Dr. Sheldon Greenfield, whose pioneering research was found that older patients with breast and pancreas cancer obtained a suburb and that patients receiving their doctors during the consultations were receiving better care, died on February 26 at his home in Nioport Beach, California, who was 86 years old.
His daughter Lauren Greenfield said the reason was colon cancer.
Dr. Greenfield was a founder and director of the University of California Health Policy Research Center, Irvin, and the leader of the study of medical results, which included more than 22,000 patients and 500 doctors, who in 1986 decided that doctors had often ordered highly and unnecessary tests and pointed to the patients to a specialist when he was an interested doctor or a nurse who had obtained what he provided.
Alan M. Garper, President of Harvard University, Dr. Greenfield as “a high -ranking personality in health care research.”
“Its influence spanned more than what he could have known, by studying medical results and much,” Dr. Garbar said in an e -mail.
In 1991, Dr. Greenfield and the collaborators, including his wife, Dr. Sherry Kaplan, found that many talks on care are dominated by doctors. They recommended a protocol that included a 20 -minute training session for patients before consulting their doctors.
“When doctors dominate the medical interview, the patients do not do and when the patient exercises more control,” Dr. Greenfield told the New York Times that year.
Diabetes patients who asked questions about the dose and volunteered other symptoms during the tests, according to a study conducted in 1995, a 15 % decrease in blood sugar after two months. Similar results are found in patient studies with ulcers and high blood pressure.
Since the main author of that study, Dr. Greenfield explained that researchers focus on adult diabetes because it is prevalent and because the appropriate treatment can prevent complications that make it one of the most expensive chronic diseases to treat it.
Four years ago, a research team that led Dr. Greenfield concluded that although 96 percent of women between the ages of 50 and 69 with breast cancer had the appropriate minimum of acceptable care, only 83 percent of healthy women are 70 and over. (The study was determined “suitable” either the entire breast removal and some surrounding tissues or the removal of the mass and the nearest lymph node, followed by radiotherapy.)
“The lives of these patients may be shortened,” said Dr. Greenfield.
In 1989, a group led by Dr. Greenfield found that the elderly people with prostate cancer are less likely than younger men to receive the best available treatment.
He also expressed concern about the lack of appropriate follow -up care for cancer patients. This is partly attributed to the fact that in many cases, insurance companies, health plans, and medical care are not covered by the necessary tests and exams.
“The care for successful cancer does not end when patients come out of the door after the completion of their initial treatments,” Dr. Greenfield told the Times.
Dr. Harold C Suxe, a honorary professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Dartmouth College, said in an e -mail that he and Dr. Kaplan had done “dealt with the effects of the relationship between the doctor and the patient on the results of the chronic disease.” “They have shown that the partnerships of the best doctor and the patient are fruits in better results for the patient.”
“We hear a lot about the shortage of primary care doctors,” added Dr. Sox. “Doctor. Greenfield’s work showed that good primary care is often interesting.”
In another study, conducted in 1995, Dr. Greenfield found that treatment by health maintenance organizations and doctors in traditional medical practices produced similar results, although HMOS is less expensive.
In a report commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration after many of the well -performed recovery operations of the equipment that afflicted thousands of patients, Dr. Greenfield suggested a tougher approval process, which was partially adopted for a wide range of medical devices, including hip cultivation and external heart distributors.
Sheldon Greenfield was born on April 22, 1938, in Cincinnati. His father, Robert, has a clothing store. His mother, Fi (Bluch) Greenfield, studied Sunday School.
“Her husband was severely affected by pediatricians, who was very nice and treated children with respect and care,” said Dr. Kaplan, in a decision to practice the medical profession in medicine.
After graduating from Harvard College of Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry in 1960, he obtained a medical certificate from the University of Cincinnati in 1964. from 1966 to 1968, he served in the navy as a first lieutenant commander, and he deals with epidemic intelligence in the National Communication Center now (centers to control the disease).
He was a trainee at Boston City Hospital and a largest residing from 1971 to 1972 at the Beth Israel Hospital (now the Beth Israel Medical Center), also in Boston.
In 1972, he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles, where Dr. Kaplan met by Dr. Charles E Lewis and joined the Dr. Louis team, who applied algorithms to the medical conditions to measure the quality of care.
He and Dr. Kaplan continued their work in studying the medical results at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tafs, where they established the Institute for the Research Results Results.
He taught at the University of California in Los Angeles, Tuffs and Harvard Public Health School before moving in 2003 from Boston to southern California, where he and Dr. Kaplan established the Irvin Health Policy Research Institute.
In addition to Dr. Kaplan, who married in 1983, and his daughter Lauren, from his marriage to Patricia Marx, who ended in divorce, Dr. Greenfield survived by Ibn, Matthew Greenfield, also from this marriage; Two children, Rob Greenfield and Windy Morner, from his marriage to Dr. Kaplan; Eight grandchildren and sister, Joan Zabin.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Greenfield volunteered at the clinic of the Venice family in Venice, California, where he lived. He was fully aware that there is no local medical care at reasonable prices when his family’s children had a disease and had to lead her to the nearest general hospital, in Torrance, about 40 miles away.
“I left an indelible impression on me,” Dr. Greenfield He said In an interview on the clinic website, “about how difficult it is, not in the summary but as a practical issue, for people to get medical care when they need it.”
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