1. Sixth Edition of American College of Physicians Ethics Manual Addresses New Topics and Expands on Recurrent Issues. The American College of Physicians (ACP) has released the sixth edition of its Ethics Manual. New topics in the updated manual address the patient-physician relationship during health catastrophes, providing culturally sensitive care, use of human biologic materials in research, social media and online professionalism, industry sponsored research, and the challenges of taking care of so-called very important persons.

Many people with dementia don't realize they have the disease until it's at an advanced stage, when everyone can tell something is wrong. Other people might start forgetting dates or names and worry they have dementia, yet their memory problems are just a normal consequence of aging. Having primary care doctors routinely screen patients for dementia at annual check up visits just like they do for high blood pressure or cholesterol could identify people in need of dementia care and reassure those who are healthy. That's what dementia experts argued at a meeting held last month in New York City, as reported on Alzforum.

Labour economics can provide a valuable perspective in addressing the supply of doctors and access to care, states an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"Understanding and accurately predicting the response of physicians to incentives is essential if governments wish to increase the supply of physician services," writes Brian Golden, Sandra Rotman Chair in Health Sector Strategy, the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, with coauthors.

Patients overall in the United States are very satisfied with their physicians and with treatment they receive in outpatient settings, according to new information which challenges common public perceptions about outpatient medical treatment.

"Particularly surprising is that even a lot of patients who reported average encounters with physicians, such as average national wait times and average physician encounter time, seem to be giving full marks to their physician in terms of visit satisfaction," said Rajesh Balkrishnan, lead study author and associate professor in the University of Michigan School of Public Health and College of Pharmacy.

Physicians who once only grappled with learning the language of medicine must now also cope with a health care world that has turned hospitals into factories and reduced clinical encounters to economic transactions, two Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center physicians lament.

"Patients are no longer patients, but rather 'customers' or 'consumers'. Doctors and nurses have transmuted into 'providers,' Pamela Hartzband, MD and Jerome Groopman MD, write in the Oct. 13 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients being treated for chronic hepatitis C become less likely to take their medications over time, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Since the study also showed better response to the drugs when they're taken correctly, the researchers say the findings should prompt clinicians to assess patients for barriers to medication adherence throughout their treatment, and develop strategies to help them stay on track. The study is published online this month in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Doctors and other medical professionals occasionally joke about their patients' problems. Some of these jokes are clearly wrong, but some joking between medical professionals is not only ethical, it can actually be beneficial, concludes an article in the Hastings Center Report.

Residents who attend conferences that focus on missed or misinterpreted cases are 67% less likely to miss important findings when reading on-call musculoskeletal x-ray images, a new study shows.

"Residents had 55 major discrepancies out of 5,326 x-ray studies of the shoulder, elbow, hand, wrist, ankle, foot, pelvis and knee before we began holding regular focused missed case conferences," said Dr. Jason Itri, of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the authors of the study. That number dropped to 18 major discrepancies out of 5,272 x-rays studies after the focus missed-case conferences became part of the resident education program, he said.

Routine screening for depression in primary care patients has not been shown to be beneficial or an effective use of scarce health care resources, which would be better focused on providing more consistent treatment of people with depression, concludes an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Tattooing, which leaves an indelible mark on the body, has been around for thousands of years. There are many reasons why people get tattooed. People choose to ink their bodies to reflect their personality, beliefs and thoughts or just to make a fashion statement.