‘Bad News Is Bad News No Matter How It Is Delivered’: What We Heard This Week

— Quotable quotes heard by MedPage Today‘s reporters

by MedPage Today Staff June 11, 2023

Last Updated June 20, 2023

“Bad news is bad news no matter how it is delivered.” — S. Trent Rosenbloom, MD, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, commenting on whether patients prefer to receive test results immediatelyeven in the case of an abnormal one.

“The first step is admitting you have a problem.” — Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), chair of the House Energy & Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, discussing dysfunction at the CDC revealed by an internal review of its pandemic performance.

“There has never been a presentation or a clinical trial of a novel agent in the platinum-resistant space that has demonstrated improvement in overall survival, until now.” — Kathleen N. Moore, MD, of the University of Oklahoma, presenting new data on mirvetuximab soravtansine (Elahere) at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

“It’s perfectly safe, can be used at will, and can be done with and without a partner.” — Andrew Spector, MD, of Duke Health in Durham, North Carolina, commenting on a small social media-based survey study suggesting that sex at bedtime can sometimes be just as effective as taking a sleeping pill.

“It is a blatant violation of federal law.” — Kelli Fleming, a healthcare lawyer in Birmingham, Alabama, discussing the case of a New Jersey mental health provider who was fined for disclosing personal patient information in replies to negative online reviews.

“It is hard for me to convey how important this finding is for the field of lung cancer.” — Nathan Pennell, MD, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, discussing the overall survival improvement with targeted agent osimertinib (Tagrisso) in operable, EGFR-positive lung cancer.

“These particles are small enough that they don’t get filtered out by our hair or cilia.” — Sameer Khanijo, MD, of Northwell Health in Manhasset, New York, describing why the elevated PM 2.5 levels from the Canadian wildfires are so harmful.

“You can’t tell someone to go see a therapist when there are no new therapists taking patients.” — Maya Bizri, MD, MPH, creator of a training program through MedGlobal designed to help Ukrainian physicians and nurses work through their burnout and war-related trauma.

“I would have expected to see us doing better.” — Kristen Choi, PhD, RN, of the UCLA School of Nursing in Los Angeles, referring to the lack of progress made with mental health services geared specifically toward LGBTQ youth over the last decade.

“This is a proof of principle that if the amyloid is cleared from the heart, then the heart can recover its function.” — Julian Gillmore, MD, PhD, of the National Amyloidosis Centre at University College London, on the promise that antibody therapy holds for reversing transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Bizri is the creator of a mental health training program and not MedGlobal.