Almost all of us know that October is breast cancer awareness month. Many of us also know that BRCA 1/2, the BReast CAncer genes, can increase a person’s chances of developing breast cancer. In fact, BRCA 1/2 is so well known that patients with a positive family history often seek genetic screening for it on their own accord. As a medical professional, I am awed by this level of …
An interview with Rich DiPentima, MPH, former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health.
Rosenberg: As the former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health and deputy public health director in Manchester, NH, you wrote an op-ed a few months ago that compared COVID-19 with previous pandemics. Can you elaborate?
Dipentima: With smallpox, the only reservoir was …
When you hear someone talk about a relationship that is oppressive, shameful, controlling, and detrimental to the person’s physical, mental, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing: How would you define the relationship? Would you want the person to stay?
If you heard someone say that their relationship made them isolated, depressed, disconnected: Would you encourage them to stay?
This is the type of relationship people are often pushed into when subject to weight biases …
Communicating with relatives that they may share a gene variant that could cause disease is problematic. Maybe you do not want to share that information with other relatives. Maybe other relatives do not want to know about such information.
Examples of such gene variants are BRCA1 and BRCA2 that predispose women to breast and ovarian cancer and men for some forms of cancer.
Medical practice may make more use …
The fertility rate in the United States, and globally, has been on a steady decline. This is the sixth consecutive year that there has been a reduction in the fertility rate, which has decreased by an average of 2 percent. Numerous factors contribute to the global decline in fertility, such as economic instability, increased educational attainment among women, delaying marriage, and the decrease in …
I’ve had doctors listen to my heart many times in my life. Recent work I did in Pakistan as an anthropologist let me listen to theirs.
A few months ago, I embarked on an ethnographic study to understand what health care professionals saw as the psychosocial needs of pediatric patients. This involved conversations with several doctors in Pakistan, who had volunteered to share their views about pediatric patient care. As I …
I have been a staunch advocate for the fight against leprosy since 1991, when I first witnessed afflicted human beings in their advanced stages of the illness traipsing the streets of India and Bangladesh, most if not all begging to survive.
In medical school, I learned the basics of this “biblical” disease, but now as a physician and a world-traveled photojournalist, I took …
When it comes to eating disorders, there are plenty of incorrect assumptions. Let’s debunk three of them.
Myth: Eating disorders occur only in teenage, rich white girls.
This myth perpetuates stereotypes and can discourage people from getting treatment as they think they do not have an eating disorder as they do not fit the mold.
When people think of eating disorders, the image is often of an emaciated, white teenage girl in the …
The COVID-19 pandemic has made mental health conditions so pervasive that, in turn, the stigma that once accompanied seeking treatment has been minimized. As a result, public attention towards psychological health has skyrocketed. Other factors such as the collective loneliness brought on by continuous isolation have resulted in a newfound willingness for people to speak more freely about their emotional wellbeing without judgment or ridicule. Individuals feel much more compelled …
“Gimme five,” the TV doctor said to his little patient as he entered the exam room. As I watched this scene in an evening TV program, I was reminded of one of my pediatric practice’s most gratifying stories, which happened over 20 years ago.
Before the days of cellphones, the internet, and social media, I had become the local expert on support groups. After realizing how what I learned from support …
The stress and hardship of the ongoing pandemic caused an increase in the number of adults, teens, and children who have sought mental health care recently. More than 23 million American adults received mental health care last year and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Children’s Hospital Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry warned of a mental health crisis among children and adolescents.
Of course, the need …
An excerpt from Preserving Brain Health in a Toxic Age: New Insights from Neuroscience, Integrative Medicine, and Public Health.
When my wife and I visited Salzburg Austria a few years ago, we stayed in a small boutique hotel formerly part of the Saint Sebastian monastery. In its famous church courtyard cemetery are buried both Mozart’s wife and his father, …
I am so tired. Not in the usual “hard day at work,” but in a “deep-in-my-soul” tired. I am exhausted.
I am heading into my third year as system medical director, where I lead a system-wide palliative medicine program in rural health.
As in many rural systems, we have issues with broad geographic spread coupled with lower population density and limited resources.
But for those of us working in rural health, there is …
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Granny Rachel, my husband’s mother, was an old country soul. She was a simple lady who loved the Lord.
She accepted me with open arms when my own parents turned their backs on me.
Granny Rachel made the best sweet tea and the best homemade vegetable soup with cornbread and gave unconditional love to all.
She totaled two of her cars twice. Her son would check on her and found multiple candles lit …
Them: “I have never heard of this.”
Me: “That’s OK, let me explain what is going on. Your child has a condition called multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, which we call MIS-C. We see this condition after a COVID infection where the whole body becomes inflamed, causing fevers. You get inflammation in the small blood vessels of your eyes and skin, which is why your son has red eyes and a …
The 911 call came too late. Her daughter was 32 years old and usually quite healthy. But she refused the COVID vaccinations. She said she took her vitamins and was healthy and that “God is my pilot” and “I don’t want toxins in my body.”
Her mother knew she was running a high fever. She knew she was short of breath frequently … until…
Her 10-year-old grandson couldn’t wake his momma up …
It’s 2022. COVID-19 is still here, and there is little evidence that it’s going away. Coronaviruses have been here longer than us and will be here after us. For centuries, we have co-existed with viruses, and our God-given immune systems have evolved, perfecting our macrophages which fight the nasty microbes. Cytokines or killer chemicals usually put many viruses at bay during our lifecycle, without us even realizing their magnificent work. …
I started this commentary when the initial COVID spike involving the mass hospitalization of unvaccinated individuals occurred, and non-COVID patients requiring hospitalization were turned away because no beds, especially in intensive care, were available.
Some patients traveled hours to find vacant beds, and a few even died! I put the draft aside as COVID declined and hospital beds became available.
Then, Omicron joined Delta, and cases climbed once again. Hospital beds refilled …
In recent decades, mounting evidence has suggested the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a ubiquitous member of the herpes family that causes infectious mononucleosis (a.k.a. the “kissing disease”), can cause multiple sclerosis (MS). Last month, a study published in the journal Science went even further, citing EBV infection as likely the leading cause of MS. It is a compelling connection that begs many questions. For example, if someone has …
As Pandora’s box of coronavirus opened in 2020, it engulfed our planet into an abysmal nightmare. As darkness fell, those of us in medicine sought refuge under a lamp called “knowledge” that sparked its flame from scientific evidence. But what if medicine and life itself were being written in real-time on a clean slate?
From the get-go, the medical world switched up its protective parental gear.
Moral responsibility got perceived as heroism. …
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