首页
登录
职称英语
I recently took care of a 50-year-old man who had been admitted to the hospita
I recently took care of a 50-year-old man who had been admitted to the hospita
游客
2023-12-15
46
管理
问题
I recently took care of a 50-year-old man who had been admitted to the hospital short of breath. During his monthlong stay he was seen by a hematologist, an endocrinologist, a kidney specialist, a podiatrist, two cardiologists, a cardiac electrophysiologist, an infectious-diseases specialist, a pulmonologist, an ear-nose-throat specialist, a urologist, a gastroenterologist, a neurologist, a nutritionist, a general surgeon, a thoracic surgeon and a pain specialist.
He underwent 12 procedures, including cardiac catheterization, a pacemaker implant and a hone-marrow biopsy (to work-up chronic anemia).
Despite this wearying schedule, he maintained an upbeat manner, walking the corridors daily with as sistance to chat with nurses and physician assistants. When he was discharged, follow-up visits were scheduled for him with seven specialists.
This man’s case, in which expert consultations sprouted with little rhyme, reason or coordination, reinforced a lesson I have learned many times since entering practice: In our health care system, where doctors are paid piecework for their services, if you have a slew of physicians and a willing patient, almost any sort of terrible excess can occur.
Though accurate data is lacking, the overuse of services in health care probably cost hundreds of billions of dollars last year, out of the more than $ 2 trillion that Americans spent on health.
Are we getting our money’s worth? Not according to the usual measures of public health. The United States ranks 45th in life expectancy, behind Bosnia and Jordan; near last, compared with other developed countries, in infant mortality; and in last place, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health-care research group, among major industrialized countries in health-care quality, access and efficiency.
And in the United States, regions that spend the most on health care appear to have higher mortality rates than regions that spend the least, perhaps because of increased hospitalization rates that result in more life-threatening errors and infections. It has been estimated that if the entire country spent the same as the lowest spending regions, the Medicare program alone could save about $ 40 billion a year.
Overutilization is driven by many factors—"defensive" medicine by doctors trying to avoid lawsuits; patients’ demands; a pervading belief among doctors and patients that newer, more expensive technology is better.
The most important factor, however, may be the perverse financial incentives of our current system.
Overeonsultation and overtesting have now become facts of the medical profession. The culture in practice is to grab patients and generate volume. "Medicine has become like everything else," a doctor told me recently. "Everything moves because of money."
Consider medical imaging. According to a federal commission, from 1999 to 2004 the growth in the volume of imaging services per Medicare patient far outstripped the growth’ of all other physician services. In 2004, the cost of imaging services was close to $100 billion, or an average of roughly $350 per person in the United States.
Not long ago, I visited a friend—a cardiologist in his late 30s—at his office on Long Island to ask him about imaging in private practices.
"When I started in practice, I wanted to do the right thing," he told me matter-of-factly. "A young woman would come in with palpitations. I’d tell her she was fine. But then I realized that she’d just go down the street to another physician and he’d order all the tests anyway: echocardiogram, stress test, Holter monitor—stuff she didn’t really need. Then she’d go around and tell her friends what a great doctor— a thorough doctor—the other cardiologist was.
"I tried to practice ethical medicine, but it didn’t help. It didn’t pay, both from a financial and a reputation standpoint. "
Last year, Congress approved steep reductions in Medicare payments for certain imaging services. Deeper cuts will almost certainly be forthcoming. This is good; unnecessary imaging is almost certainly taking place, leading to false-positive results, unnecessary invasive procedures, more complications and so on,
But the problem in medicine today is much larger than imaging. Doctors are doing too much testing and too many procedures, often for the sake of business. And patients, unfortunately, are paying the price.
"The hospital is a great place to be when you are sick," a hospital executive told me recently. "But I don’t want my mother in here five minutes longer than she needs to be." [br] The word "imaging" in the eleventh paragraph means
选项
A、a picture that you have in your mind, especially about what someone or something is like or the way they look.
B、a technical process in which pictures of the inside of someone’s body are produced.
C、the process of making a scientific or computer model of something to show how it works or to understand it better.
D、the opinion people have of a person, organization, product etc.
答案
B
解析
语义题。medical imaging很明显是医学检验手段的一种,意思为“医学影像”,故B正确。A和 D是image的英文释义,而非医学上的imaging,故排除。C是modelling的释义,与上下文意思不符,故排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3276432.html
相关试题推荐
Twotechniqueshaverecentlybeendevelopedtosimplifyresearchandreducet
Twotechniqueshaverecentlybeendevelopedtosimplifyresearchandreducet
Recently,apossiblealternativewayofproducingpaperhasbeensuggestedby
Recently,apossiblealternativewayofproducingpaperhasbeensuggestedby
Recently,apossiblealternativewayofproducingpaperhasbeensuggestedby
Recently,apossiblealternativewayofproducingpaperhasbeensuggestedby
Recently,apossiblealternativewayofproducingpaperhasbeensuggestedby
"Iwouldn’twanttohavesomeonetakemydaughtertoahospitalforanaborti
"Iwouldn’twanttohavesomeonetakemydaughtertoahospitalforanaborti
WhenaMassachusettsbiotechcompanyrecentlydeclaredthatitsresearchersh
随机试题
Allofthefollowingarethedescriptionsof[b]EXCEPT______.A、bilabialB、fricati
Somepsychologistsmaintainthatmentalactssuchasthinkingarenotperfor
下列工业分布与其工业布局趋向和格局的正确组合是(??)A.英国阿伯丁的石油工业—
C标准1molC(石墨)完全燃烧生成CO2(g)的热效应等于CO2(g)的标准摩尔生成焓。
患者男,43岁,主因食欲减退、乏力1年余就诊。查心肺未见异常,体温36.5℃,腹
自汉至唐,儒学被奉为“周(公)孔之道”,宋代以后儒学多被称作“孔孟之道”,促成这
现浇预应力混凝土连续梁的常用施工方法有()。A、支架法 B、顶推法 C、
M公司用甲材料生产A产品,甲材料标准价格是100元/千克,用量标准为5千克/件。
期货公司应当定期向中国期货保证全监控中心提交客户的影像资料,包话()A.个人
能滋阴润燥的药物是A.知母 B.芦根 C.青葙子 D.竹叶 E.天花粉
最新回复
(
0
)