No Valid Reason

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Gawker has written an article titled “Stupid Americans Trust Doctors” written by Parenne and published on June 17, 2009, located over at http://gawker.com/5294409/stupid-americans-trust-doctors in which it says: ” Doctors are lazy and greedy and do not care about you. But Americans do not know this! Because of the TV, they think doctors would come up with a good national health care plan. They would not. If the doctors made a plan, it would involve paying them even more money to not bother keeping up with advances in their fields and not ever letting you sue them when they hurt or kill you.” Here is one female doctor’s view on why she went into medicine via http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jul/02/the-health-reform-we-need-are-not-getting/?page=3 “I am a doctor and… yes, I love the money! Its amazing, you gomers keep coming back to us and we just sprinkle a little Rx here or a little … Read more

Find Free Dental Care

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I wanted to let anyone who might be interested in free dental care that recently 1dental.com put together a tool that allows one to enter their zip code to search for free dental care providers in their area. This tool is available at http://www.1dental.com/provider/. It allows different specialties to be searched for as well such as general dentists, oral surgeons, pediatric dentists, orthodontists,  periodontists, and endodontists. This tool will provide a phone number and a convenient Google map. Of course it should be mentioned that 1dental sells dental plans so they try to get you to sign up with the Careington Dental plan. I personally have not used this tool to find a dentist and have no experience with Careington Dental plan. Therefore use at your own discretion. It may help some looking for and in need of dental work. … Read more

ADA Breaking Down Barriers to Oral Health for All Americans: Repairing the Tattered Safety Net

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On August 12, 2011, the American Dental Association (ADA) released the second paper in their series of papers on access to oral health. The paper is available for download from the ADA at http://www.ada.org/sections/advocacy/pdfs/breaking-down-barriers.pdf The first paper released on February 22, 2011, was titled Breaking Down Barriers to Oral Health for All Americans: The Role of Workforce as available for download from the ADA at http://www.ada.org/sections/advocacy/pdfs/ada_workforce_statement.pdf. I have previously commented on this first paper here https://blog.teethremoval.com/breaking-down-barriers-to-oral-health-for-all-americans-ada-workforce-statement/ Like the first paper, in the opening of the document is a message from Raymond Gist, D.D.S. and President of the American Dental Association. In this message Dr. Gist states “…increasing numbers of Americans find themselves unable to pay for dental care….For this growing population, the so-called oral health safety net is the only recourse for preventing and treating oral disease….the general definition of safety net … Read more