The American journal of medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
A randomized trial of distant healing for skin warts.
Distant healing, a treatment that is transmitted by a healer to a patient at another location, is widely used, although good scientific evidence of its efficacy is sparse. This trial was aimed at assessing the efficacy of one form of distant healing on common skin warts. ⋯ Distant healing from experienced healers had no effect on the number or size of patients' warts.
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Comparative Study
Care and outcomes of elderly patients with acute myocardial infarction by physician specialty: the effects of comorbidity and functional limitations.
Whether patients with acute myocardial infarction who are treated by cardiologists have better outcomes than patients treated by generalist physicians is controversial. Because some of the survival benefit associated with cardiology care may be due to baseline differences in patient characteristics, we evaluated how differences in case-mix of comorbid illness and functional limitations may explain the association between specialty care and survival. ⋯ Studies comparing outcomes by physician specialties that do not adjust adequately for differences in patient characteristics may attribute more benefit than is appropriate to specialists who treat patients who have fewer comorbid conditions. Some of the remaining benefit-at least among patients with myocardial infarction-may be attributable to greater use of recommended therapies.