A simple social media plan any health care professional can use

Social Media in Medicine
January 24, 2011

If you listen to the discussions in health care circles about social media, you get the idea that social media is complicated, time consuming and a liability nightmare.

Nah.

It’s not that hard and can actually be quite simple if you consider your options carefully and logically.

Let’s look at a simple social media plan any health care professional can use.

If you’re even considering using social media to market or connect with current …

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A simple social media plan any health care professional can use

Adherence to HIV treatment in Africa

Patient
January 24, 2011

There has been an irresistible urge for people — doctors, public health officers, politicians, journalists, the usual pundits — to compare adherence to HIV treatment in resource-rich vs. resource-limited setting.

I suspect this is because the whole issue got off to a famously bad start in 2001, when then-head of  the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Andrew Natsios said in an interview with the Boston Globe that Africans,

don’t know what Western time …

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Adherence to HIV treatment in Africa

Guns and why doctors should partner with the National Rifle Association

Health Policy
January 24, 2011

Is there anything that we physicians can and should be doing to help with the huge problem of gun violence in America?

We all know it is nuts to sell guns and ammo to nuts, yet as a country we do it every day.

We all know that, in contrast to rifles and shotguns, the only moving targets for hand guns are people; that the Congress and president in this century legislated …

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Guns and why doctors should partner with the National Rifle Association

Create a disease to market a new drug

Medications
January 24, 2011

An excerpt from White Coat, Black Hat.

by Carl Elliott

Many of us have a relatively simple, commonsense view of the way that drug development and marketing work.

People get diseases; scientists develop drugs to treat those diseases; and marketers sell the drugs by showing that the drugs work better than their competitors. Sometimes, however, this pattern works in reverse. Drug company scientists develop a drug …

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Create a disease to market a new drug

Can a doctor and a nurse be friends in the OR?

Physician
January 23, 2011

One of my best friends in med school was an O.B. nurse. Though she has moved almost all the way across the country and I haven’t seen her since I was in school, we’re still in touch and expect to be seeing each other at last in a couple of months.

By some coincidence one of my best friends now is also an O.B. nurse. I’ll call her Ziva (yes, I …

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Can a doctor and a nurse be friends in the OR?

Should obesity be classified as a brain disease?

Conditions and Diseases
January 23, 2011

Many of our most popular stories are about diets and weight management.

Did you know that some psychologists and psychiatrists would like to classify obesity as a brain disease? The reason for this is that there is mounting evidence that food, or certain types of food, can trigger the same addictive effects in the brain as drugs like heroin and cocaine. There is also substantial evidence that some people lose control over …

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Should obesity be classified as a brain disease?

How MD anesthesiologists have become victims of their own excellence

Physician
January 22, 2011

The New York Times has jumped all over a couple of recent scientific articles asserting that certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNA’s) provide equivalent care as MD anesthesiologists. Already, it is legal in 15 states for CRNA’s to dispense anesthesia without the overarching supervision of a physician.

Furthermore, a study from the Lewin Group in California has demonstrated that CRNA-only models of anesthesia provision are far more cost effective that …

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How MD anesthesiologists have become victims of their own excellence

Problems with the connection between thimerosal and autism

Medications
January 22, 2011

An excerpt from Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used to Hijack Medical Science for Fear and Profit.

by Robert Goldberg, PhD

From the beginning, there were two problems with the connection between thimerosal and autism. The first problem with was that thimerosal, while about half mercury, contains ethyl mercury, for which there were no exposure guidelines. So the scientists used the ones for methyl mercury. However, the ethyl mercury …

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Problems with the connection between thimerosal and autism

Payment systems must take into account the art of medicine

Health Policy
January 22, 2011

You know that joke about the farmer whose cows are not producing enough milk? A university panel gathers under the leadership of a theoretical physicist. They analyze each aspect of the problem thoroughly and carefully, and after much deliberation produce a report, the first line of which is “First, assume a spherical cow in a vacuum.”

This joke has become short-hand for some of the reductionist thinking in theoretical physics, but …

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Payment systems must take into account the art of medicine

Malpractice fails when it comes to medical errors

Physician
January 21, 2011

Here’s your multiple choice question to set the stage: what percentage of all physicians do you think should be sued for malpractice?

Would you say one-in-ten doctors ought to be sued? Or one-third? How about every single one of them? Let’s make it one claim per doctor, nationwide. Does that sound reasonable? Keep in mind that even defending yourself against a suit will cost on average $40,649 per claim, ranging from …

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Malpractice fails when it comes to medical errors

Are parents to blame for childhood obesity?

Patient
January 21, 2011

Childhood obesity is a problem. It is a function of the foods children eat both at home and at school. The people responsible for feeding children are parents not advertisers. Running the line that it is all to do with advertising allows adults to run a “Johnny told me to” line, which would not be accepted as an excuse from a child.

It is not about blaming parents. It is about …

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Are parents to blame for childhood obesity?

How effective will the physician payment national database be?

Health Policy
January 21, 2011

ProPublica.org did some interesting frontrunning on the physician payment national database that will become operable sometime around 2013 as part of health care reform.

In the first of a series of stories that has been picked up by several mainstream media outlets, the New York-based investigative journalism non-profit culled all the physician payments that have been publicly posted by seven drug companies to date. It aggregated the dollars …

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How effective will the physician payment national database be?

Menopause and cancer: What women should know

Conditions and Diseases
January 21, 2011

Menopause often brings more than physical changes. It also may bring uncertainty about cancer risks and cancer prevention.

Below, I’ve compiled some of the questions I frequently hear from patients about menopause and cancer. I hope these answers will help other women start informed conversations with their doctors about menopause-related concerns.

How does menopause affect a woman’s cancer risk?

Menopause does not cause cancer. But your risk of developing cancer increases …

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Menopause and cancer: What women should know

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Mental illness in the college student

Conditions and Diseases
January 21, 2011

Along with millions of Americans, I’ve tried to comprehend the tragic shootings in Tucson, reaching deep within myself to find compassion for a young man who has forever changed the world for himself and so many others through his actions.

For those of us who assess, diagnose and treat college students struggling with mental illness while trying to succeed in their academic pursuits, the events leading up to his impulsive killings …

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Mental illness in the college student

Compassion and decency overwhelmed by fear

Patient
January 20, 2011

by Eileen M.K. Bobek, MD

The year after I finished my emergency medicine residency, I had all four of my wisdom teeth pulled.

Afterwards, I looked as if I had taken several punches to my face. My jaw was swollen, my skin a cornucopia of muddied blues, purples, greens, yellows and reds. If people didn’t know better, I told my husband with a laugh, they might think that I’d …

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Compassion and decency overwhelmed by fear

Personal responsibility and societal structure changes that reduce obesity

Health Policy
January 20, 2011

I visited my parents this past week. The are both in their 80s and in relatively good health although my mother received a diagnosis of diabetes while having a medical exam for an unrelated problem. I spent some time educating her about Type 2 Diabetes, the causes (genetics and weight gain) and the options (medication and/or weight loss and exercise). I stayed with my brother-in-law and sister and the conversation …

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Personal responsibility and societal structure changes that reduce obesity

EHR data is currently ill suited for clinical research

Health Technology
January 20, 2011

One of the most promising uses of Electronic Health Records (EHR) is research.

As EHRs become more and more widespread and the clinical data previously held in silos of paper charts becomes fluid, exchangeable and duly collected, large clinical repositories should emerge and be made available to those engaged in research, presumably medical research. The results of such research are expected to help us identify cost effective therapies, health care trends …

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EHR data is currently ill suited for clinical research

5 ways to improve your medical practice in 2011

Physician
January 20, 2011

Here are five things that you should have on your 2011 To-Do list.

1. Start electronic prescribing. What have you been waiting for? The EMR/EHR? (See number 4 below.) Electronic prescribing can work in a stand-alone (no EMR/EHR) environment. Work flow can be modified, and you will benefit tremendously with additional nurse time available to you after the nurses realize how much phone time they save each day.

Ask your current practice …

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5 ways to improve your medical practice in 2011

Patients Google their symptoms, doctors need to deal with it

KevinMD
January 20, 2011

Many doctors roll their eyes whenever patients bring in a stack of research they printed out, stemming from a Google search of their symptoms.

A piece by Zachary Meisel in TIME.com describes a familiar scenario:

The medical intern started her presentation with an eye roll. “The patient in Room 3 had some blood in the toilet bowl this morning and is …

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Patients Google their symptoms, doctors need to deal with it

How Millennial physicians will impact disease management

Physician
January 20, 2011

Oh, those Millennials.

Also called “Generation Y,” this is the American demographic group born during and after the ’70s, that was vicariously raised by “learning is fun” Sesame Street and became accustomed to getting awarded for any effort. They don’t know about bomb shelters, walking to school, tape decks or having to get up to change a TV channel. Well, they’re now entering the workplace and their informality, disregard for rank, …

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How Millennial physicians will impact disease management

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