Clinician's Roundtable

Guest: Gail Rosseau, MD Host: Bruce Japsen More than half of all students accepted into medical schools are women, but only a fraction of neurosurgeons are female. Dr. Gail Rosseau, of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, tells host Bruce Japsen about a new paper that highlights these challenges and provides recommendations on how to improve the profession and care for patients.

Guest: Winifred Hayes, PhD Host: Bruce Japsen The health technology assessment, something gaining momentum in hospitals as a way to improve patient care, can be a challenge to implement. Dr. Winifred Hayes, founder and chief executive officer of Hayes Inc. tells host Bruce Japsen how this can be done and what the doctor's role should be in this process.

Guest: Winifred Hayes, PhD Host: Bruce Japsen Evidence-based technology assessment may be an unfamiliar term to most of us, but it is gaining momentum in the health-care industry. Dr. Winifred Hayes, chief executive of Hayes Inc., tells the Chicago Tribune's Bruce Japsen why it may be a solution to controlling health care costs, and how it has gained the support of such varied sources as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the prestigious Institute of Medicine.

Guest: Xavier Sevilla, MD, FAAP Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Dr. Xavier Sevilla, practicing pediatrician and the Academy of Pediatrics representative to NCQA's Advisory Panel on the patient-centered medical home, walks us through the experience of building a medical home from the ground-up. From staffing to record-keeping, he considers the components that have helped him to develop a pediatric practice with the elements of a medical home. How can you use his experience to shape your practice? Hosted by Dr. Larry Kaskel.

Guest: Xavier Sevilla, MD, FAAP Host: Larry Kaskel, MD What makes a medical home any different than the primary care model in which we have practiced for years? Join host, Dr. Larry Kaskel speak with our guest, Dr. Xavier Sevilla, Practicing Pediatrician and the Academy of Pediatrics representative to NCQA's Advisory Panel on the Patient Centered Medical Home. Dr. Sevilla warns, "This is the last time for us to get it right to practice primary care." We need to get rid of fragmented care and provide patients with superb access with their primary clinician. Learn the key elements that make a practice a medical home and also how fee structures work in a medical home.

Guest: Steven Greenberg, MD, PhD Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Dr. Steven Greenberg, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Hemorrhagic Stroke Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, talks with host Dr. Maurice Pickard about the somewhat unexpected finding of an increased frequency of cerebral microbleeds, and explains the potential impact of this discovery on cases of uncontrolled hypertension and cognitive changes. How might this complicate decisions to use antithrombotic therapy? Does this research add a new dimension to certain unexplained phenomena, such as lacunar infarcts or cerebral atrophy?

Guest: Robert C. Fifer, PhD Host: Gary Kohn, MD Dr. Robert C. Fifer, associate professor and director of audiology and speech-language pathology at Mailman Center for Child Development, in the department of pediatrics at University of Miami School of Medicine, talks with host Dr. Bruce Bloom about what physicians need to know about speech and language development. What are other likely causes of slow development? When should chronic otitus media be a concern?

Why do headaches often persist after taking a one-cent aspirin, yet disappear after taking a fifty-cent aspirin? Dan Ariely, behavioral economist and author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, refutes the common assumption that clinicians and patients behave in fundamentally rational ways. From ethics of least harm in pain management to recommendations for conservative vs aggressive therapies, from paying for 'premium' care services to choosing our providers or patients, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.

You see and hear a patient screaming. You feel the pain they are experiencing. Then soon, something quiets the screams, and quells the suffering. At the core of this transformation? A simple shot of saline. Dr. Dan Ariely, a professor of behavior economics at Duke University, who also holds an appointment at the media lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joins host Dr. Gary Kohn to discuss the observable evidence behind placebos.

Guest: Gary Becker, PhD Host: Maurice Pickard, MD Dr. Gary Becker, Nobel laureate and professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, joins host Dr. Maurie Pickard to discuss the connection between the gap in supply and demand in the economic market and the same gap in the organ transplant market. Dr. Becker presents a solution and answers the critics.