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How to avoid Zumba injuries: 10 physician tips

Conditions and Diseases

July 29, 2012

Zumba, the Latin dance-inspired fitness craze, is a great way to burn calories, up to 500 per hour. It also gives you a good cardiovascular workout without making you feel like you’re exercising. This increasingly popular workout attracts a diverse crowd at dance studios and health clubs, including a sizable number of those 50 and up.

But for people who are out of shape, taking the first classes can be like …

EKG reading: It’s shocking what medical residents don’t know

Wes Fisher, MD

Medical Education

July 26, 2012

“Dr. Fisher, can you teach our residents EKG lecture series?”

Naively, I said “Sure!”

What I didn’t realize is how hard this is to do today.

Much of this is not residents’ fault. They only have so many hours in so many days to attend lectures while caring for patients. Thanks to residency work-hour restrictions, those hours have become even fewer. To make matters much worse, through the year residents are torn to …

Why I would never go to a non-board certified physician

Jennifer Gunter, MD

Physician

July 25, 2012

Full disclosure. I have 4 board certifications and dutifully do all of the required reading, continuing medical education (CME) and recertification exams to maintain my status (I am board certified in OB/GYN in both the US and Canada as well as board certified in pain medicine by both the American Board of Pain Medicine, ABPM, and the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation).

I would never go to a non-board …

The role of IVs and central lines in critical care

Mark E. Nunnally

Conditions and Diseases

July 22, 2012

A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

As a critical care anesthesiologist, I care for patients when they are most vulnerable. Critical care patients require intravenous (I.V.) fluids and medications, frequently through central venous access. These are catheters inserted into larger veins with a special procedure. I believe managing I.V. lines requires procedural skills, …

Do people need to suffer the consequences of their bad behavior?

Greg Smith, MD

Physician

July 19, 2012

You know the headlines. You read them and hear them and see them every day.

Someone gets angry at the system and shoots someone or several someones in cold blood, often having planned the act, gathered the necessary firepower and ammunition ahead of time, stalked the victims, checked the schedules and shown up at the right time to do maximum damage.

A family including mother and young children in a van are …

How much does surgery cost? About $147 a minute

Nate Johnson

Physician

July 17, 2012

The patient had a large abscess surrounding his spleen. On a large screen in the middle of the operating room, I watched a surgeon drain the fluid collection and remove the organ with small metal tools.

I remember the surgeon navigating the complex anatomy with alacrity, handling the laparoscopic equipment with expert finesse, and quickly and confidently answering the battery of questions from the assisting medical student. To a young and …

9 essential tips for new medical students

WhiteCoat, MD

Medical Education

July 17, 2012

Whether you’re starting medical school or beginning your second year, this post is for you. Will probably work just as well for PAs, NPs and any other health professional student who hasn’t started clinical rotations.

Our former babysitter just graduated from medical school and the WhiteCoats are just as proud as her parents are. Then I started thinking, what advice would I give to students starting medical school?

Our first day of …

How will ObamaCare affect prostate cancer screening?

Paul Hsieh, MD

Health Policy

July 11, 2012

When President Obama turned 50 last year, he made an “informed patient request” for a PSA (prostate specific antigen) test. This is the blood test routinely used to screen men over 50 for possible prostate cancer. The President received his PSA test. But under ObamaCare, you may not be able to.

Now that ObamaCare has been upheld by the Supreme Court, all of its major provisions will be in force, …

Tips to be the best intern you can be

Mary L. Brandt, MD

Medical Education

July 6, 2012

Across the country, newly minted doctors have started their internships. The first night on call there won’t be an intern – anywhere in the country – who will sleep. Every new intern is absolutely convinced that the beeper is going to go off and they won’t know what to do. (You get over this by about the 2nd or 3rd call night, by the way).

Graduating from medical school …

Read more…

Tips to be the best intern you can be

Take the time to educate yourself before forming an opinion

Alex Lickerman, MD

Physician

July 5, 2012

Student loan debt is at an all-time high at a little over 1 trillion dollars, a figure that now, for the first time ever, exceeds our nation’s credit card debt. Higher education has never cost more, the rate of rise of college tuition having exceeded in recent years the rate of rise of many other services. Perhaps as a result of this, as well as of the difficulty in obtaining …

Do oncologists have an incentive to prescribe expensive treatments?

Peter Ubel, MD

Medications

July 4, 2012

A recent economic analysis concluded that patients with metastatic cancer value their treatments significantly more than regulators recognize, with many expensive new therapies looking like veritable bargains to most patients. Yet the study ignored the values really driving oncology spending—the warped incentives oncologists have to promote their own bottom line by prescribing expensive treatments.

Let’s start with the economic analysis, another in a series of studies by a USC team of …

The moments that define the job of a physician

Allison Overmon

Medical Education

July 2, 2012

One of the most intense moments of my third-year of medical school was during my internal medicine clerkship when a code blue was called.

It was our responsibility as medical students on the inpatient service to report to every code blue while we were on our calls every 4th night. This time was no different, and my call partner and I ran to the code. When we arrived, I recognized the …

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