New York Times Magazine Looks at Trends in Health Care

The May 5 issue of the New York Times Magazine reported on a variety of health care trends and issues. The following briefly describes the articles:

• "Doctor of Laws": A transcript of an interview with Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a physician. The interview touches on bioterrorism and general health care issues.
• "Did You Hear About Doc Ogden?": Profiles Dr. Gary Ogden, a general practioner in Wellsville, N.Y., who concealed his alcoholism until 1998, when an infant died during a delivery he performed while intoxicated.
• " The Seductress of Vanity": Reports on how the wrinkle remover Botox has expanded from cosmetic use by the "idle rich" to more mainstream applications.
• "Family Scars": A series of interviews with three sets of siblings who became living organ donors and recipients.
• "I Am a Racially Profiling Doctor": Psychiatrist Sally Satel, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writes about the clinical importance of taking note of a patient's race.
• " My Sister's Unbeautiful Mind": Profiles the writer's relationship with her schizophrenic sister.
• " Dr. Levine's Dilemma": Looks at a physician who is considering leaving a medical group to join a "boutique" practice, which would require him to "abandon" about 4,000 patients.
• " E.R., Unscripted": Chronicles a doctor's 12-hour overnight shift at the emergency department at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The article is accompanied by a video of the doctor's shift. The video is available in RealPlayer online.
• ""What Doctors Don't Know (Almost Everything)": Dr. Kevin Patterson, an internist, writes about how a hierarchical relationship between doctor and patient is slowly being replaced by "evidence-based medicine, which asserts the supremacy of data over authority and tradition."