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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine Surgery

When popularity outpaces science in surgery

In science- and evidence-based medicine, the evaluation of surgical procedures represents a unique challenge that is qualitatively different from the challenges in medical specialties. Perhaps the most daunting of these challenges is that it is often either logistically impossible or unethical to do the gold-standard clinical trial, a double-blind, randomized placebo trial, to test the […]

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Bioethics Cancer Medicine

Blogging on vacation?

OK, I know it’s like the post calling the kettle black, but what the heck is PalMD doing blogging on vacation? And are his two most recent posts so good? This is what I mean: Why hospice matters Never say “hopeless” I recently had the unfortunate opportunity to visit a relative in hospice. I was […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Thoughts on Dr. Rashid Buttar and the failure of state medical boards

One of the most contentious and difficult aspects of trying to improve medical care in this country is enforcing a minimal “standard of care.” Optimally, this standard of care should be based on science- and evidence-based medicine and act swiftly when a practitioner practices medicine that doesn’t meet even a minimal requirement for scientific studies […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Rashid Buttar’s going down: The North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners finally acts

Ah, a lazy Saturday morning. So here I am in the late morning, perusing my e-mail (including e-mail notifications of blog posts) after purposely not having checked them at all last night (and, in fact, even having gone to see a movie for the first time in many months), and what should a reader send […]

Categories
Cancer Medicine Science

A loss is felt

As I wing my way back home from San Diego, I’ve had a bit of time to digest what I saw and learned at the AACR meeting. Overall, it was an above average but definitely not outstanding meeting, and I may discuss specifics more at a later time. One key theme that seems to be […]