Copyright (c) 2010 Policy Studies Organization All rights reserved. http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp Recent documents in World Medical & Health Policy en-us Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:56:03 PST 3600 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art16 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art16 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:43 PST The Editors of the Journal are bringing to the readership's attention the most recent medical news and issues deserving consideration for developing medical and health policies, standards or use, and knowledge in counseling patients in preventive care. The readers might wish to visit additional medical news websites which are readily accessible, some free of charge, such as MedScape, Stone Heart, American College of Physicians and the World Medical Association news websites. Michelle Kloc http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art15 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art15 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:42 PST Book reviews of Koenig's 2008 Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet, and Fosarelli's 2008 Prayers & Rituals at a Time of Illness and Dying, investigating the impact of religion and spirituality on public health and medical practices. Arnauld Nicogossian http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art14 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art14 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:41 PST A review of David Watts' Bedside Manners critiquing writing style, content, and lack of overt statements about policy. Jeremy D. Mayer http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art13 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art13 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:40 PST A review of Jeffrey Lockwood's Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War, suggesting that there is a need to identify what infrastructure should be strengthened in the event of such unconventional warfare. Kevin Hallock http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art12 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art12 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:40 PST Health system stabilization and reconstruction support is a vital component of post-conflict and disaster assistance efforts, and has been an essential component of overall reconstruction efforts in Iraq. However, decades of conflict, deprivation of key resources, mismanagement, sanctions, and a massive exodus of health care providers have exacted a grave toll on Iraq's health care capacity; furthermore, the health system continues to suffer from the impact of the ongoing insurgency and sectarian violence. Iraq's key public health indicators are among the worst in the region. In light of these pressing concerns, the humanitarian situation in Iraq presents a unique and ongoing challenge to the international community, aid agencies, and other key stakeholders. This symposium served as a forum for international leaders to review reconstruction efforts thus far and collaboratively plan future steps in Iraq's health system reconstruction. David A. Tarantino Jr. Medicine and Health Sciences: Public Health: International Public Health Health Services Administration http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art11 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art11 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:39 PST For more than 60 years the World Medical Association has continued to serve as a platform to develop global medical policy on ethical and socio-medical issues. Many of the WMA policies have become landmarks in policy development reaching far beyond the community of physicians, as they have inspired or even become part of legal regulations and international action. Yet this work is not seen as a self-serving privilege, but as a service to the patients, the profession and society in general. It provides the basis for regulation and self-governance based on the aim to serve the individual person's and the populations' health and well-being. Otmar Kloiber http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art10 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art10 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:37 PST This paper uses a case study design to compare the U.S. health insurance system with that of South Korea, analyzing the effects of the two countries' cultural value systems, political institutions, and stakeholders on the historical development and current status of national health insurance policy. The authors find that in the United States, a value system characterized by anti-statism, anti-elitism, individualism, liberalism, and a laissez-faire philosophy has acted, in combination with a decentralized democratic political system and strong, well-organized interest groups opposed to publicly-funded healthcare, to significantly limit the possibility of national health insurance reform on anything but an incremental basis. In contrast, South Korea's value system has been characterized by statism, elitism, groupism, and a philosophy of nobles oblige, which has interacted with autocratic but health insurance reform-minded regimes, in a weak civil society (with particularly weak organizations representing anti-health reform interests) where formal lobbying activities were illegal, to produce a policy environment particularly favorable to comprehensive health insurance reform from the 1960s through the 1980s. The study demonstrates that each country has not only different political institutions and laws governing interest groups, but also significantly different cultures and medical traditions, which must be considered if policy reforms in either country, or indeed for any country considering health insurance reform, are to be implemented successfully. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of implications of these findings on health insurance reforms in both countries, with particular consideration of the reform plans of the Obama administration in the United States. Soogwan Doh Health Insurance http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art9 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art9 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:36 PST The specter of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, which killed an estimated 40-100 million people worldwide, hangs over analyses of and responses to the current pandemic of swine-origin novel influenza A (H1N1). There are four major differences between today and 1918 that reduce the likelihood that the current pandemic--or the next one--will be as deadly as the one in 1918. Today we have advance warning of the threat of a highly lethal influenza pandemic, we have a global human health surveillance and response system, we have new medical countermeasures, and there is no global conflict like World War I to act as an incubator and vector for a highly lethal influenza virus and an impediment to medical and public health responses to the pandemic. Gregory D. Koblentz Pandemic Preparedness Influenza Global Health http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art8 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art8 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:35 PST Dr. Paul Rich, President of the Policy Studies Organization, introduces the editors of World Medical & Health Policy, and underscores the much-needed aim of this journal, "to help all of us be informed and participate in the forging of medical and health policies so we can make informed decisions." Dr. Rich continues that "this is a journal for the leaders in world medicine and health affairs. There never was a time when health decisions needed more well-founded information and well crafted scholarship. That is a large task. It is not flattery but simply the truth to say that seldom has a new journal gone out into the world with better captains or more promise, and with prospects we trust not for great fatigue but for great achievement." Paul J. Rich http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art7 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art7 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:34 PST The author comments on the importance of the World Medical & Health Policy journal in light of current medical policy needs. It is suggested that we need to share knowledge and different health management innovation more quickly and effectively, and that health communications is key. Kingsley E. Haynes http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art6 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art6 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:33 PST Recent shortages of physicians are forcing many Japanese city hospitals to close. These shortages are also affecting university hospitals. Medical graduates migrate to major hospitals in larger cities, rather than working at their local university hospitals or in smaller towns. Even larger in-hospital units such as internal medicine or surgery tend to have very few, if any, doctors on staff. These units at one time had at least 10 doctors on their staff. Many university hospitals that employed at least ten full time specialists on different wards are now faced with the sad prospect of closing specialty departments. It is important to address the underlying roots of the problem and remediate this crisis affecting the Japanese health sector. Kazuyoshi Yajima Health Policy http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art5 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art5 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:31 PST Personalized medicine is an emerging term for a medical philosophy that uses a person's individual clinical, genetic, genomic, and environmental information to tailor a treatment plan that will maximize efficacy and safety for that individual. While the technology offers much promise, it also is also challenged by some ethical and social questions in both its clinical application and in its research enterprise. Questions about privacy, safety, phenotypical expression, drug interactions, and genetic vs. social group identities will challenge clinical pharmacogenetics. Research studies raise some similar issues, as well as fairness in subject selection. Finally, personalized medicine will change the economics of drug production and distribution. Issues such as these and other complications of the coming focus on personalized medicine are discussed. Paul Root Wolpe Personalized medicine Ethics http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art4 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art4 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:29 PST On Tuesday, April 21, 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the first U.S. cases of novel H1N1 virus in the United States. Within the next few days, the number of cases would grow, and hospitals saw increasing flu cases as well as a number of "worried well." This article reviews the immediate response of the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) system to the novel H1N1 pandemic within the first month after CDC announced confirmation of the first case. Scott Cormier http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art3 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art3 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:28 PST The expertise of medical and science professionals is needed in public policy debates in the U.S. and around the world. As societies mature, questions in public policy become increasingly complex and should be informed by science. However, too often public agendas are advanced without the benefit of science and those trained in how to interpret it. Similarly, those trained in the sciences often do not have requisite knowledge, training or an interest in politics and policymaking. Yet, it is clear that optimal policy results in those cases when scientists and policy elites work together in meaningful partnerships. Because the worlds of science and politics--their cultures, assumptions, and methods--are largely separate and different, cooperation between these two cultures is difficult. The authors of this paper hope that their work interpreting one major issue of scientific importance as it has wound its way through public policy processes will be instructive to those in science who are enlisted to bring scientific discovery to public policy making (Fritschler and Rudder 2007). The 60-year political struggle to move the issue of tobacco control from the agenda of a small group of medical researchers to the public agenda offers insights about public policymaking that are transferable to other issues which rest on science. Catherine E. Rudder Public Policy Health Policy http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art2 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art2 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:34:26 PST Medical professionalism is a complex topic which must include a consideration of both individual and collective physicians, societal and patient rights and obligations. While attempting to propose a definition which might capture the various aspects of this issue, this paper also examines current global trends in medical professionalism such as care during a pandemic, professionally-led regulation, conflict of interest, and conscientious objection. All of these are issues that are often dealt with on a systemic level as a medical collective but they also have a real and lasting impact at the individual physician level. While much of the attention in medical professionalism is paid to the individual practitioner, there is also an important role to be played in policy development, and national and international advocacy efforts by physician organizations such as the World Medical Association and others. Jeff Blackmer Health Policy Medical Ethics http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art1 http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp/vol1/iss1/art1 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:31:33 PST The World Medical & Health Policy Journal fills a unique niche dedicated to the interdisciplinary intersection of politics, policy, research, medicine and global public health. The Editors hope that this first issue, with notable contributors from around the world and a distinguished group of expert advisors, will help to shed light on some of the difficult decisions health care providers make on a routine basis. Arnauld Nicogossian