The L.A. Times Tells Us How to Find the Best Medical Treatment

No. It is not easy to find the best medical care, but it is possible.That’s take-away number one in this piece in the L.A. Times, which suggests that it’s high time Americans did the same amount of research about their cancer treatment as they routinely do before buying a big-screen TV.  The piece advises us to search for articles at the National Institutes of Health’s  free archive of medical journals (pubmedcentral.nih.gov).
There, the Times reports, you can often see the entire study for free, sometimes only the
abstract, but poring over the list will give you an idea of which
institutions are actively publishing articles. Be as specific as
possible in your search. For example, don’t type in “brain cancer.” Use
“malignant glioma,” “brain tumor” and “left parietal lobe.”
Equally important: Don’t be shy. It’s OK to ask a doctor how many times she has performed a particular surgery. Really.
Read more in the L.A. Times.