Expressing empathy — identifying and understanding a patient’s feelings and motives — is a clinical skill that even experienced physicians can have trouble mastering, research shows. But what if it could be taught by something that seems unfeeling: a computer program?

Apparently, it can, according to a recent study that examined how often oncologists empathize when patients relay feelings such as fear, sadness or distress.

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New Orleans — The American Medical Association House of Delegates adopted new policies aimed at preventing deadly radiation overdoses and curbing the cumulative lifetime impact of radiation from diagnostic tests such as computed tomography.

Delegates at the November Interim Meeting voted to support education and standards for the medical personnel, usually nonphysicians, who use ionizing and nonionizing radiation to ensure that they know how to avoid over-radiating patients. The AMA also will support raising awareness among patients about medical radiation exposure.

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New Orleans — The American Medical Association will step up efforts to help physicians prevent misuse and abuse of prescription drugs.

At its Interim Meeting in November, the House of Delegates directed the AMA to promote physician training and competence on the proper use of controlled substances and encourage doctors to use screening tools from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and others to identify patients likely to abuse prescription drugs. The directive also calls on the AMA to make substance abuse identification and treatment resources available and encourage physicians to query the prescription-drug monitoring programs established in 36 states.

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Despite the proliferation of health care quality and cost information online, for-profit websites that rely on anecdotal patient reports are the easiest ones to find using the Google search engine.

Of the top 30 results that appear when searching for physician-centric terms such as “quality clinic” or “best doctors Minnesota,” 67% include information based on patient experience. Only 22% of the results feature data drawn from evidence-based measures of physician performance.

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New Orleans — The AMA House of Delegates said the rising number of critical drug shortages constitutes a “national public health emergency” that requires a swift and sophisticated response to address the complex roots of the crisis.

The tally of drugs classified as being in shortage by the Food and Drug Administration tripled from 61 in 2005 to 178 in 2010. Nearly three-quarters of the shortages involved sterile injectables, and 80% of the shortage drugs are generics. More than half of drug shortages are due to manufacturing quality problems, the FDA says.

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Chicago — Nashville, Tenn., psychiatrist Andrew Michel, MD, often feels frustrated in his practice. He says his specialty’s diagnostic system is not well-validated, that psychotropic medications are frequently ineffective, and that managed care means there is never enough time to plumb the depths of his patients’ mental anguish.

Dr. Michel draws upon his Christian faith to find the will to sustain his commitment to medicine amid these challenges.

On a busy day, moving from one all-too-brief appointment to the next, he has time only for a simple prayer: “Lord, have mercy.”

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An independent federal body should be formed to investigate patient deaths and other adverse events related to health information technology, according to an Institute of Medicine report released in November.

Also, the federal government should work with health information technology vendors to reduce patient safety problems associated with electronic systems and mandate reporting of health IT-related adverse events, the panel said.

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Industry and consumer-advocacy groups are voicing concerns about Health and Human Services Dept. delays in implementing the physician-payment disclosure provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The agency missed the law’s Oct. 1 deadline for issuing regulatory guidance to pharmaceutical and medical-device companies on how to report payments to physicians. Reporting of any consulting fees, honoraria, travel and entertainment worth more than $10 given to doctors is supposed to start March 31, 2013, with the information available on a searchable federal government website starting Sept. 30, 2013. Beginning in 2012, companies are required to start collecting the data to be reported publicly.

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With patients’ permission, relatives can play an active role in the exam room. But don’t let them take over.

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Eighty-five percent of physicians say it is important to know what patients expect from a hospital stay to ensure high-quality care, yet only one in 10 doctors asks about patient expectations.

Nurses are likelier to quiz patients about their expectations, with 20% doing so, according to a survey of more than 1,000 physicians and nurses in the U.S. and three other countries published in November’s BMJ Quality and Safety.

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The number of first-time applicants to allopathic medical schools reached an all-time high of 32,654 students, a 2.6% rise from 2010, said an Assn. of American Medical Colleges report released in October.

Enrollment in medical schools grew at its fastest rate, 3%, since the turn of the century. More than 19,000 medical students matriculated in 2011, reflecting a nationwide push for expanded enrollment and students’ interest in a career as a physician.

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A new law in Illinois is enabling use of unclaimed bodies in anatomical education to help combat a shortage of cadavers amid a growth in medical school enrollment. The move could signal a nationwide resurrection of the decades-old practice of giving medical schools first choice on unclaimed bodies before they are buried at public expense.

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Reports show that the vast majority of Americans are failing to reduce their sodium intake, are unaware of federal dietary guidelines and are largely unconcerned with their daily sodium consumption.

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