Search Results for "attai"

Attai, MD, FACS

Breast center marketing pitch via reporter’s live-streamed mammogram was a bad idea

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is over for another year.  But it’s not too late to reflect on, and learn from, one of the most troublesome breast center marketing ideas in recent memory. As described in stories all over the globe, including in the Washington Post, the NBC Today Show website, People magazine, Adweek, and Fox News, a […]

How one bit of medical jargon fuels public confusion about cancer treatments

Most new cancer treatments haven’t been proven to help patients live longer or feel better. Instead they delay the growth of tumors — which may be faster to measure but doesn’t necessarily indicate a tangible benefit for patients. But you wouldn’t grasp that sobering fact from some recent news coverage: A headline in the UK’s […]

5 categories of quality web content for you to explore when we cease daily publication

Many of you have asked by email or on Twitter, “Where do we turn for help after you go away?” First, we’re not disappearing on January 1, 2019, and the site won’t go dark.  I’ll keep it alive for at least three years. And I hope to add new content periodically by hiring freelancers or writing […]

Year-ender 2018: Here’s how we can clean up the polluted stream of health care news

If there’s one thing our project has demonstrated unequivocally during its 12-plus-year run, it’s that many media messages about health care interventions are incomplete, imbalanced, and inaccurate – some of them egregiously so. But how do we restore balance and improve the information reaching the public? That’s a question that can’t be answered without understanding […]

Podcast: The top 10 quotes of 2018

Our 50th podcast takes a look back at some memorable conversations from the past year.

There’s quite a mix of insights here on everything from what it means to ‘cure’ Alzheimer’s and ‘survive’ cancer, to ‘science-ploitation’ and cutting through the hype surrounding precision medicine and the microbiome.

A veteran science communicator’s guidelines for PR news releases on medical research

  Earlier this week, HealthNewsReview publisher Gary Schwitzer wrote that the free news release review program he had offered was shutting down.  You could almost hear the disappointment in his explanation that barely more than a half-dozen institutions took advantage of this offer in the past 20 months it was available. “What more we can […]

Is social media hurting science … and people?

Is social media a friend or foe of science? An opinion piece published in JAMA last week suggests the latter: Protecting the Value of Medical Science in the Age of Social Media and ‘Fake News‘ The authors argue social media poses a threat to science in several ways: Unfettered publication of unvetted information by sources […]

‘Simply cruel’: Patient advocates condemn breast cancer immunotherapy hype

“Increases life expectancy,” announced Newsweek. “Helped slow an aggressive type of breast cancer,” reported Reuters. “Expected to change the standard of care,” crowed The New York Times. Judging by news reports last weekend, women with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer had reason to cheer results of a clinical trial of an immunotherapy drug called atezolizumab, which […]

5-Star Friday: Clarity

Sometimes things are clear as mud. This 5-star Friday is a good example. Take three of our choices below:  drug companies that aren’t drug companies, a tick-borne illness that may or may not be a disease, and the very human urge to be drawn to the repulsive. Other times things are quite clear. As in […]

Turning 40? You might want to skip this mammography primer from U.S. News

While more doctors embrace the idea that women should make their own informed decisions about when and how often to get screened for breast cancer, news reporting doesn’t always reflect that nuanced approach. Take a recent U.S. News feature entitled “12 Things to Know Before Your First Mammogram,” which could have provided women with balanced […]

Marketing misfire on ‘spa-like’ 3D mammograms: Comfort appeal distracts from real concerns on screening, experts say

There’s a reason mammograms are the perfect fodder for female comedians. There is little merriment in having your breast manipulated onto a table and then squeezed between square metal plates. But it does make for a good joke. That 30-second window of discomfort is also a great marketing opportunity. Over the past few months we’ve […]

Podcast: Doctors who blog

This podcast is about physicians who blog …

Why they do it, what they’ve taken away from the experience, and what they see as the role blogging plays in the medical information landscape.