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Patient advocacy groups should help support research

Patient

August 25, 2011

I was a medical researcher for several decades, investigating an unusual, but not rare, condition called infective endocarditis. I found the disease fascinating, primarily because of how understanding it could unlock many secrets of the endothelial cell, the cells lining all our blood vessels. I chose my research subject because it interested me and I thought I could do some good studying it. This is the case for …

Medicare patients should bring a companion to office visits

James Haddad

Patient

August 25, 2011

When a patient shows up for a doctor’s appointment with a companion, I often find myself studying (and later, interacting with) them as much as I do the patient. Most times, a quick review of body language is all I need to make an assessment – is this person looking out for the interests of the patient? Are they here begrudgingly, or out of concern? Are they indifferent, or …

Should pediatricians be punished for asking about guns in the home?

Ricky Choi, MD

Physician

August 24, 2011

Far be it for me, a Bay Area pediatrician, to tell Floridians about how to keep their kids safe. But having spent half of my life in the south (and I don’t mean LA), perhaps I am only partially carpetbagging.

Florida’s Governor Scott has signed a law that penalizes doctors for asking about guns in the home. It shockingly included a $5 million fine and a five year prison sentence if …

An ER specifically built for older patients

Brian Goldman, MD

Patient

August 24, 2011

Seniors spend a lot of time at hospital ER’s. Now, a small but growing number of hospitals in the US have built ER’s especially for the aging patient – with wider hallways, motion detectors, hearing and visual aids. To me, this is long overdue.

Older patients are avid consumers of emergency medical services. Older people make up a significant percentage of the total population of ER patients. A 2008 Read more…

An ER specifically built for older patients

Navigating the path of contradictory medical opinions

Ralph Gordon, MD

Conditions and Diseases

August 24, 2011

With the advancement in healthcare and technology we are able to greatly extend the life expectancy of the population. For the healthcare provider that means that more elderly patients and patients with multiple chronic medical conditions are being admitted to the hospital. Some “complex” patients require a multidisciplinary approach with the involvement of multiple consultants.

As a primary attending physician for the patient you often have to deal with contradictory …

How medical residents should spend their time off

Mary L. Brandt, MD

Medical Education

August 24, 2011

Here’s the scenario. It’s Friday evening. You’ll be back at work on Sunday. You’re sleep deprived because you are a resident. You haven’t spent any quality time with your significant other, friends or family because you haven’t had any real time off. Next week has plenty of call and it would really help if you planned out good food for the week and cooked something. And, by the way, …

Adapting the medical home for cancer care

Richard Just, MD

Health Policy

August 24, 2011

It was 1967. I was an intern in the UCLA-Wadsworth VA Rotating Internship Program when I reported for my physical as part of the Berry Plan deferment. For the younger set, physicians and dentists could elect to delay military service until completion of their first year of residency training, and we could elect our branch of service we preferred to serve in. I chose the Air Force. On the History …

Checking blood sugar is a habit that must be formed

Trey Stephens

Conditions and Diseases

August 24, 2011

If you don’t know there is a problem how can you fix it? Checking blood sugar for a diabetic is mandatory. This applies to both Type I and II diabetics. I check my blood sugar at least 8 times per day. I do this to allow me to closely monitor my blood sugar level. As a disciplined diabetic, I run the risk of low blood sugar episodes more frequently …

Personal responsibility is needed to treat drug addiction

Randall S. Bock, MD

Patient

August 24, 2011

A 44-year-old man came to my office to begin Suboxone in hopes of stopping his injecting heroin. He was raised well by married parents, whose other four children have not indulged in narcotics.

He lives with a friend, unable to contribute to rent while “not working” yet somehow he affords $50 per day for narcotics through (self-admitted) hustling (comprising: working as one tentacle of the drug-dealers’ network, shoplifting, borrowing with no …

Why medicine actively and legally stifles innovation

Jay Parkinson, MD

Physician

August 23, 2011

Upon finishing my second residency at Hopkins in Baltimore in September of 2007, I moved back to Williamsburg to start a new kind of practice:

Patients would visit my website
See my Google calendar
Choose a time and input their symptoms
My iphone would alert me
I would make a house call
They’d pay me via paypal
We’d follow up by email, IM, videochat, or in person

It was simple, elegant, and affordable for me to start. But …

How Medicare undermines primary care

Kohar Jones, MD

Health Policy

August 23, 2011

When I was a family medicine intern, I met a diabetic patient in the hospital who had stopped seeing his regular doctor after he lost his job and his health insurance. His untreated diabetes made his feet go numb. He stepped on a nail and didn’t realize it until he noticed a smell that cost him his foot.

He spent thousands of dollars on the surgery and subsequent hospital stay—far …

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How Medicare undermines primary care

Why my family doctor is a superhero

Bryan D. Peach

Physician

August 23, 2011

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a family physician. I never aspired to be one – I wanted to be a superhero as a kid. When I got older, I realized that all the best ones (like Spider-Man and Superman) spent their non-costumed hours as newspaper reporters or photographers, so I decided to go into that line of work instead. It eventually led me to the Pennsylvania …

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Why my family doctor is a superhero

How environmental exposures can contribute to autism and ADHD

Philip J. Landrigan, MD

Conditions and Diseases

August 23, 2011

Each year, biologically based disorders of brain development – autism, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mental retardation, dyslexia, and subclinical neurodevelopmental disabilities – affect between 400,000 and 600,000 of the four million babies born in the United States. This means that between 10% and 15% of American children have some kind of learning disability.

Reported rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are sharply increasing. The CDC reports that the rates of ASD increased …

Taking care of yourself sometimes means being selfish

Stewart Segal, MD

Patient

August 23, 2011

My family, my friends and my patients think being selfish is bad. I bet you do, too. I used to think so, as well. Twenty seven years in practice has taught that being selfish is good. Actually, selfishness is essential to an individual’s health.

Today, I saw a selfless young woman who was ill. She had an assortment of complaints. She had not felt well in months. If she was the …

How politics have weakened the USPSTF

Kenneth Lin, MD

Health Policy

August 23, 2011

Health reform was supposed to have been good news for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Until 2009, this independent panel of federally-appointed experts in primary care and preventive health was not particularly well known, and its evaluations of the effectiveness of clinical preventive services had no binding authority on public or private insurance plans. Within the small circle of physicians and policymakers who were aware of the their …

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How politics have weakened the USPSTF

Patients need to contribute to help their doctors

Maurice Bernstein, MD

Patient

August 23, 2011

“Be a fountain not a drain,” an expression used by baseball announcer Rex Hudler, is one that has motivational content particularly in terms of an individual included as part of a team.

I would suggest that this expression would be appropriate when considering a basic team in medical practice: the doctor-patient relationship. It is critical in most clinical situations that both the doctor and the patient assume responsibility for making …

The art of medicine and the power of human touch

James Asante, MD

Physician

August 22, 2011

Though I had a less than comfortable childhood, I did not know what I missed in nurturing until I played football at around age 10. The coach, a big burly man, with a voice as huge as his girth, put his hand on my shoulder as he explained something to the team.

I have never been able to explain the feeling that went through me that day, that moment, like a …

The interests of doctors and patients sometimes conflict

George Lundberg, MD

Health Policy

August 22, 2011

Organized American medicine would like for physicians to “speak with one voice.”

If they could do so, and if that voice were in the public interest, not only in the self-interest of those physicians, it would be a very powerful voice indeed.

Arnold (Bud) Relman, the esteemed former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, once rightly told the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors that physicians speak with many …

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