A few weeks ago my wife, my son, and I went out for dinner. My son, though usually well-behaved and pleasant, was boisterous and disruptive, alternately leaping off his seat to crawl under the table and banging his silverware on his water glass to see what different volume of sound he could make it produce. Our tolerance for disciplining him patiently having been exhausted in us both by our respective challenging …
Autism is a communication disorder where children have difficulty relating to other people. Pediatricians watch for speech delay as a sign of autism. Even before your child is expected to start talking, around a year old, you can watch for communication milestones. Problems attaining these milestones may indicate autism or other disorders such as hearing loss, vision loss, isolated language delay, or other developmental delays.
Since I’ve always had an interest in food and nutrition, as a young nurse and student, I just assumed that all health care providers assessed nutrition. After all, we know how important it is. However, as a staff nurse in the ER and a nurse practitioner doctoral student, I learned that wasn’t true. Many providers in both arenas reported it was not the priority that medication and disease management were.
A 52-year-old man is evaluated in the emergency department for a 5-day history of right leg pain and swelling. He has never had a previous episode of venous thromboembolism. Following a physical exam and ultrasonography, what is the most appropriate management of this patient’s transition to warfarin therapy?
Coming to an office near you: a new test that can “confidently” predict whether or not you need to have aggressive therapy for your newly diagnosed prostate cancer.
Really?
That’s what the press reports would lead you to believe. And it’s really going to catch your attention if you’re one of the tens of thousands of men who will have …
“What do you think?” my nurse, Laura, had asked as we discussed her call from Ms. Lyons (name changed to protect privacy.)
Ms. Lyons, an ovarian cancer survivor whom I have known for years, had called Laura after she had developed a discoloration on her abdominal wall and vague abdominal pain. She thought it might have something to do with her anticoagulation …
Exercise is good for you. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Stop smoking. Drink less alcohol. Such messages abound in public health campaigns and there is a firm belief that they will ultimately change behavior. This is based on the assumption that individuals are motivated to change behaviors to reduce their individual health risks.
While healthy individuals may understandably ignore such messages, one would certainly assume that people who already have conditions …
In an editorial in the New York Times entitled “My Medical Choice,” Anjelina Jolie has come out publicly as a carrier of the BRCA1 gene, which places her at high risk for both breast and ovarian cancer. She has undergone a prophylactic nipple-sparing mastectomy with plans for future removal of her ovaries to prevent ovarian cancer:
I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women …
The first time I wrestled with the issue of whether to get my breasts cut off, I was in my early forties. Partners in life, my breasts had done right by me. They delighted me in all their underwhelming adolescent glory. Then they’d been a source of panting, wriggling joy for so much of my adult life. They’d amazed me after pregnancy when I became a fount of Bessie-the-cow milk …
Jess, like many parents, has been hearing conflicting information about what crying can do to your baby.
She wrote: “So, my husband and I accidentally let our kiddo (5.5 months) cry it out. So of course, I’m spending all sorts of time on Google finding out that I’ve caused long-term damage to my son and he’ll be more likely to get ADHD and …
I recently spoke at a symposium on nutrition and public health at the Tuck School of Business at my alma mater in beautiful Hanover, N.H., Dartmouth College. Among others on the panel with me was Richard Starmann, the former head of corporate communications for McDonald’s. Those with even a modest number of Katz-column frequent flyer miles can readily guess how often he and I agreed.
Look at this sample question from the American College of Cardiology self-assessment. Tell me whether you see the problem. (It came in a mass advertisement-email, so I don’t think it is a secret.)
Sample question
A 75-year-old woman is referred to you with a murmur. She has had the murmur for many years and has been followed by her primary care doctor. Recently she has noted increasing symptoms of shortness of …
Every primary care doctor has had the experience of listening to a very depressed patient explain that things are hopeless, that chronic medical problems or financial setbacks or family conflicts have pushed the patient past his ability to cope, that he can’t imagine how things could ever get better, that he would be better off dead.
Unfortunately, suicide in the United States is increasingly common. An article in the …
A 78-year-old woman living in a nursing home is evaluated for incontinence. Over the past year, she has had progressive decline in her cognitive status and now spends most of the day in bed. She requires coaxing to join the other residents in their communal meals and requires assistance for eating and bathing. When …
There is nothing like a celebrity to call attention to a preventable disease, especially if that disease is cancer. In March 2000, then-Today Show host Katie Couric, whose husband Jay Monahan died of colorectal cancer in 1998, underwent a live colonoscopy to promote uptake of colorectal cancer screening. Over the next 9 months, national colonoscopy utilization rates rose by 20 percent, a phenomenon that researchers dubbed “Read more…
I’m going to sound very middle-aged in this post. Whenever I talk about texting and driving I tend to show my age. I don’t know how it happened or when it was that I truly became a grown-up, but when it comes to texting and driving I feel nothing like a sixteen year-old.
Unfortunately, teens are particularly vulnerable in the car. Motor vehicle accidents are the number one killer of teens …
There really isn’t much special about that, since it is a distinction I share with over 2 million Americans who have a skin cancer removed every year. Fortunately, for most, it is a cancer that is not of particular concern since most can be removed. But even those “simple” surgeries–as I have learned …
Recently, a member of my family was involuntarily admitted to the psychiatric unit of a major teaching hospital in New York City and remained there for two and a half weeks. During that time, the unit kept him safe and provided medication for mood stabilization and thinking. After seeing my family member, my first priority was to talk with the attending physician and care team.
“My wife gets migraines—really bad ones—and now my daughter seems to be getting them too. She’s only 7! Is she just copying what her mom does? Can a child really start getting migraines?”
Oh, yes they can. Migraine is very much a childhood disorder. About 5% of adults have migraines, and half of them started having their migraines as kids.
As in adults, migraines in children can be severe and debilitating. However, …
Angelina Jolie discovers she has a breast cancer gene, the same one that caused her mother to die an early death, and she decides on a proactive, and possibly radical, prevention – double mastectomy. By doing so, she lowers her risk of genetic breast cancer from 70% to 5%. No guarantees, but definitely improved odds of survival. Assuming she continues her lifestyle changes to support her good health.
