Word: patients
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...year-old heart-attack victim is given less than a 5% chance of surviving. Outside her room, Ohman examines a box belonging to the patient. It's filled with nutritional supplements. There are medications that could have prevented her heart attack; none are in the box. "This is a sign we have failed," says Ohman...
...feeling a lot of anxiety," she says glumly. "I'm not really sure I want to hear those numbers yet." Although she is deeply disturbed by the test results, her case nonetheless shows how Duke is able to move its cutting-edge research quickly into the realm of patient care. Kristen's gene mutation was diagnosed in a Duke laboratory run by Andrew Futreal, a researcher who had a hand in the discovery of one breast cancer-susceptibility gene--known as BRCA1--and who co-discovered a second, BRCA2. Her doctor is Dirk Iglehart, a surgeon who also runs...
...breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. Kristen faces as much as a 60% chance of cancer in her other breast. She must decide whether to have her breasts removed, or to pursue various other pre-emptive treatments. But that is just the beginning. Once a patient knows about her genetic predisposition to cancer, she must decide whether or not she is going to lie on the myriad forms and applications that ask her to divulge such conditions: life- and medical-insurance policies, job applications...
...patients, this focus on the customer can be refreshing. Duke and its competitors are listening to patients and giving them what they want. WakeMed's new Heart Center includes an attractive built-in hotel that allows families to stay in the hospital while the patient undergoes surgery. Duke has shifted its primary-care physicians out of the main building to satellite locations, since focus groups show that patients want street-level parking when they visit doctors they see regularly...
...insurance companies. But the bottom line for the cord program is not healthy, which means constant battles with Duke's bureaucracy as well. "I'm not fighting for me to take a vacation to China," says Kurtzberg, who puts in 100-hour workweeks. "I'm fighting for the patient. But this administration has gotten much more business oriented...