The causes of many health behaviors are deeply rooted in our culture, and using a counseling model that assumes individual control and responsibility for these behaviors can cause patients to feel hectored instead of helped.
Those charged by the ACA health reform act to identify best clinical practices that are evidence-based and applicable across diverse populations can learn much from the experience of the Medicare-funded End Stage Renal Disease Program.
Katherine E. Clarridge, Ernest A. Fischer, Andrea R. Quintana, and James M. Wagner, MD
An argument is made for integrating Spanish language instruction into education of the interdisciplinary health care team, if not into the medical education of physicians per se.
Chris Feudtner, MD, PhD, MPH, David Munson, MD, and Wynne Morrison, MD
The way that we choose how to frame the conversation with parents about halting or continuing such therapy for their children who will not recover has special importance in medicine and in society.
The Epidemic Intelligence Service, by Douglas H. Hamilton, traces the history of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, with details about the service’s response to actual and potential epidemic outbreaks.