Perspectives
A Word From the President
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Scaling the mountaintops of academic medicine
by Darrell G. Kirch, MD, AAMC President and CEO
Spiraling drug costs and threats to the 340B program hurt patients
by Darrell G. Kirch, MD, AAMC President and CEO
Addressing high prescription drug costs and ptoetcting the 340B Drug Pricing Program are critical to improving the health of patients and communities, says AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, MD.
Viewpoints
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
He studied life-changing traumas. Then he faced his own.
by Dennis S Charney, MD
After a near-fatal attack, a medical school dean found his own resiliency. Here’s how he did it — and the wisdom he offers others.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Bullying’s brutal impact
by Joseph Wright, MD, MPH
Physical pain, depression, anxiety, even suicide: the effects of bullying are profound. How academic medicine can — and must — help those who suffer.
The numbers can seem overwhelming.
Each year in the United States, 90,000 people die from hospital-acquired infections, according to a 2018 report from The Leapfrog Group. More than 17,000 malpractice lawsuits are filed annually, and doctors can expect to be sued once every seven years. Estimates of pharmaceutical spending in the United States ranged from $323 billion to as much as $477 billion in 2016, a 2018 analysis from Health Affairs found.
The problems are large, but small measures can have big impacts, whether it’s tweaking electronic health records (EHRs) to increase generic drug use or apologizing to patients for medical errors. Here are five ways that academic medical centers are improving patient care, saving lives, and reducing costs.
Academic Medicine in the News
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Residents train in rural areas, thanks to new partnership
To combat the shortage of physicians in rural areas, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has partnered with Cahaba Medical Care, a family medicine group with clinics in counties across Alabama, to provide rural communities with more physicians. Each year, 12 residents will split their time between Cahaba’s clinics and UAB’s hospitals.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
New app summarizing landmark medical studies launches
Michael Hockman, MD, director of the Gehr Family Center for Health Systems Science at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, created an app that summarizes landmark medical studies in a variety of disciplines. Called “50 Studies,” the app will help residents, physicians, and other health care professionals quickly familiarize themselves with key studies, staying on top of the latest findings in their fields.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
New finding suggests ‘HIV remission’ is possible
Researchers at John Hopkins University School of Medicine have identified two patients with a natural ability to suppress HIV. While based on small numbers, the data suggest that long-term viral remission might be possible for more people.
