Doctors ditching the prescription pad as more than a third of prescriptions now are electronic (USA)

Dropping a paper prescription at the drugstore is becoming old-school: More than a third of the nation's prescriptions now are electronic, according to the latest count. The government has been pushing doctors to e-prescribe, in part because it can be safer for patients. This year, holdouts will start to see cuts in their Medicare payments. Thursday's report from Surescripts, the largest network for paperless prescribing, shows more doctors are signing up fast. At the end of 2011, 36 percent of all prescriptions were electronic - the doctor wrote it by computer and sent it directly to the pharmacy with the push of a button, the report found. That's up from 22 percent of prescriptions that were paperless a year earlier

Younger doctors more likely to prescribe heart drugs, says study (Italy)

Italian researchers suggest that younger doctors are more likely to prescribe drugs for heart related conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes while older doctors are more likely to suggest their patients make lifestyle changes, such as quitting smoking and eating more healthily

Doctors 'often defy' their own treatment advice (USA)

Many doctors recommend treatments to their patients that they would not use themselves, a US study suggests. Experts asked nearly 1,000 US physicians to consider a medical scenario and pick a treatment. But when doctors were asked to imagine themselves as the patient their answers differed significantly. Doctors were far more likely to opt for a therapy carrying a higher chance of death but better odds of side-effect free survival, for example. But for their patients, doctors tended to pick a treatment that erred on the side of survival, regardless of the quality of life, Archives of Internal Medicine reports