Health Blog

How Well Does Your Doctor Communicate with You?

WSJ Staff — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 16:12:43 +0000

Patients' complaints about doctors are finally being taken seriously, as poor communication is increasingly understood to be at the root of many of health care’s failures—and a leading culprit in rising costs. Research shows that when doctors don’t listen to patients, they miss important health cues and misdiagnose illness. Meanwhile, patients who don’t understand what their doctors say fail to follow their regimens, leading to preventable hospitalizations, complications and poor outcomes.

How Companies Can Foster Healthy Employees

WSJ Staff — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:16:29 +0000

Many employers offer wellness programs to contain their health-care costs—and perhaps also improve morale and productivity.

Vote: Do You Want to Know What’s in Your Genes?

WSJ Staff — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:16:59 +0000

For healthy people, is there a compelling reason to know if your genes make you susceptible to a specific disease or condition? Or are there some things you’re better off not knowing?

How Often for Mammograms?

WSJ Staff — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:14:29 +0000

Changing recommendations for when women should get mammograms have created conflict and confusion. Not only do recommendations from different sources vary, but some have moved in opposite directions.

News from the Health Blog

WSJ Staff — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:53:54 +0000

We're updating the Health Blog infrequently. Please consider bookmarking the Journal's Health and Wellness page, for daily updates on health news and analysis.

Vote: Should men get PSA tests to screen for prostate cancer?

WSJ Staff — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:51:24 +0000

Prostate cancer hits one in six American men in their lifetimes, though in most cases it progresses so slowly that it would never cause problems. PSA tests can give an early warning of prostate cancer. But PSA tests also give many false alarms, prompting more than one million unnecessary biopsies every year.

Vote: Are ADHD Medications Overprescribed?

WSJ Staff — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:04:50 +0000

The number of children being treated with prescription medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has soared in recent years. Some doctors, parents and child advocates have become concerned that many children are taking medication unnecessarily. What do you think?

One Woman’s Drug-Resistant TB, Echoing Around the World

WSJ Staff — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 02:44:34 +0000

: Chiara Goia for The Wall Street; Rahima Sheikh's yearslong effort to beat tuberculosis left her, in the end, all but untreatable. She displays scans in the Mumbai slum she shared with her husband and daughter.

By Geeta Anand This weekend's Wall Street Journal has the story of Rahima Sheikh, one of India's first documented cases of tuberculosis that is resistant to virtually all the medicines approved to treat it. Over the past six years, Mrs. Sheikh, 40 years old, mortgaged her family's rice fields, spent her father's and brother's life savings, and crisscrossed India in search of a cure for tuberculosis. But instead of getting healthier, Mrs. Sheikh grew increasingly resistant to medication with each failed treatment. Her six-year journey to all-but-incurable TB exposes a blind spot in an Indian medical bureaucracy that, for decades, neglected to implement widespread testing or treatment for drug-resistant strains.

Should Medicare’s Eligibility Age Be Raised?

WSJ Staff — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:18:01 +0000

With tens of millions of baby boomers heading into retirement, Medicare’s long-term financial prognosis is grim. One proposed solution is to raise the eligibility age gradually to 67 from 65. What do you think?

A.M. Vitals: Democrats Ready Response on Medicare

Mark Long — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 12:16:09 +0000

Also: Bristol-Myers recalls more than 31,000 vials of the brain-tumor drug carmustine; a study links rosacea to a form of bacteria that lives in a type of skin mite; and researchers find the balance between the benefits of omega-3 oils and mercury in fish isn't clear.