Heard in the Blogosphere
BACK of the BOOK
David B . McKinley
@ RepMcKinley
This is a great honor , @ ASH _ hematology ! Thank you so much for your hard work on behalf of patients everywhere ! # Fight4Hematology
ASH
@ ASH _ hematology
Today , members of our Executive Committee recognized @ RepMcKinley for his support of @ NIH and patient access to treatments # Fight4Hematology
“ I ’ m an Immigrant and a Muslim . And I ’ m Here to Cure Cancer .”
“ My parents chose to live in Pakistan but encouraged all seven of their children to emigrate to the United States in search of higher education . … My older brother is a cardiac surgeon , my older sister trained as a pediatric oncologist , and my younger sister is a radiologist and breast imaging expert . Another sister has a PhD in international relations , a brother is a professor of aerospace engineering , and my youngest brother is an electrical engineer . We are Muslims , we are immigrants , and we are enriching , prolonging , and saving American lives . … Closing America ’ s door to immigrants will never be the answer to the challenges we face . Instead , America needs to bring in the best minds – and the most minds – to fight cancer and solve other seminal issues of our times .”
— Azra Raza , MD , director of the MDS Center at Columbia University and consultant on the Cancer Moonshot Initiative , in STAT News
Nathan Pennell MD , PhD
@ n8pennell
Estimated 67 minutes per day addressing the ol ’ inbox . Good thing we all have an extra hour a day ! # saidnodoctorever
The Insanity of Doctor Recertification
“ We doctors owe it to our patients to keep up-to-date , but a funny thing happened on the way to recertification . The ‘ maintenance of certification ’ process morphed into its own industry . … Personally , I haven ’ t minded the ongoing modules , at least the ones that contain useful medical knowledge . I can sense loose globules of knowledge coalescing in my brain , and I feel like I am doing something salutary for my patients . … But then there ’ s the decennial exam . It is the kind of test where you have to surrender all belongings short of your skivvies and then depend on your memory for a grueling 10-hour exam . I ’ m sitting in a windowless exam room , plowing through hundreds of multiple-choice questions . Will this actually make me a better doctor ? Will my patients derive benefit from this ordeal ? I ’ m not sure .”
— Danielle Ofri , MD , discussing the changing face of certification , in Slate
Oana Paun , MD
@__ oana
Does anybody know a way to curb the automatic primary care “ WBC = 13.1 , quick , let ’ s send flow cytometry ”?
Gavin Preston , MD
@ GavinPrestonMD
US studies found we doctors interrupt patients after 18-23 secs . A UK GP study found 53 secs . Can we possibly give the patient one minute ?
A Closer Look at the “ Doctor Shortage ”
“ If , as many people believe , we have a shortage of doctors in the United States , then it follows that we can fix this only by training and hiring more physicians . As with almost everything in our healthcare system , though , it ’ s complicated . Some people think there ’ s no shortage at all – just a poor distribution of the doctors we have . Parts of this country have lots of doctors , perhaps too many . We rely too heavily on physicians and not enough on midlevel practitioners . We don ’ t account for advances in technology , like telehealth and new drugs and devices that lessen the burden on physicians to maintain health . The system isn ’ t undermanned : It ’ s inefficient .”
— Aaron E . Carroll , MD , discussing the difficult task of fixing the shortage of services in U . S . health care , in The New York Times
Stephen John Senn
@ stephensenn
You can divide clinical trial experts into 2 camps 1 ) Those who have run 1 2 ) Those who know they could run 1 brilliantly if ever they did
Amber Yates , MD
@ sicklecelldoc
Love looking at blood smears in clinic . Finding those elusive basophils makes me giddy . # hematologynerd
Follow ASH and ASH Clinical News on :
@ ASH _ Hematology , @ BloodJournal , @ BloodAdvances , and @ ASHClinicalNews
Facebook . com / AmericanSocietyofHematology
@ ASH _ Hematology
ASHClinicalNews . org ASH Clinical News
33