Health article roundup

Eliot Spitzer and the price-placebo effect -- So it turns out that there is evidence supporting the theory that when someone pays more for a purchase, they actually enjoy it more, based on brain activity. I guess that doesn't totally surprise me. But what COMPLETELY surprised me was the experiment where they gave people the "energy drink" and the ones who knew it had been purchased at a discount performed worse on the word puzzle, yet the knew it was the exact same drink! I am apparently completely different from all of these test subjects, because I get MUCH more pleasure out of purchases if they are bought at a discount, especially if they are the exact same as the full-price version. I love getting a deal. Oh, and best phrase of the whole article? Eliot Spitzer's "tragicomic downfall."

Training Daze: Why do doctors fixate on diagnosis, not treatment? -- This Slate article is pretty interesting. It kind of goes all over the place, touching on a few different issues. The first is, why do doctors fixate on diagnosis? The answer is pretty clear -- that's the fun of it. We all want to be Sherlock Holmes, figuring out the mystery. They're right that "any old doctor can write a prescription" -- in fact, I routinely get to write prescriptions, because that's how much of a low-level job it is (I just need the doctor to sign them). Of course, what they're really talking about is not actually the writing of the prescription, but the choosing of the prescription to write. And that is left up to the residents. In academic medicine, for the most part, the attending oversees what the resident is doing and double checks to make sure the diagnosis is right, but treatment options are varied and, for the most part, one is as good as another, so that part is left up to the resident. Some things have guidelines -- infectious disease, for instance, is full of guidelines for antimicrobial use. But otherwise, there's a lot of gestalt in choosing treatment regimens. "I like metoprolol," you might hear someone say. "I've had good results with it, I really like it." And in academic medicine, the physicians and residents are much more likely to know why they're prescribing what they're prescribing and can quote you the research studies. But we ALL read Up to Date all the time, no doubt about it. I love it. Up to Date and Wikipedia are pretty much my go-to sources for quick information. Find it disturbing that Wikipedia is educating medical students? Don't be -- it's pretty accurate stuff. In any case, the bottom-line of the article, that you should ask your doctor WHY he or she is recommending a certain treatment, is pretty good advice. Empower yourself to take charge of your own medical care.