A newsletter for people interested in medicine, its subspecialties, health policy, outcomes, human biology, drug development, translational science, medical ethics, and science communication

Interview with Vinay Prasad, MD MPH

There are no rules in love and war

Your Bivalent Booster Mandate For Students is Inappropriate

In today's Study of the Week, Vinay and I offer commentary on one of the most important trials of the year--the NordICC trial of screening colonoscopy.

A look at the US’s Counterproductive Covid Policies and why Scandinavia did Better

Forcing family members & doctors to engage in the COVID19 forever war is anti-science & hurts patients

Being able to debunk Jade Eggs does not mean you know how many boosters a 20 year old man needs

The VPZD Show Ep. 23 (Early Exclusive for Sensible Medicine)

The Study of the Week breaks down the recent Medical vs N95 mask study in the Annals of Internal Medicine

A prominent journal in cardiology has published one of the most flawed analyses I have seen in years. And the conclusions are even worse.

A tale of two failed therapies and thousands of people without principles

I spent the last week in Europe. I gave talks in 3 cities, and met with hundreds of people. The last leg of my trip was Denmark, where I gave a lecture on Real World Data. (You can listen to the talk...

What you don't see on the inpatient service

By Abirramy Varatharajan

My occasional "Friday Reflection" post on Sensible Medicine meant for weekend reading. Hope you enjoy, please share your thoughts.

I thought science was for finding truth and advancing a field

By Leslie Bienen

Can you guess which recommendations are now in vogue?

Administrators are not burdened by common sense or evidence based policy

Career aspirations must come secondary to research that always and only advances patient interests

We are excited to share this guest post from Dr. Mohammed Ruzieh from the University of Florida. He dissects a flawed study of stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation

An anonymous east coast academic medical doctor writers a rejoinder

In March 2000, doctors in most of Israel went on strike. Deaths dropped by 20%. Suppose oseltamivir became unavailable during a bad flu season. Would that cause a health catastrophe – or would it...

Dr. Katie Sharff tackles COVID stigma

This study reminds me that colon cancer screening is a decision, like all healthcare decisions, to be made by a patient in consultation with his or her physician.

It's time to be honest about bad evidence and bad leadership

Let's try out a new idea

Science Magazines EIC Holden Thorpe says it is dangerous misinformation: is it?

Kicking off another Sensible Medicine Series. This is part 1 of the introduction with part 2 coming out tomorrow.

Good faith arguments for and against three proposals that people really do support.

Findings suggest that COVID-19 is not a dramatically worse malady

In this Study of the Week, we learn about the DCP trial, which compared two ways to treat high blood pressure. Experts preferred one drug; practicing doctors another.

Young men need different advice than old women

@drbrignall shares his experience as someone who worked in public health during the pandemic and his views of how we are currently remembering the experience.

Professor Kaul explains why the POST-PCI trial of stress testing vs no stress testing after high-risk coronary stenting failed to answer its question. It's a tour-de-force in critical appraisal.

More episodes coming soon

The Study of the Week once again underscores the value of sharing medical trial data for re-analysis

The Study of the Week considers a major trial of a pricy device that breaks a basic rule of science. Yet a major journal and regulators allowed it. What should one think?

A new generation of physicians has forgotten it in the quest to be 'rising stars'.

Healthy middle age people carrying CO2 monitors need frank advice to stop

Attending to dying patients has been part of the practice of medicine for millennia so why do we often fail to do it well?

Before we begin to cover current articles, we’re going to dive into some of the topics that are particularly rich veins for the churnalist. The coverage of nutrition research is an obvious place to...

In the Study of the Week, academic cardiologist Andrew Foy explains a study that his group published on the matter of statins and diabetes.

The White House is pushing Americans hard to take a novel Covid vaccine before the studies are complete.

How a doctor reacts to a patient’s death (and thus, maybe this whole reflection) is pretty unimportant.

Vinay Prasad, MD MPH; Physician & Professor Hematologist/ OncologistProfessor of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and MedicineAuthor of 450+ Peer Reviewed papers,...

The Study of the Week highlights the complexity of using trials that deliver clearly positive results.

This is the paradox of being a young trainee: I need empathy and experience to be an effective healer, but empathy and experience take time.

How I struggle with it

The AAP still makes toddlers mask, but they don't mask at their conference

A quantitative analysis demonstrating the superiority of positive findings over negative ones. Should be good post for fans of the JAMA's Users's Guides, our Symptom to Diagnosis and McGee's Eviden...

The POST-PCI trial was reported as “negative.” The better interpretation was that it was inconclusive. These are not the same.

Sensible Medicine Enters it's 3rd Month

In this week's study-of-the-week column, @drjohnm describes a paper that forever changed his view of medical evidence. Take a look and feel free to comment.

This Study of the Week column is a tour de force of critical appraisal of one the most important trials presented at the recent ESC conference

Last Monday, we considered potential bias in data analysis. Today, the Study of the Week considers another source of bias—trial design.

By Rani Marx, PhD, MPH

The Study of the Week explores the judging of medical science. Here are three examples that emphasize some of the limitations of peer review

Doubt and pain

Can we learn from Kahneman & Tversky?

Reader responses

This is the third of my three-part series on the importance of control arms of trials

Robert M Kaplan and Sander Greenland

The results could force journals to cease publishing. The physician-researchers who primarily publish in these journals could spend more time improving medical care by seeing patients.

At the heart of one of modern medicine's greatest errors was confusing correlation and causation.

It’s my pleasure to introduce today’s guest post by Timothée Olivier. Dr. Olivier is a medical oncologist based in Geneva University Hospital (Switzerland). He joined me and my team (@vkprasadlab) at...

What do they mean? (4 fold increase in over 55, but what about 18 to 54?)

This one got a little long, bear with me (the last line is even kind of funny).

In five short chapters, the Study of Week shows you a shining example of how open science could improve knowledge. It's a beautiful story of humility and generosity.

Drs. Alderighi and Rasoini are back with some tips for budding health journalists. Their short essay helps everyone learn key tips and tricks of reading observational studies

Mandrola, Hoeg and Prasad talk about Denmark vs the US, and the Cochrane Mask review

A Cochrane Report Tells the Truth, But Many Are not Ready to Hear It

Fauci’s agency failed to conduct definitive research quickly during Covid. The result was a pandemic marred by controversy.

Moving on from Nutrition #churnalism to exercise #churnalism. Prepare to grit your teeth. Enjoy!

A story that upset my Sunday Morning routine

Three professors of Medicine comment on how they see COVID-19 in August of 2022.

The etiology and evolution of medical student specific somatoform disorder.

Four stories of people who gave, expecting nothing in return, as their lives were ending.

An example from Multiple Myeloma teaches an ethical lesson in oncology

Drs Camilla Alderighi and Raffaele Rasoini write about an important project to improve health literacy. These words tempt you to be optimistic! Thank you @camialderighi @RasoiniR

Guest post from David Allely, MS3

A Soviet refugee and physician worries about the suppression of reasonable disagreement, ideological purity testing and attempts to legislate acceptable medical practice to conform to the desired...

Conflating teaching with social gender transitioning jeopardizes the well-being of children while relegating parents to bystanders

1. Kudos to Harvard 2. The rankings are idiotic 3. If we are going to rank...

A justified choice or performative theater? And does it advance public health?

Kids need a new advocate who puts Kids first

A Thought Experiment: What drugs, currently available today, do you think are really the most useful?

This week features two criticisms of last week's Study-of-the-Week