November - 2017

The Great Myth: Why Health Care Reform is Failing both Patients and Medicare

A Novel Way to Present Health Information

Deception about Dementia: Why Early Detection can be Dangerous

Curing Medicare to be republished by Cornell University Press in 2016

Cancer screening: how conventional wisdom, quality indicators, and payment incentive equals poor ou

Rat Poison in the Nursing Home

PPI Use and Heart Attacks: Really?

The Real Value of Primary Care

The CDC and diseases of the elderly: Less factual than advertised

Baltimore Sun Op Ed Post

New Blood Pressure Guidelines: Good for Doctors, Bad for Patients.

Last week I went to sleep, and when I woke up an additional 30 million people had a diagnosis of hypertension, or high blood pressure. How did this epidemic occur so quickly? It turns out that the American College of Cardiology changed its definition of hypertension. Whereas previously, one had to have a pressure over 140 to be labeled with the disease, now, in their infinite wisdom, the specialist experts decreed that 130 would be the new cut off. How did these experts ar

A 105 year old doctor advocates a better path to improved health and wellness

In July of this year Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara died. His obituary was given to me recently by one of my patients, which is why I am writing about it now. There was a telling quote in the obituary: “In the 1970s, he reclassified strokes and heart disorders — commonly perceived as inevitable adult diseases that required treatment — to lifestyle ailments that were often preventable. Dr. Hinohara insisted that patients be treated as individuals — that a doctor needed to understand