Want to reduce cases of doctors desperately trying to save the lives of people on the verge of dying despite them not wanting such aggressive treatment? Stop paying for it. Angelo Volandes, assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.
A mysterious group of humans from the east stormed western Europe 4,500 years ago — bringing with them technologies such as the wheel, as well as a language that is the forebear of many modern tongues, suggests one of the largest studies of ancient DNA yet conducted. David Reich, professor of genetics, led the research.
Scientists are looking to change how doctors diagnose cancer, and the key might lie in crowdsourcing. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess are using crowdsourcing, through the website CrowdFlower, to develop labeled images of tumor tissues. Andrew Beck, assistant professor of pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is quoted.
Atul Gawande, Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, brought his-best selling book on end-of-life care, “Being Mortal,” to the small screen Tuesday night in an hour-long documentary providing a deeply intimate look at patients in their final days, their families, and the doctors wrestling with patients’ expectations — as well as their own.
In the future of hospital care, doctors will dress wounds with smart bandages that are able to tell doctors how the wound is healing and distribute medicine. Ali Khademhosseini, professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is spearheading the project.
Dozens of cardiologists in communities outside major metro areas are performing catheterization procedures – such as diagnostic angiograms and artery-clearing angioplasties – at higher rates than doctors working at big city hospitals that serve as major cardiac referral centers. News data say it raises a critical question: How many of these catheterization procedures are medically advisable and how many put patients at unnecessary risk and add billions of dollars to the nation’s medical bill? David Jones, A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine, is quoted.
