A rising second year medical student read some of my posts and wrote me a kind note asking if I would write something for students. I taught students and ran surgical clerkships at community teaching hospitals for my entire career until about 19 months ago.
I also was prompted to address this subject after reading a recent New York Times story about a new admissions policy at Mt. Sinai …
What does your breast type say about your cancer risk? Quite a bit, actually.
Whether you have large, small or lumpy breasts, self-awareness is very important. Getting to know how your breasts look and feel can help you recognize possible red flags.
Large vs. small breasts
When it comes to cancer risk, size really doesn’t matter. But, size can affect your mammogram and clinical breast exam.
For example, women with large breasts may need …
by Joanna Fief
About two years ago in the wee hours of the morning, I found myself in a local emergency room with severe stomach pain, incessant vomiting and dehydration. It wasn’t pretty, and I was desperate for something – anything – to ease my pain and stop my vomiting.
Gratefully, within minutes of receiving an IV with medications for pain and nausea, my symptoms subsided. After a couple of blood tests …
by Arnon Krongrad, MD
The noose was loose on its neck. At first I worried, but then I relaxed. This was a bottle of pomegranate juice, the antioxidant superpower. As the billboard implied, it could cheat death. Perhaps if I consumed pomegranate juice, I could cheat death.
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission charged POM Wonderful, LLC, makers of pomegranate products, with deceptive advertising. …
NPR has a great blog on their website called Shots about current events in health care. Recently, Scott Hensley, the main blogger there, posted a recent article on treatment of prostate cancer from the Archives of Internal Medicine.
If you look at the article, you may notice a very small subheading above the article’s title. It reads “Less is More.”
Very telling.
The thrust of the article and the …
I was recently scanning an online forum about pediatric health concerns. (What can I say? I sometimes need inspiration.) One thread within the forum was significantly longer than any other. Parent after parent posted about how they had noticed a knot on their infant or toddler. This concern parallels what I see in practice. An unexplained knot on the head is a common reason parents bring their child to be …
One of my docs was telling us about a patient’s experience at another practice. Apparently, the parent was at her wits end with her crying baby. She called the on call doctor to ask for advice and the doctor told the patient, “your baby has colic’s; turn on the vacuum and stop calling.”
It turned out the baby had some gastric condition (not colic) and needed treatment. The patient ended up …
Interesting article recently from Health Affairs about the clinical equivalence between the care provided by anesthesiologists and CRNAs. The article concludes by advocating that CRNAs be given permission to practice anesthesiology without physician supervision. It’s more cost effective. And there is no compromise to the quality of care delivered to patients.
We recommend CMS return to its original intention of allowing nurse anesthetists to work independently of surgeon or …
Peter Orszag wants doctors to work weekends.
The former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget wrote as much in this past weekend’s New York Times:
Doctors, like most people, don’t love to work weekends, and they probably don’t enjoy being evaluated against their peers. But their industry can no longer afford to protect them from the inevitable. Imagine a drugstore open only five days a week, or …
“How many staffers should we have per doctor?” That’s a question I’m asked at almost every seminar I present. Of course, like many good consultants, I almost invariably respond “it depends.”
One of the factors that needs to be considered is what jobs we’re talking about — clinical or front office. It’s staffing in the clinical area that will do most to enhance a physician’s productivity, so that’s what we’ll focus …
Laryngeal sensory neuropathy (LSN) is a recently described condition felt to cause a chronic cough in patients when treatment for everything else (allergies, asthma, reflux, etc) has been evaluated and managed.
Treatment for this condition is with neuropathic medications including Neurontin, Elavil, Lyrica, nortriptyline, etc.
In the past few months, I have seen a few patients referred to me with chronic cough treated with these medications with minimal or no improvement. All …
Before he tells you how to get a straight answers from physicians, Doctor D is going to stall for time by explaining why doctors give vague answers.
Why would a good doctor give useless answers?
1. There is an answer, but your doctor doesn’t know it. Don’t be hard on doc for this one. There is no MD in the world that knows the entire breadth of medical knowledge. Some docs pretend …
I like Dr. Rob, the one with the distractible mind. And although I thoroughly agree with the stance he takes in his recent post against cholesterol screening in kids, I must take issue with his opening statement:
I have a unique vantage point when it comes to the issue universal cholesterol screening in children, when compared to most pediatricians. My unique view stems from the fact that …
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We are a little over two years into our electronic medical records implementation at the time of this writing. Since we have been performing a gradual rollout, the entire process has been relatively uneventful. Most of the credit for this goes to our chief information officer (technospeak for the head of our IT department) and our practice administrator.
One of the biggest challenges we have been facing is how to convert …
by Neel Shah, MD
What are the top reasons doctors over-order tests?
1. How we’re taught. Doctors are taught to consider whether a procedure is safe and whether it’s likely to work. We’re almost never taught to consider cost — it’s considered taboo.
2. Trying to do our best for the patient. We’re worried. Often we over-order because of our personal risk aversion.
3. Pre-emptive ordering. For residents, who do much of …
If you’re relatively young and healthy, gynecologic cancers probably aren’t on your radar. But they should be.
This year, more than 80,000 women in the United States will get a gynecologic cancer, such as endometrial (a.k.a. uterine), ovarian or cervical cancer. In general, gynecologic cancers occur more frequently in women after menopause, although they can occur in younger women. While all women …
Social anxiety refers to the fear of being around people due to the threat of embarrassment.
People who are socially anxious frequently freeze and are unable to seek the very company their hearts desire. They may make adaptations: they may decide that they “hate” being around people; they may isolate and play video games; they may absorb themselves in their work, but no matter what they do, this anxiety always exists …
Advertising is everywhere.
That should come as no surprise to anyone who has lived in modern America. It is impossible to turn on the television, ride the subway, or even sort through the daily mail without coming across an ad for a new car, a soft drink, or the latest digital toy. These advertisements have only one goal: to entice you to buy their products. This is harmless enough when these …
“Hey Doc, this guy needs some help.”
I’ve heard that statement from countless correctional officers over the years. Its meaning is very simple: Someone is exhibiting thoughts or behaviors that the officers find disturbing and “not normal.”
I appreciate the officers expressing concern. Without their input I often would not be aware of cases where I might be able to be of assistance.
But, one of the questions that always pops into my …
There is no Alternative Medicine.
Thus sprach Phil Fontanarosa and me in a 1998 JAMA editorial in the famous theme issue dedicated to Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
So I went to Mr. Google in 2010 and entered … Alternative Medicine … and clicked — 41,200,000 results; entered Complementary and Alternative Medicine, click — 3,210,000 results; entered CAM, click — 191,000,000 results, but that’s not fair; CAM can stand for many unrelated topics.
Let’s …
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