<i>Background:</i> In 2008, Leichsenring and Rabung performed a meta-analysis of 8 studies of longer-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (LTPP). The work was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (vol. 300, pp 1551–1565), and they concluded that LTPP was more effective than shorter-term therapies. <i>Method:</i> Given that such claims have the potential to influence treatment decisions and policies, we re-examined the meta-analysis and the 8 studies. <i>Results:</i> We found a miscalculation of the effect sizes used to make key comparisons. Claims for the effectiveness of LTPP depended on a set of small, underpowered studies that were highly heterogeneous in terms of patients treated, interventions, comparison-control groups, and outcomes. LTPP was compared to 12 types of comparison-controls, including control groups that did not involve any psychotherapy, short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy, and unvalidated treatments. Additionally, the studies failed to protect against threats to bias, and had poor internal validity. <i>Conclusion:</i> Overall, we found no evidence to support claims of superiority of LTPP over shorter-term methods of psychotherapy.

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BACKGROUND: Although opioids are central to acute pain management, numerous studies have shown that many physicians prescribe them incorrectly, resulting in inadequate pain management and side effects. We assessed whether a case-based palliative medicine curriculum could improve medical house staff opioid prescribing practices.

These interns, mostly U.S. medical school graduates (98.7%, n = 155) reported little training and low self-perceived comfort and skill with important elements of end-of-life communication that might contribute to a lack of preparedness to address these issues during their internship. Further research that confirms and explains the underlying reasons for these findings seems warranted.