On Thursday, Congressional leaders will meet with President Obama for a "healthcare summit." While the meaning of the healthcare summit is largely political, it is not to say that new substantive direction might not come out of it, says Sg2 Vice President Stephen Jenkins. "Thursday's meeting is largely about the President's attempt to reset the political table and re-energize the process," Jenkins writes. "The odds are against him, but reform could gain new momentum."
American doctors have steadily cut their work hours over the past decade, a new study finds, something that experts say may only worsen the U.S. healthcare situation. Average hours dropped from about 55 to 51 hours per week from 1996 to 2008, according to the analysis. That's the equivalent of losing 36,000 doctors in a decade, according to the researchers.
President Obama has issued his own blueprint for a healthcare overhaul. The bill, which the White House estimates would cost $950 billion over a decade, aims to fulfill President Obama's goals of expanding coverage to millions of people who are uninsured, while taking steps to control soaring healthcare costs. It also sticks largely to the version passed by the Senate in December, but offers some concessions to House leaders who have demanded more help for middle-class people, the New York Times reports.
After speculation that the White House would narrow its ambitions for healthcare legislation after the loss of the Democrats' filibuster-proof Senate majority, President Obama's proposal adheres to the bills on which Congress has worked on for months, the Washington Post reports. The decision emerged quickly inside the White House after senior advisers to President Obama concluded privately that his goals for comprehensive changes to the healthcare system could not be done piecemeal, reports the Post.
More than half of the U.S. medical residency programs to train doctors in internal medicine accepted financial support from the drug industry, even though three-fourths of the programs' directors said accepting the aid was "not desirable," a survey found. The survey, conducted in 2006 and 2007, found that drug companies paid for educational materials like pocket guides in 83% of the programs that accepted support, meals in 90%, office supplies in 68% and drug samples in 57%.
Kaitlin D. Staniforth has been appointed director of Marketing and Public Relations at Saint Luke's East-Lee's Summit. Staniforth joined Saint Luke's Health System in 2006 as an intern in the Marketing division and was hired that year as a public relations assistant. Most recently Staniforth was a public relations manager for Saint Luke's Health System.