Posts by Michel Accad
Ep. 57 Neither Fisher nor Bayes: The Limits of Statistical Inference
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Michael Acree, PhD
How do we know that a treatment works or not? Billions of healthcare dollars are at stake in the answer to that question. For decades, that answer has largely hinged on theories from a field of human inquiry that combines the precision of mathematics with the accuracy of astrology. We are talking of course, about statistics and statistical inference.
To help us understand better this mystical science, we have as our guest Dr. Michael Acree who has spent his entire career working for the University of California San Francisco as a data scientist and a teacher of statistical science, helping countless researchers make sense of the data they had obtained. Michael is now retired and is completing a book on the history and philosophy of statistical inference. He joins us to tell us the whole truth about what is sometimes referred to as the science of mendacity!
Ep. 56 Conflicts of Interest in Health Policy: A Different Ball of Wax?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Anish Koka, MD
We have become highly sensitized to the question of conflict of interest in healthcare—and rightly so. But the dominant narrative seems to be one-sided: doctors and scientists getting personally paid by industry sponsors and letting those payments color their judgment, consciously or unconsciously.
Personal financial conflict of interest is certainly an important and pervasive problem, but there are many aspects of COI that get less attention and may be equally harmful to society at large. To discuss this topic, our own Anish Koka engages Michel Accad in a lively discussion that tries to probe the topic in depth, even when such probing reveals uncomfortable truths.
Ep. 55 Waste in Healthcare: Is the Narrative Too Simplistic?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lisa Rosenbaum, MD
It doesn’t take great insight to assert that healthcare waste is rampant. There is an obvious epidemic of testing and treatments that make no difference in patients’ lives or could possible even harm. But what is the cause of the epidemic and what should be done about it? In the last decade, a popular narrative has emerged, claiming that the waste has obvious causes and remedies. That narrative, however, overlooks the complexities of the problem and the trade-offs and potential harms of the remedies proposed.
Our guest to discuss the “Less-Is-More” movement is Lisa Rosenbaum, MD, one of the best medical writers of our generation. Dr. Rosenbaum is a national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine, a cardiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Ep. 54 How to Jump Ship and Practice Medicine on Your Own Terms, with Dr. Kathleen Brown
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Kathleen Brown, MD
The healthcare system continues to inflict “moral injury” on physicians, causing burnout, depression, or apathy. And, built as it is on a mountain of debt, the edifice may also not provide any long term security for those who choose to remain on board. Yet the prospect of jumping ship may seem daunting to many.
Our guest today shares with us her personal story of how she did abandon the titanic and forged for herself a successful path to professional sanity.
Kathleen M. Brown, MD, obtained her medical degree from the Eastern Virginia School of Medicine and practiced dermatology and internal medicine for several years in Maryland. In 1997, she and her family moved to the coast of Oregon to join a multi-specialty group of which she was a partner in the group until mid-2011. This group was a good fit but the administrative and financial burdens of the system were increasingly taking a toll on her enjoyment of medicine.
After passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, she saw that continuing to stay within an insurance-contracted system would make her style of medical practice impossible. In July, 2011, with help from her husband, Jack, she opened a direct pay Dermatology practice with a transparent fee schedule. Within a month of opening she had a full schedule and a restored sense of professional satisfaction.
More on sham peer review
Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, who was our guest on Ep. 37, has just returned from Jerusalem where he gave a talk at the UNESCO’s 13th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics and Health Law. In this talk, Dr. Huntoon relates some of the most outrageous examples of hospital sham peer review. Some of these cases have involved…
Read Full PostEp. 53 Health vs. Illness: Pat Caslin on Living with Multiple Sclerosis
Pat Caslin
We spend billions of dollars a year on healthcare yet no one can give a satisfactory definition of health. Is our inability to articulate what health is precisely the reason for our insanely dysfunctional healthcare systems?
Our guest today will give us his very personal reflections on that question. Pat Caslin is a business strategist from Dublin, Ireland who’s had a successful career nationally and internationally, working for a variety of financial and business development institutions. Eleven years ago he was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Five years ago the disease became progressive and he lost his ability to walk.
Instead of letting the illness take over his life, Pat went through a profound change of perspective regarding his health and what it means to be healthy. As a result, he has been sharing his insights, both in writing and in speaking engagements, with students, with physicians, with patients, and with the public at large. He was recently selected to give a Ted talk in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland.
Systematic Pushback Against Evidence-Based Medicine
When Gary Klein told us that he had co-authored a paper critical of evidence-based medicine (EBM), it was music to my ears. After we finished taping the show, I quickly dug into his bibliography and found the paper in question, written by Klein and his team: “Can We Trust Best Practices? Six Cognitive Challenges of Evidence-Based…
Read Full PostEp. 52 Should Doctors Get Involved in Healthcare Policy? A Med Student’s Perspective
Aamir Hussein, MD Candidate 2019
Doctors are embroiled in a healthcare system they appear to have no control over. It therefore seems plausible that if they got involved in healthcare policy, they might be in a position to “steer the ship” or at least have a say in how the ship is steered.
We discuss the pros and cons of healthcare policy in general—and of a doctor’s involvement in such policy—with Aamir Hussein, a 4th year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
A native of Farmington, CT, Mr. Hussain also holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and a BA from Georgetown University in Government. He writes frequently about interfaith dialogue, Islam, and the intersections between healthcare and spirituality and has given lectures around the United States on these topics. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and PBS, and his writings have been featured in medical journals and several online outlets including Religion News Service and The Huffington Post.
Ep. 51 The Expert vs. the Algorithm: Gary Klein on Decision-Making in Healthcare
Gary Klein, PhD
Doctors are increasingly asked to follow decision rules, guidelines, and “evidence-based” algorithms. Is that the right approach to take care of patients? Are cognitive errors over-emphasized in healthcare?
Our guest on this episode is Gary Klein, one of the most important figures in cognitive psychology in the world. His pioneering work in the field of naturalistic decision-making has become a major challenge to the established schools of thought on how experts make good decisions.
He is a leader of a growing research community focused on understanding how human beings acquire and apply knowledge to complex situations under uncertainty. He has developed novel explanatory models and training methods for decision-making that are widely recognized as ground-breaking. He is the author of numerous books, including the best-sellers Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys in Adaptive Decision-Making and Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insight. He is notorious for having gained the respect and admiration of his intellectual opponent, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, with whom he co-authored a widely read paper contrasting their somewhat divergent views.
He Jian-Kui vs. Christiaan Barnard: A Tale of Two Ethical Transgressions
As I write this post, He Jian-Kui, the Chinese scientist who claimed to have brought about the first gene edited babies in history is reported “missing,” having been seen last at an international meeting of scientists where his experiment was widely criticized on ethical grounds. It is too soon to know if he is being detained (or…
Read Full Post