Sitemap - 2023 - Sensible Medicine

Is the FDA too lax: Part 2

Reflection Doodles

Is the FDA too lax?

A discussion with the primary investigator of the world's first placebo-controlled AF ablation trial

If medicine does not want to get better at generating evidence, we are lost

The AI Doctor Will Message You Now

A Prominent Cardiologist Responds to our last Podcast Conversation with Vinay Prasad

For obese kids, the USPSTF recommends diet and exercise; the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends surgery and ozempic

Mandrola and Prasad are back

Mandrola and Prasad are back

Friday Reflection 35: Four Who Fired Me

In Medicine, it's hard to challenge prevailing ideas

The Absence of Suicide from Obituaries

How a “Positive” Trial Can Add Little to Clinical Care

Friday Reflection 34: Disagreement and Chagrin in Therapeutic Decision Making

US healthcare is headed for disaster

To Treat or Not to Treat

The Quandary of a "Positive" Trial with a Non-significant Result?

A Nutrition Hack That Probably Doesn’t Matter After Thanksgiving

Should insurance companies pay for double lung transplants for stage IV lung cancer

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: A Book Review

Healthcare Leaders Should Focus on Making Medicine Better Rather than Issuing Press Releases on Geopolitical Issues

A Surgeon Turns Activist

Major Trial in Atrial Fibrillation Stopped Prematurely

Is it unethical for doctors to stop masking?

Friday Reflection 33: Making Your Doctor Laugh

Time for a Revision on Gene Editing for Cholesterol?

“Rehab” for Addiction is a Problem and a Solution

A Major Breakthrough In Obesity Treatment

Entirely predictable: More parents don't want routine vaccination for their kids

Is boosting bone mass through pharmacotherapy really the best way to prevent fractures in the elderly?

Non-significant Studies Can Teach A Lot

Do you think a bone marrow transplant is worth it?

Friday Reflection 32: The Trauma of Not Dying Alone

Doctors and 'experts' who got it wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic

Soren Diederichsen on Atrial Fibrillation Screening

Study of the Week is over at Stop and Think

Can a Dog Diagnose Colon Cancer with Her Nose?

Andrew Foy has a Different Conclusion on a Big JAMA paper on CV risk reduction

Friday Reflection 31: Senses, Memories, and Medicine

JAMA Pediatrics rejected our letter criticizing a study that pulled school children into the school yard and made a dog sniff them to see if they had COVID19

Sudden cardiac death and arrhythmias in athletes

Prasad's lecture gets cancelled/ Cifu Gets COVID

The Meaning of "Guideline Directed"

Outlive - for Mortals

Study of the Week Pauses Today

Friday Reflection 30: Thirty Years and Counting

New Podcast -- Discussion with Rita Redberg and Angela Lu regarding Their Study on Conflict of Interest

In Pursuit of the Flat Line

Forget Simplicity, Give Us Truth

How Authors' Choices Affect How Evidence Can Be Used at the Bedside

Moving the Overton Window on Bad Cancer Policy

Prediction explainer: what should clinicians consider when considering a new clinical prediction model?

Intermittent Fasting

Foy and Mandrola Talk Coronary Calcium and a New Super-Exciting Approach to Medical Education

Journals That Ban Replications--Are They Serious Scholarly Outlets At All?

Choosing a Control Group

If you are sick, do not test for COVID19; If your child is mildly sick, do not test & send them to school

The Sexual Politics of Waiting Rooms

The Needle—Peace Corps Zambia, March 6th, 2023

Foy and Mandrola Discuss AF, AF-Ablation, Sham-controls, Evidence Translation and Heterogenous Treatment Effects

When Studies Can't Answer an Important Question (but are still published)

Health disparities research is full of low quality work

Cornell's New Dean, Bob Harrington, Asked Jay Bhattacharya & Eran Bendavid to stop talking to the press about COVID policy, per B's account

The Story of JOWMA, the Jewish Orthodox Women’s Medical Association

Why celebrity doctors bug me

RCTs Can Inform Even the Most Dire Medical Situations

Coumadin beats DOAC, ECMO fails, When RCTs needed, Bad COVID Policy

Friday Reflection 29: The Totally Predictable Doctor as Patient Essay

The Annual COVID19 Booster

My Pick of the Most Important Study from the European Society of Cardiology Meeting

The FDA's approval of Pfizer's maternal RSV vaccine has omitted key data and is problematic

COVID19 Therapeutics & Boosters all need new studies

Could we do worse than the PSA for prostate cancer screening?

Sensible Medicine x Vaccine Curious: Tracy Beth Høeg and Christine Stabell Benn compare US & Danish COVID-19 response and child vaccination policy

The NOAH Study Provides Evidence That Aids Decision-Making in Atrial Fibrillation

Friday Reflection 28: Four of the Things Patients Have Taught Me

Mandrola & Prasad on Republicans and COVID outcomes, Journals and stenting

A Brilliant Comment Makes the Study of the Week

A Conversation with Professor Robert Yeh

Who Needs Religion When We Have Pharma

I have yet to find a study with more spin

Friday Reflection 27: The Poor Historian

A Trial that Upends an Everyday Practice in Cardiology

Politics and Medicine is a Bad Idea

Is Shortness of Breath Due to Heart Failure Different from Shortness of Breath Due to Asthma?

The Most Important Trial in Modern Cardiology

Bad Science Needs to Be Called Out

Friday Reflection #26: General Internal Medicine in the Time of COVID

Preprint Servers have Repeatedly Censored our Work on COVID-19 Policy

Podcast discussion on Nutrition Science, HFpEF and the NYT article on treatment of PAD

Maintenance of Certification Has to Go

Stanford's president is not the only researcher pushing unfounded and incorrect conclusions

On the meaning of a coronary blockage. Chapter 2 of the mini-series

Does Anyone Still Care About Data?

Advice for the New Intern 2.0

A New Mini-Series on the Study of the Week: What Does it Mean to Discover a Coronary Blockage?

When Doctors Become Political - The 2016 shift

When hospitals dropped masking requirements in 2023, Covid cases and hospitalizations did NOT predict policy changes; But, more Democrat votes predicted more masking!

Friday Reflection 25: The Advice I’d Like to Give a Student Entering Medical School

Supreme court justices & health services researchers cite bad science in Affirmative Action debate

A Listener Criticizes Our Conversation on Medical Journals

Speaking with One Voice on Cancer Screening

Placebos/ Journals are Failing/ Cancer Screening

The Study of the Week Looks Back and Asks One Question

"I just want to work on my car"

Lipid lowering - a Bempedoic Acid Subset Analysis – To be right, you have to also look at what is left.

Why Attribution Bias Might be the Costliest Bias

Aging, Senescence, and the Human Condition

The Study of the Week Celebrates Independence Day

Friday Reflection 24: I Would Rather Go Back in Time

Mandrola Chooses a Favorite Academic Article

Sensible medicine

Study of the Week: Cardiovascular Safety of Testosterone Replacement Therapy

Rochelle Walensky’s Report Card on Women’s Health

Oseltamivir Continues to Teach Us Lessons

Friday Reflection 23: The Ghost Patient Panel

Does the Shingles Vaccine Stop Dementia... in women... and even more than it stops shingles?

A Controlled Trial of Arthroscopic Surgery for Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Medical Conservatism, the ELAN Trial, and Residents Striking

Part 2 - The ELAN Trial Forces Doctors to Be Mature About Using Medical Evidence

Skeptics

Medical Evidence, Hype, Cancer Drugs, Conflict

A Simple Study May Herald a Big Change in Evidence-Based Medicine

Friday Reflection 22: The Memory Binder

“What’s in a Word”: from Gendered Suffixes to Medical Spin

Highs and Lows

What are science journals for, anyway?

Study of the Week Takes a Pause

A Heartfelt Plea to Become A Primary Care General Internist

The Infomercial Comes to The Wall Street Journal

Self-reported Cannabis Use as a Risk Factor for Schizophrenia in Swedish Conscripts of 1969: Historical Cohort Study

Some Surrogate Endpoints Are Fine

Seeding trials/ Choosing Students

Pfizer's Maternal RSV Vaccine Clears FDA Advisory Committee

Friday Reflection #21: Revealing Ignorance

Medicine as a Right

Public health experts went on Twitter between May to October 2022 and promoted blatant misinformation about Monkeypox

Boycotting medical conferences in red states due to restrictive abortion laws does not help women

When Studies Don’t Answer Their Question

"It's hopeless," the prospect of reforming cancer trials

Mammography - everything you need to know

The Political Badge of Ignoring Natural Immunity

Red Blood Cell Transfusion Practices: A Paragon of EBM?

Mandrola gives VP Health Advice

Understanding Benefits of a Treatment

Friday Reflection 20: The Clinical Set Point

Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease with Pravastatin in Men with Hypercholesterolemia

ABMS Maintenance of Certification - It’s Origins, Realities, and Implications for Medicine – Part II

The Great Chat GPT debate

Doctors vs Chatbot – The First Round

ChatGPT crushes real doctors in answering patient questions

ABMS Maintenance of Certification – Its Origins, Realities, and Implications for Medicine – Part I

Suicide and Opioids: No Easy Answers, No Sweeping Conclusions

The Uncertainty of Clinical Trial Results

Medical uncertainty, 7th dose, ABIM and Modules

How does Cochrane normally handle wide confidence intervals?

Death and Isolation During a Pandemic

GDMT Bugs Me

Does Black Representation Save Lives?

CDC Reform—Where Should We Start?

New Study Looks at Vaccine-Associated Cardiac Deaths in Young People

Friday Reflection 19: A Pledge That Can Be Hard to Honor

Friday Reflection #19: A Pledge That Can Be Hard to Honor

No civilized or lawful purpose is served by executing the severely mentally ill

Postmenopausal Estrogen and Progestin Use and the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Does Serious Exercise Harm Muscles in Statin Users?

RSV vaccines/ Mifepristone/ Overtreatment/ Long COVID

Pfizer's RSV Vaccine in Pregnant Women

Debunkers return to the 'soft targets'

Preparing to Battle the Computers

Transcript of 4/2 Podcast

Tidbits on Psychiatric Technique

Breakthroughs in Obesity?

Chat GPT - Medical Journals - Treating early disease states

Evidence based medicine: misunderstood and in decline

Friday Reflection #18: An Homage to Mentors

Friday Reflection 18: An Homage to Mentors

Caffeine Intake and the Risk of First-Trimester Spontaneous Abortion

Welcome to Wikipedia World

Using Evidence Requires Caution

Denmark: Where Everyone Agrees with me about Covid-19 and Oncology

My Favorite Articles

The FDA has an invisible clinical trials problem. Creative nudging could help to solve it

Why do we treat Zoloft and Ritalin so differently?

Match day memories

Bempedoic Acid-- A medicine for a condition that may not exist

Transcript of the 3/19/23 Podcast

The Sensible Medicine Podcast: 3/19/2023

Friday Reflection 17: The Grace of the Dying

Friday Reflection 17: The Grace of the Dying

The Cochrane Mask Fiasco

A Fatally Flawed Study Enjoys a Warm Reception

Can you Exercise Too Much/ Shredding Trust in Public Health

The Foibles of Flexner

A Reflection on Humility

3/5/23 Podcast transcript

How Doctors are Fooled

4th year fellowship | Expertise| LONG Covid

The Train Ride

Friday Reflection 16: The Evolution of a Stable Practice

Friday Reflection 16: The Evolution of a Stable Practice

Vaping: The Great Innovation Public Health Failed to Embrace

Diversity advocates have abandoned poor & minority children and focus on virtue signaling to their peers

Sensible Medicine

Characteristics of a Successful Screening Test

Yet Another Broken Study Passes Peer and Editorial Review

The inertia of clinical trials and unethical control arms

The Young Person’s Guide to Empathy

Media advice on how to avoid Flu changed after COVID; But, the evidence didn't

Tidbits on Psychiatric Technique

Recommending Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation is a Gut-Wrenching Decision in Medicine

A Flawed Analysis Induces Severe Sadness

Public health lied about Natural immunity; Conflict of interest

Dear Oncology Fellows: We Must All Stand Up For Patients

Friday Reflection #15: Of Medicine, Baseball and Other Distractions

Friday Reflection #15: Of Medicine, Baseball and Other Distractions

Health Justice Monitor Annual Review 2022

Vaping: The Great Innovation Public Health Failed to Embrace

The “evidence pyramid” should be dismantled, brick by ill-conceived brick

Superbowl Edition - Sensible Medicine

On Death and Its Futility

On Death and Its Futility

Cochrane masking review reveals how academics are absolute hypocrites

Tidbits on Psychiatric Technique

Let's Do the Cochrane Review of Physical Measures to Reduce the Spread of Viruses

Sensible Medicine Podcast Episode 4

Hospital masking should be optional

Episode #3

Friday Reflection 14: Committing and Avoiding Medical Errors

More Rantings About Rankings

Servant or Master

An Easy Way to Spot Bias in Observational Studies

Episode #2 - Dropping out of USN&WR Med School Rankings

Three Points Regarding the Brouhaha about Medical Schools Withdrawing from U.S. News and World Report Rankings

Sensible Medicine the inaugural podcast episode

NYTimes is now Pro-Obesity & Mt Sinai Med School Says Weight Loss is Racist: Medicine is Drowning in Deranged Ideas.

The Meta-research Study I Want to See

It’s Time To Rely on More Than Altruism. It’s Time to Reward Kidney Donors.

The Case of Statins, Diabetes, and Bias in Observational Studies

Friday Reflection 13: Empathy Earned and Learned

Can We Please Stop Asking if Crossword Puzzles Prevent Dementia?

Finding Bias Before the First Patient is Enrolled

The American Academy of Pediatrics is Pushing Drugs & Surgery for Obesity

No, a healthy 20 year old man who had COVID19 should NOT GET a bivalent booster

In Defense of the Randomized Trial

Does Dr. Fauci still work at the NIH?

Nationwide Shortage of Tamiflu – and Other Good News

Yet Another Story on Re-Analyzing a Major Trial

Friday Reflection 12: This Job Might Just Kill Me

What Happens in Classrooms Shouldn’t Stay in Classrooms

Our New Analysis of Myocarditis after Vaccination: Combining 85 year old women with 20 year old men is Bad Medicine