Changing Our Perspectives on Healthcare Reform

Eric Dishman This has been a hard–occasionally embarrassing and even frightening–time to be an American. The healthcare reform and reconciliation bills have ushered in some of the nastiest political bickering and fear mongering seen in my short lifetime. Our media megaphone that so thrives on conflict, over-simplification, and 24 X 7 soundbites has left us […]

Obama’s Goal: A Better America and Better Americans

Mike Magee Then Senator Obama, on the Senate floor in 2005 said, “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom; the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African American, or gay, or disabled, or old.” (1) He wasn’t talking […]

This Week’s Presidential Healthcare Summit: Is It About Money or Satisfaction?

Mike Magee Today is the Healthcare Summit in Washington. There will be a great deal of discussion about efficiency, effectiveness and holding down the cost of health care. Money and time spent were also the topic of a JAMA article this week focused on declining physician work hours in concert with declining physician reimbursement over […]

Has Techmanity Become a Major Component of Advanced Health Professionalism?

Here’s the question: Can technology advance compassion, understanding, partnership and professionalism? Parallel studies of large cohorts of patients and their physicians in the late 90’s in the U.S., U.K., Germany, South Africa, Japan and Canada revealed consistent agreement on the primary definers of a successful patient-physician relationship. They were compassion, understanding and partnership. Patients also […]

Healthcare Reform: We Can’t Wait For Washington

Eric Dishman “Well, I guess you are done blogging since healthcare reform is dead now?” Ouch! This comment came from a friend–from someone who says he actually likes some of my blogs and is eager for healthcare reform to happen. But I can understand his presumptions. The pages of ink spilled on the speculation about […]

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