Tying up Loose Ends + Bonus Feature

A friend of mine, in response to my last two posts, emailed me a recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "The Case Against Stents: New Studies Hint at Overuse" The title is rather self-explanatory, but it is about the burgeoning trend in medicine of cardiac catheterization and stent placement. Honestly, at this point, calling it a burgeoning trend is probably not the best description - since the procedure has been around for at least 10 years - however, every year more and more people are having it done. The article very accurately identifies one of the problems in medicine my last two posts have hinted towards, hence the reason I bring it up. The fundamental argument of the article, as one might guess from the title, is that new studies are finding that the long-term outcomes of cardiac catheterization is probably not as good as we originally thought and likely have a mortality benefit only in a select population - much like Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (CABG).

I would love to post the entire article, however, it is quite lengthy. If you have a subscription to WSJ - which is never a bad thing to have - then you can search for the article title above. But, I would like to share with you one 'pithy' remark from the article.
"It's a medicine-for-dollars scenario," says Kevin Graham, director of preventive cardiology at the Minneapolis Heart Institute. "The doctor who practices disciplined medicine makes significantly less money than the doctor who is trying to find some justification for stenting a patient. That's the system. People get paid for doing things."

It is a deplorable idea to think of healthcare in such a way, but unfortunately, seeing it everyday, I would have to agree with Dr. Graham. My friend had this to say "So I guess my basic thought is that medicine, like law and all other supposedly high-minded professions, is really just a business." Again, sadly this is true.

Bonus Feature
I had to share this. I saw a bumper sticker the other day, which I can honestly say was the funniest I've seen in a long time. It was stuck to the back of a Scion xB - a picture of which is shown below...

The bumper sticker read: "Sadly, you've just been passed by a toaster"







thanks to EVN for the article and remarks....