“What exactly does it mean to know yourself? For neuroscientists, the answer is straightforward enough: Self-knowledge is the combination of two forms of information, direct appraisals (your own self-beliefs) and reflected appraisals (your perception of how others view you). The first generally employs the parts of the brain associated with a first-person perspective, such as the posterior cingulate; the second with regions associated with emotion and memory, such as the insula, orbitofrontal, and temporal cortex. [..] they [oracles at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi] no doubt meant “Know thyself accurately.” That is a much taller order, requiring a huge … Read More
A plan was set in motion with no idea of how to stop it. “While federal public-health officials made recommendations regarding schools, the actual closures were carried out at the state and local levels, in response to misplaced public fears and aggressive campaigning by teachers’ unions. Randi Weingarten, the high-profile head of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a February 8, 2021, New York Times article that she hoped things would be “as normal as possible” by the following fall. Class-action lawsuits in multiple states had been filed on behalf of children with special needs on the claim that … Read More
“Surgical problems often involve rapid decision-making with limited time for deliberation and require proficiency discussing interventions ranging from elective outpatient procedures to an emergency operation in the setting of life-limiting illness. For patients and families, the concept of surgery may incite strong emotions, with many discussions occurring without a previously established patient-surgeon relationship. [..] Attend to Emotion Receiving bad news such as a new cancer diagnosis or an unexpected postoperative complication often takes patients and families by surprise. Without warning about difficult news, they may fail to process what has happened. To anticipate and attend to their emotions, surgeons can … Read More
“The results Lilly announced came from a clinical trial involving 559 people with Type 2 diabetes who took the new pill or a placebo for 40 weeks. In patients who took orforglipron, blood sugar levels fell by 1.3 to 1.6 percent, about the same amount in that time period experienced by patients taking Ozempic and Mounjaro in unrelated trials. For 65 percent of people taking the new pill, blood sugar levels dropped into the normal range. Patients on the new pill also lost weight — up to 16 pounds without reaching a plateau at the study’s end. Their weight loss … Read More
“Health care spending as a proportion of total national spending has been flat, at approximately 17%, since the late 2000s, meaning that health care cost growth hasn’t exceeded growth in the gross domestic product, on average. Per-beneficiary Medicare spending grew at an average rate of 6.6% per year between 1987 and 2005, but by 2.2% per year between 2013 and 2019. [..] low growth has persisted well beyond the Great Recession for all types of insurance. Putting aside the spike in health care spending that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, growth in per-capita national health expenditures has been low by … Read More
“Although many health care clinicians have been fired by a patient or family, palliative care clinicians may be at increased risk for dismissal. We invite difficult conversations, confront people with news they prefer to avoid, and encourage otherwise taboo topics such as human frailty and death. Our focus on what may go wrong differs from other clinicians’ optimism and may be unwelcome to patients and health care teams alike. We acknowledge emotional vulnerability, explore uncertainty, uncover fears, and describe a future in which patients make difficult choices about how they live and how they die. When we do our jobs … Read More
“CT utilization in the United States in 2023 was estimated to result in 102 700 (90% UL, 96 400-109 500) projected lifetime cancers, including 93 000 (90% UL, 86 900-99 600) in adults and 9700 (90% UL, 8100-11 600) in children. The leading cancers in adults were lung cancer (21 400 [90% UL, 19 200-24 000]), colon cancer (8400 [90% UL, 7500-9400]), and leukemia (7400 [90% UL, 6100-8900]), whereas the most frequent projected cancers in children were thyroid (3500 [90% UL, 2300-5500]), lung (990 [90% UL, 870-1100]), and breast (630 [90% UL, 550-730]) cancer. Lung and thyroid cancer incidence were higher in female patients, whereas incidence of most other cancers … Read More
Adam Grant interviewed Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert. An excerpt: “[Grant] here’s so many demonstrations of these affective forecasting failures. If you were to choose your top three, what are your favorites? [Gilbert] [..] Certainly one of the mistakes that’s caught my attention the most is our inability to imagine adaptation. My friend Danny Kahneman used to say, when you ask somebody how they would feel if they were blind, they imagine going blind. But the day you lose your eyesight, probably a very, very bad day. But it’s not like all the hundreds and thousands of days that will follow, … Read More
“Many countries and 10 U.S. states allow voluntary assisted dying for those who are terminally ill. In some jurisdictions, assistance is also permitted for those who have an incurable condition that causes them unbearable suffering. But allowing relatively healthy people to end their lives because they see their lives as completed is more controversial. Professor Kahneman traveled to Switzerland because it allows competent adults with a firm wish to die to legally receive assistance in dying, whether or not they are residents. [..] “Other people happen to respect it [Kahneman’s work] and say that this is for the benefit of … Read More
“On April 5, 2021, a landmark change in health care occurred: the 21st Century Cures Act, known as the Cures Rule, took effect, requiring clinicians to give patients real-time access to their health data via patient portals. This was intended to empower patients by granting access to their medical information, enabling them to take an active role in their care, and ultimately improving health outcomes. However, as with many policy changes, the reality has proven more complicated. While the shift aimed to democratize health care information, its consequences—both for patients and clinicians—are more nuanced than anticipated. The promise of transparency … Read More