[NYTimes]- Of all the terrible chronic diseases, only one —end-stage kidney disease — gets special treatment by the federal government. A law passed by Congress 39 years ago provides nearly free care to almost all patients whose kidneys have failed, regardless of their age or ability to pay.
But the law has had unintended consequences, kidney [...]

[Stanford Medical]- The resident is seated at the conference table giving her colleagues an overview of a patient in one of Stanford Hospital’s icus. The unconscious man with no ID had been brought in the previous day after being found in a pool of blood. He had vomited an additional 5 liters of blood and [...]

[Scientific American]- Technology can help individuals weigh the risks and benefits of an invasive medical procedure, experts say, but only if doctors and patients keep talking.
Much of what happens to you in the hospital in the name of diagnosing and healing is invasive. Depending on what ails you, a doctor may need to ream out [...]

[NYTimes]- First, do no harm?
For some doctors that may not be the case, at least when money is involved. A new study of thousands of doctors found that just 8 of 10 strongly agreed that they should put patient welfare before their own financial interests. And 4 of 10 did not think they needed to [...]

[NYT] The Obama administration, reversing course, will revise a Medicare regulation to delete references to end-of-life planning as part of the annual physical examinations covered under the new health care law, administration officials said Tuesday.  The move is an abrupt shift, coming just days after the new policy took effect on Jan. 1.

Many doctors and [...]

[NYTimes] When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.
Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who [...]

[TheAtlantis] Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.

In 2001, rumors were circulating in Greek hospitals that surgery residents, [...]

[NPR] Drug companies say the millions of dollars they pay physicians for speaking and consulting justly compensates doctors for the laudable work of educating their colleagues.
But a series of lawsuits brought by former employees of those companies allege the money often was used for illegal purposes — financially rewarding doctors for prescribing their brand-name medications.
In [...]

[NYTimes] The patient, in her late 50s with failing kidneys, had come to the hospital for what she and her doctors thought would be a simple procedure preparing her for dialysis. But instead of returning home the next day, the woman ended up in the hospital for nearly half of my internship. Her procedure went [...]

[wsj] Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for [...]