Q: How is a parallel chart different from a diary?
A: It doesn’t absolve the physician from having to write down a patient’s blood pressure or glucose reading. It’s a way to remember the other dimensions of care—your own response or concerns. Narrative skills help in articulating a disagreement, help everyone tolerate the reality that there are many ways to look at something. It is a matter of enlarging the perspective, one patient at a time.
Celiac Disease: Eating Away at You
Avoid gluten, and celiac disease loses its sting. But research continues, and breakthroughs might treat other disorders too.
The Science Factory
At Singapore’s gleaming Biopolis complex, researchers get all the money and lab support they need. What they don’t get is time.
Hope in Sight
When the retina fails, the body’s window on the world slams shut. These futuristic treatments may pry it open again.
Still Beyond Reach
The protein endothelin shows up everywhere, so scientists hoped blocking its action could treat many diseases. It hasn’t happened—yet.
The Cost of Free Drugs
Handouts from drug companies might seem helpful, but some experts contend that they create conflicts of interest and raise prescription costs.
Collaborative Care
Could “medical homes,” where every patient has a physician-led support team, improve health and reduce costs? Early evidence says yes.
Paying It Forward
Could a new strategy help reduce the number of people who die waiting for kidney transplants?
“While I sympathize with physicians who encounter a ‘patient from hell,’ I cannot fathom asking patients to waive their right to complain about their physician on online review sites, a practice Jeffrey Segal champions (“Don’t Tread on M.D.,” Fall 2009). It may not be outright blackmail, but the still-godlike status of M.D.’s makes patients reluctant to disappoint their physician by not signing such an agreement.”
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ghostbusting [gōst 'bə-stiŋ] n: a term adopted in January 2009 by editors at the journal Blood for a movement to ban journal articles ghostwritten by uncredited contributors financed by drug companies.
