DOCTORS’ LOUNGE
time spent using the computer, a variable
the EMR-burdened clinician can relate to,
mattered a lot less than the above.
The Ubble quiz data can be interrogated
online in the Association Explorer, wherein
one can change the “predictor of mortality” category for both men and women. In
addition, we can calculate our “Ubble age.”
Remember, we are comparing ourselves to
middle-aged Britons (and the Welsh and the
Scots). Data analyzed here cover only three
years to date: so if your Ubble age seems
unreasonably high, buck up. More data will
inevitably follow. Once you’ve answered the
questions, you instantly find out if you are
biologically riskier than your actual age, or
ahead of the curve.
The Lee Index, from Dr Sei Lee out
of UCSF, has a greater focus on specific
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medical illnesses and details about daily
functioning. Dr Lee has been researching
mortality prediction for many years, and
runs his “death calculator” on the www.
eprognosis.org website (www.eprognosis.
ucsf.edu/lee-result.php). It can be used to
estimate life expectancy for the purpose
of conducting screening tests or prior to
proposing expensive or difficult or risky
treatment, to help in deciding whether the
“remaining” lifetime benefit outweighs the
proposed risk. It can also be used to test the
clinician’s accuracy in predicting mortality,
as compared to that of multiple validated indices, since Dr. Lee helpfully provides other
sources as well. (One could here compete
with colleagues, a sort of macabre pub quiz;
I advise not to take on a pathologist).
To cheer yourself up after all this death
and dying (unless you actually dig the Game
of Thrones, where everybody I liked got
killed off so fast I stopped reading), I suggest
remembering the huge, swelling, joyful, outrageously loud and incredibly long ovation
from the Belmont crowd as Victor Espinoza
paraded the triumphant Pharoah all the way
up to the head of the grandstand. That is
not a sound I will ever forget. Joe Drape of
the NYT called it a “roar from deep within
their souls.”
We souls who care for other souls felt ours
resonate with theirs.
Note: Dr. Barry practices Internal Medicine
with Norton Community Medical Associates-Barret. She is a clinical associate professor at the University of Louisville School of
Medicine, Department of Medicine.