Top health and medical stories of 2014
Health and health care were front and center in the news of 2014.
Today on The Daily Circuit, Tom Crann talks with Dr. Jon Hallberg, the regular medical analyst for MPR's All Things Considered and a physician in family medicine at the University of Minnesota, about the year's top medical stories.
Here's Hallberg's list, in alphabetical order:
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Top health and medical stories of 2014
• Affordable Care Act (ACA)/MNsure
"Never before have I talked to so many patients about their health insurance," Hallberg writes. "People are coming in who haven't been covered for years."
• Burnout
Hallberg says technology, ironically, has made him feel burnout this year. Earlier this month, local physicians talked about Sandeep Jauhar's 'Doctored.'
• Cologuard
Mayo Clinic's new card that detects colon cancer DNA in stool. Hallberg thinks colonoscopies will happen less.
• E-cigarettes
What to do? How to regulate them? Good idea? Bad? Are they a gateway to tobacco? Are they actually better than real cigarettes?
• Ebola
Fear plague mentality, holes in the system, Time's People of the Year
• Genome advances
The future with 23andme, Illumina. This is helping doctors figure out cases of unusual diseases in children.
• Innovation/e-everything
Treehouse and other centers and incubators of innovation: iPhone apps, Fitbit, self-monitoring/self-quantification
• Medical marijuana
Its time has come. Now what? How will it work?
• Mumps
Why now?
• "On Immunity: An Inoculation"
The book by Eula Biss was one of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 non-fiction books and one of The New York Times Top 5 non-fiction books
• Opiates and overdoses
Vicodin/hydrocodone re-classification to schedule II; Philip Seymour Hoffman's accidental OD
• Robin Williams' suicide
His death really affected us more than most celebrity deaths.