Sticking with one primary care doctor may help you stay healthy and extend your life, according to a new British study. Researchers reviewed 22 studies from nine countries with different cultures and health systems. Of those, 18 concluded that staying with the same doctor over time significantly reduced early deaths, compared with switching doctors.
"Currently, arranging for a patient to see the doctor of their choice is considered a social convenience," said lead researcher Dr. Denis Pereira Gray. "Now it is clear that it is about improving the quality of medical practice with profound implications for all health systems."
Gray is an emeritus professor at the University of Exeter in England. He is also former president of the Royal College of General Practitioners and former chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.
He said this study is the first systematic review of the relationship between continuity of doctor care and death rates.
Not only can seeing the same primary care doctor prolong life, but the same holds true for specialists such as surgeons and psychiatrists, Gray said.
"Patients talk more freely to doctors they know, and doctors can then understand them better and tailor advice and treatment better," he said.
Although technology has brought advances in medical care, Gray said, "this research shows that human factors like continuity of care remain important and are indeed a matter of life and death."
More …
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/staying-with-one-doctor-may-prolong-your-life-study-finds/
Friday, June 29, 2018
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Boundary-breaking neurologist treats patients other doctors give up on - STAT
Even beforehand — before the compulsive writing and the bipolar diagnosis, before the niche medical practice and the best-selling book — Dr. Alice Flaherty stuck out. She had grown up beside a duckweed-filled pond in rural New Jersey, and by the time she was a young adult, she'd become a neuroscientist in a family of engineers, a theorist among doers.
When she came home during breaks at Harvard, her father would rib her. "He'd say, 'Yo, you talk big about pure science now, but you're going to end up an engineer just like the rest of us,'" she recalled. "And when I went to med school, he was like, 'See? See?' And it's totally true. It's like tinkering. You tinker with the patients. It's so fun. I love fixing broken machines."
Her neurology work at Massachusetts General Hospital involves plenty of gadgetry — she heads up the deep brain stimulation unit, and sometimes uses electroconvulsive therapy to help patients with depression or mania — but these days, that's not the kind of tinkering that's at the front of her mind.
Instead, she has been toying with the boundaries of illness itself. She likes seeing patients other doctors have given up on. Many have faced questions about whether they're really as sick as they say. For all of them, getting the proper treatment — pills or infusions or electrical currents — depends on a kind of collaboration with Flaherty, a workshop in which motivations are re-examined, stories reshaped, turns of phrase redefined.
"These poor patients are typically seen as just not wanting to get better, and I got interested in that whole thing, like if you want to get better then you're sick, if you don't want to get better, then it's a vice," she said. "What was it about us — the caregivers, family members, and doctors — what was it that made us attribute willfulness to people who were obviously miserable?"
More ...
https://www.statnews.com/2018/06/19/alice-flaherty-mass-general-neurologist/
When she came home during breaks at Harvard, her father would rib her. "He'd say, 'Yo, you talk big about pure science now, but you're going to end up an engineer just like the rest of us,'" she recalled. "And when I went to med school, he was like, 'See? See?' And it's totally true. It's like tinkering. You tinker with the patients. It's so fun. I love fixing broken machines."
Her neurology work at Massachusetts General Hospital involves plenty of gadgetry — she heads up the deep brain stimulation unit, and sometimes uses electroconvulsive therapy to help patients with depression or mania — but these days, that's not the kind of tinkering that's at the front of her mind.
Instead, she has been toying with the boundaries of illness itself. She likes seeing patients other doctors have given up on. Many have faced questions about whether they're really as sick as they say. For all of them, getting the proper treatment — pills or infusions or electrical currents — depends on a kind of collaboration with Flaherty, a workshop in which motivations are re-examined, stories reshaped, turns of phrase redefined.
"These poor patients are typically seen as just not wanting to get better, and I got interested in that whole thing, like if you want to get better then you're sick, if you don't want to get better, then it's a vice," she said. "What was it about us — the caregivers, family members, and doctors — what was it that made us attribute willfulness to people who were obviously miserable?"
More ...
https://www.statnews.com/2018/06/19/alice-flaherty-mass-general-neurologist/
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