How Doctors Die

BUHealth,

How Doctors Die

It’s Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be

http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die/read/nexus/

by Ken Murray

Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment. Medicare didn’t spend much on him.

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

<more>

Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”

BUHealth,

The book I am just finishing that is chock full of new ideas, (actually mostly old ideas, but ones that had not been systematically presented) is Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow." I see it has climbed to the top ten bestsellers among nonfiction. I am loving it. It will be a terrific read for you, or someone you know who is open to new ideas about how real people (but not academic economists) actually make choices.

Under $20 on Amazon.com

High Fees Are Key: Commonwealth Fund study

BUHealth,


Commonwealth Fund e-Alert

High Fees Seen as Main Cause of Higher Overall Spending on Physician Services in U.S.

A new study comparing fees for physician services in the United States with those in five other nations finds that U.S. physicians are paid more per service than doctors in other countries­as much as double in some cases. According to the Commonwealth Fund–supported study, which appears in the new issue of Health Affairs, U.S. primary care physicians were paid an average of 27 percent more by public payers for an office visit, and 70 percent more by private payers for an office visit, compared with the average amount paid across the other countries, which include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. For hip replacements, the gap was even larger: U.S. physicians received 70 percent more from public payers, and 120 percent more from private payers, than the average fees paid to physicians in the other nations studied.

<More>