Health Highlights – October 30th, 2009

Health Highlights is a biweekly summary of particularly interesting articles from credible sources of health and medical information that we follow & read. For a complete list of recommeded sources, see our links page.

• Journal of Participatory Medicine Launches at Connected Health | e-Patients.net

  A new academic journal is being launched this week. The Journal of Participatory Medicine will move the field from anecdote to science, with articles on principles, methods and evidence-based outcomes.

• Doctors have a duty to engage in social media | KevinMD.com

  This is how we fight health misinformation on the Web. Are you a physician, nurse or medical professional? It’s time to start using social media.

• What happens to neurology patients with symptoms “unexplained”? | BPS Research Digest

  What happens when neurology patients are told that their symptoms have no identifiable physical cause? Researchers followed patients for a year and a half to see if and how their diagnoses changed.

• Clean Those Surfaces! More Ways to Prevent Flu | Pulse + Signal

  No matter how many times you wash your hands, if your keyboard, desk or doorknob has flu germs on it, you have a problem.

• What the FDA sees that doctors and patients may never know | Schwitzer health news blog

  Gary Schwitzer notes a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine that focused on how critical drug information from the FDA may fail to be included on the drug label or in relevant journal articles.

• New PubMed Video (U of Manitoba) | davidrothman.net

  The PubMed website has been redesigned. David Rothman posts a short video tutorial showing where you can find some useful tools in the new interface.

• In The U.S., Where You Live Determines The Healthcare That You Get | Healthcare Hacks

  The State Scorecard study shows that there are wide variations among states in the areas of access, quality, cost, equity and ability to live long and healthy lives.

• More About Patients and the Press | Doctor David’s Blog

  Participatory medicine is a model of medical care in which the active role of the patient is emphasized. Some patients not only take an active role, they push the boundaries of medicine and publish a case report describing their experience.

• Side-effects from placebos can be drug specific | Mind Hacks

  Have you ever wondered if patients given a placebo during a clinical trial experience side effects? It turns out they do. What’s more, a recent study examining the side effects reported by patients taking placebos in clinical trials to test migraine medications found that the placebo side effects are specific to the side effects that would be expected from the comparison drug.