Physicians Health Programs (PHPs) are part of the medical regulatory-therapeutic complex intended to protect the public from impaired physicians. Initially, they were supposed to provide a benevolent means to treat physicians with substance-use disorders and return them to the workplace. However, lacking professional or governmental oversight, or an enforceable code of ethics, they may now […]
Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) or physician-assisted death (PAD) are now receiving strong public support, writes Jeffrey Hall Dobken, M.D., M.P.H., in the winter issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He traces the history of the acceptance of PAS/PAD in public policy and law to the ascendancy of “lifeboat ethics.” Read journal article: http://www.jpands.org/vol23no4/dobken.pdf […]
Of the more than $3 trillion dollars per year spent worldwide on health services, an untold amount is drained through corruption, according to the non-governmental anticorruption watchdog Transparency International. Albert Fisher, M.D., comments on the sources of corruption and proposed remedies in the winter issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Fisher, a family physician […]
An entry in the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) can end a doctor’s career permanently. It is critical for doctors to understand how this works, and patients ought to know what it means. In the winter 2018 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Lawrence Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D, summarizes the key points in […]
Promoted as simply a way to help the elderly pay their medical bills, Medicare has led to the federal government controlling the practice of medicine, writes Marilyn Singleton, M.D., J.D., in the fall issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. “Federal interference has only served to increase medical costs, herd patients into managed […]
More Democrats are lining up behind “Medicare for All” as the midterm elections approach, but the idea under different names has been proposed repeatedly since 1942, as shown in the timeline outlined in the fall issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons by Jeremy Snavely. “The last 75 years have seen exponential growth […]
Americans may be more worried about the costs of a major illness than about the illness itself, writes Jeanne Pinder in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Prices for various procedures can vary by a factor of 20 or more. Pinder describes an award-winning project, ClearHealthCosts.com, that she and fellow […]
In searching for treatable causes of sky-high medical costs, both government and private entities are scrutinizing the cost of hospital supplies, writes Marilyn Singleton, M.D., J.D., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Supplies account for an average 15 percent of total costs, and as much as 40 percent. About […]
According to a recent survey, doctors think that more than 20 percent of medical care in the U.S. is unnecessary, writes Albert L. Fisher, M.D., of Oshkosh, Wis., president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He explains several reasons for […]
Today, your doctor is likely to be a “stranger at the bedside,” making decisions according to the “new morality” of bioethics, rather than the traditional Oath of Hippocrates, writes Jeffrey Hall Dobken, M.D., M.P.H., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Dobken writes from the perspective of a doctor […]