KevinMD.com

February 14, 2012Feb 14, 20126

Here is a toast to the miracle of love. Not to the romantic, chocolate, dance club nightlife type of love. Not warm sandy beach vacation, new bigger home and grand Thanksgiving dinner love. Not even baby’s first words love. I…

Edna and Ken are 90, married and both have active cancer. They have been partners for 62 years. …

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In love there is a life giving force

Health policy

AMA: Advocating for Medicare, military and fiscal responsibility

American Medical Association & Peter W. Carmel, MD

February 14, 2012Feb 14, 20123

A guest column by the American Medical Association, exclusive to KevinMD.com. This week, I’m joining hundreds of physicians and medical students in Washington, DC during the American Medical Association’s National Advocacy Conference to talk to our federal lawmakers about an…

A guest column by the American Medical Association, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

This week, I’m joining hundreds of physicians and medical students in Washington, DC during the American Medical Association’s National Advocacy Conference to talk to our federal lawmakers about an end to what has become an annual chore of stopping drastic scheduled Medicare physician payment cuts to preserve access to health care for seniors and military families. This year, a 27 percent …

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Physician voices

Why an anesthesiologist would be needed for organ donation

Anesthesioboist T., MD

February 13, 2012Feb 13, 20128

I've only had to declare death a couple of times. Once in a three-year-old and once in an adult. In each case the heart had stopped beating. Death was clear. Brain death is tougher to cope with, both clinically and…

I’ve only had to declare death a couple of times. Once in a three-year-old and once in an adult. In each case the heart had stopped beating. Death was clear.

Brain death is tougher to cope with, both clinically and psychologically. I imagine it would make anyone want to say, at some point, “Are you sure? Are you really sure? How do you know? How can you be sure?” Some times …

Physician voices

5 ways to avoid a misdiagnosis

Evan Falchuk

February 13, 2012Feb 13, 20125

Billionaire Teddy Forstmann had been diagnosed with a serious form of brain cancer. There’s a tragic twist to the story: according to Fox Business News, Forstmann believes that for more than a year, he had been misdiagnosed with meningitis. ABC…

Billionaire Teddy Forstmann had been diagnosed with a serious form of brain cancer. There’s a tragic twist to the story: according to Fox Business News, Forstmann believes that for more than a year, he had been misdiagnosed with meningitis.

ABC News wonders, “How could such a misfortune befall a billionaire —- a man able to afford the best doctors, best technology and the most sophisticated diagnostic tests?”

They’re missing the point. …

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5 ways to avoid a misdiagnosis

Medical education

Reporters and doctors are more similar than you think

Joyce Ho, MD

February 12, 2012Feb 12, 2012

One of the things I have come to really enjoy and appreciate is the opportunity to interview the subjects of my articles and multimedia pieces. In a way, being a reporter reminds me a lot of being a physician-in-training – both roles require me to go into a room, learn an individual’s story inside out, and present the learned information for a further goal.

In my Public Issues Reporting class, the …

Physician voices

Benefits of the Medicare Adult Wellness Visit

Evan Saulino, MD

February 12, 2012Feb 12, 2012

One of the things I love about family medicine is that I get to care for people of all ages. I almost went into pediatrics, but the time I spend with older adults was too valuable to give up. Our…

One of the things I love about family medicine is that I get to care for people of all ages. I almost went into pediatrics, but the time I spend with older adults was too valuable to give up. Our elders have such great stories and knowledge to impart – it’s an honor to participate in their lives and share their experience.

Since I first realized in residency training that Medicare …

Patient voices

How to get ready for death

Rob A. Ruff

February 12, 2012Feb 12, 20128

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it…

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
-Steve Jobs, …

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How to get ready for death

Patient voices

The long term cost of a pain in the neck

Renee Lux

February 11, 2012Feb 11, 201216

One morning this May, I woke up with a stiff neck. I applied hot and cold therapy all day and took an Advil before bed. By the end of that week, I was unable to comfortably move my head and…

One morning this May, I woke up with a stiff neck. I applied hot and cold therapy all day and took an Advil before bed. By the end of that week, I was unable to comfortably move my head and I was feeling numbness down my left arm to my fingertips. I saw my doctor within 24 hours of calling his office. After a brief exam, he was sure of …

Conditions and diseases

How erectile dysfunction might save your life

John Ludlow, MD

February 11, 2012Feb 11, 20127

Just the other day, I saw a 52 year old man in my office for what I thought was a routine prostate issue. I walked in the exam room, introduced myself and immediately knew his prostate was fine. His eye contact was non-existent. He was nervous and his handshake was clammy and brief. I see these patients everyday. Their prostates are just fine. It’s their love life that’s the issue. …

Conditions and diseases

Why ultimate fighting is better than boxing

George Lundberg, MD

February 11, 2012Feb 11, 20122

There seems to be a deep, even innate, need on the part of many young men to actually, or vicariously, strike out at other people to cause pain and injury while striving to dominate. In 1996, I wrote an editorial…

There seems to be a deep, even innate, need on the part of many young men to actually, or vicariously, strike out at other people to cause pain and injury while striving to dominate.

In 1996, I wrote an editorial entitled “Blunt Force Violence in America” describing “a modern continuum from street fights to barroom brawls to domestic child, spousal, and elder abuse, to ultimate fighting to extreme fighting, to …

Conditions and diseases

MKSAP: 78-year-old woman is seen for management of her diabetes mellitus

mksap

February 11, 2012Feb 11, 2012

Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 78-year-old woman who resides in a nursing home is seen for management of her diabetes mellitus. The patient's blood glucose log shows levels…

Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.

A 78-year-old woman who resides in a nursing home is seen for management of her diabetes mellitus. The patient’s blood glucose log shows levels ranging between 40 and 400 mg/dL (2.2 and 22.2 mmol/L). She otherwise feels well. She has been on insulin for more than …

Health policy

Surviving the new landscape of physician reimbursement

Donald Tex Bryant

February 10, 2012Feb 10, 20126

CNN recently posted an article titled "Doctors Going Broke." It described several cases of independent physicians who are near bankruptcy although they once were quite well off. For instance, the article detailed the case of Dr. William Pentz, a cardiologist…

CNN recently posted an article titled “Doctors Going Broke.” It described several cases of independent physicians who are near bankruptcy although they once were quite well off. For instance, the article detailed the case of Dr. William Pentz, a cardiologist in a small group practice, who had to borrow money last month to make payroll. He and the other cardiologists have cut their salaries in order to meet overhead. Dr. …

Medical education

Conflicts of interest don’t always involve money

Andreas Laupacis, MD & Karen Born, PhD

February 10, 2012Feb 10, 20122

Conflicts of interest in medical research are extremely common - one recent study found that 52% of the experts involved in developing clinical practice guidelines for the management of diabetes in the United States and Canada had a financial conflict…

Conflicts of interest in medical research are extremely common – one recent study found that 52% of the experts involved in developing clinical practice guidelines for the management of diabetes in the United States and Canada had a financial conflict of interest. Although doctors and researchers often declare financial conflicts of interests when they make presentations and publish papers, there are many who argue that declaring financial conflicts is no longer …

Conditions and diseases

Avoid malpractice while treating minor head trauma in children

Maxwell S. Kennerly

February 10, 2012Feb 10, 20128

In October 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 60% increase in “emergency department visits for sports– and recreation–related traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, among children and adolescents” over the past decade. That’s good news: as the CDC’s press release said, they believe the increase was due in part to “growing awareness among parents and coaches, and the public as a whole, about the need for individuals with a suspected …

Conditions and diseases

When medical advances do the world a disservice

Reflex Hammer

February 10, 2012Feb 10, 2012

There is a healthy debate over whether a lab that created an extremely infectious version of influenza ought to publish the genetic sequence. The debate speaks to a larger problem: sometimes, medical advances do the world a disservice. The medical…

A few years ago, I read a neat research finding. In a pregnant woman, …

Health technology

There is a patient attached to that implantable defibrillator

David Lee Scher, MD

February 9, 2012Feb 9, 20122

As a follow-up to my post on why patients with implantable defibrillators should have access to their device’s data, I am going to talk about what your physician looks for when a device is interrogated. Many times this happens in silence or with few words, and some pushes of a button, when done in the office, and when done with remote patient management, is accomplished either automatically or with …

Medical education

6 things I wish I had known at the beginning of medical school

Rick Pescatore, DO

February 9, 2012Feb 9, 20127

It's amazing how quickly you can lose track of time as you power through the books. Once everything is setup -- coffee to the left, pens and highlighters to the right, Grooveshark playlist perfectly tuned -- you can suddenly look…

It’s amazing how quickly you can lose track of time as you power through the books. Once everything is setup — coffee to the left, pens and highlighters to the right, Grooveshark playlist perfectly tuned — you can suddenly look up and realize that three weeks have flown by and there are 123 multiple choice questions to be answered in the morning.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve learned …

Physician voices

Cancer has a way of teaching us poignant life lessons

Anees Chagpar, MD

February 9, 2012Feb 9, 20125

I just finished reading George’s recent post on Evelyn Lauder, who recently passed away from ovarian cancer, and am still stirred by the passing of Patrick Swayze from pancreatic cancer and Elizabeth Edwards from metastatic breast cancer. There’s a reason…

Real physician voices, twice a week

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