KevinMD.com

January 18, 2011Jan 18, 20118

I mentioned having a migraine this past weekend, and was somewhat surprised by how many people commented and wrote to me, surprised that a doctor, let alone a neurologist, would actually get migraines. What's up with that? I know this…

What’s up with that?

I know this may be hard to believe, but we get health problems too.

I see this odd view surprisingly often. People who somehow expect us to be beyond the health concerns of non-doctors.

We may be …

Patient voices

Is red wine really good for your heart and your brain?

Marie Pasinski, MD

January 18, 2011Jan 18, 201111

An excerpt from Beautiful Brain, Beautiful You. Published by Hyperion. Copyright(c)2011. by Marie Pasinski, MD Although much has been written about how red wine in moderation can be good for your heart and your brain, I would like you to…

by Marie Pasinski, MD

Although much has been written about how red wine in moderation can be good for your heart and your brain, I would like you to reconsider. It’s important to understand that the studies supporting this claim are “observational.” This means they were conducted through self-reported questionnaires inquiring into the drinking habits of a large group of …

Physician voices

Your surgeon may be contemplating suicide

Kevin Pho, MD

January 18, 2011Jan 18, 20114

I wrote last year in USA Today about the impact of physician burnout. Not only do doctors suffer, but so do their patients. Burnout starts early in residency, with entering interns having a depression rate of 4%, similar to the…

I wrote last year in USA Today about the impact of physician burnout. Not only do doctors suffer, but so do their patients.

Burnout starts early in residency, with entering interns having a depression rate of 4%, similar to the general public. But after the first year of residency, that number balloons to 25%.

Now, another study adds fuel to this disturbing trend.

A paper published in the Archives of General Surgery …

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Conditions and diseases

Your blood test and the need for better designed results

Lukas Zinnagl, MD

January 18, 2011Jan 18, 20118

Either as a patient or as a physician there’s a very high chance that you’ve ever got your hands on a simple blood test. These range from very basic ones to complex ones with multiple pages and are substantial to…

Either as a patient or as a physician there’s a very high chance that you’ve ever got your hands on a simple blood test.

These range from very basic ones to complex ones with multiple pages and are substantial to any cinlical evaluation. Blood tests are probably one of the most performed tests in a clinical environment with direct patient contact. Also, if you’ve ever seen a typical blood test from …

Patient voices

How often to see your doctor when feeling well

Eric Van De Graaff, MD

January 17, 2011Jan 17, 20116

How often do you see your doctor? Once a year? Every 6 months? Never? Most of you are pretty healthy and only show up for screening physical exams or aches and pains. Some of you may have more health problems…

What if you had diabetes, coronary disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, and sleep apnea, but no symptoms to indicate any …

Patient voices

Individual health beliefs play a role in medical decisions

Kenneth Lin, MD

January 17, 2011Jan 17, 2011

As a family physician, I've found that patients' individual health beliefs often play a big role in important decisions such as starting a new medication or undergoing an invasive test or procedure. Some patients were more willing to endure potentially…

As a family physician, I’ve found that patients’ individual health beliefs often play a big role in important decisions such as starting a new medication or undergoing an invasive test or procedure.

Some patients were more willing to endure potentially risky procedures in order to learn their diagnosis quicker, for example, while others preferred “watchful waiting,” or monitoring symptoms that were unlikely to be a sign of anything serious. Unfortunately, in …

Patient voices

Should obesity prevention be a personal matter?

Arya M. Sharma, MD

January 17, 2011Jan 17, 20113

Obesity is now increasingly recognized as the "natural" consequence of societal changes that have occurred over the past decades to foster an increasingly obesogenic environment. Yet, rather than focus on the root causes of these societal drivers of obesity, governments…

Obesity is now increasingly recognized as the “natural” consequence of societal changes that have occurred over the past decades to foster an increasingly obesogenic environment.

Yet, rather than focus on the root causes of these societal drivers of obesity, governments apparently prefer to make obesity prevention a personal matter, with a strong emphasis on trying to get individuals to change their lifestyles.

It is clearly far easier to simply tell people to …

Patient voices

Fetal ultrasound and our image oriented society

Randi Hutter Epstein, MD, MPH

January 17, 2011Jan 17, 20115

An excerpt from Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 (paperback January 2011). On eBay, you can buy a fetal ultrasound scrapbook that…

An excerpt from Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2010 (paperback January 2011).

On eBay, you can buy a fetal ultrasound scrapbook that has a poem on the first page that begins, “I loved you from the start.” It comes with Care Bear stickers. One of them is a pregnant rabbit …

Physician voices

Save time and money with your visit with healthcare providers

Stephen Meyers, MD

January 17, 2011Jan 17, 20117

Have you ever been frustrated by an unproductive or inopportune visit with your doctor that wasted your time and money? Here are a few tips to keep that from happening again. The problem Many visits with healthcare providers are poorly…

Have you ever been frustrated by an unproductive or inopportune visit with your doctor that wasted your time and money?

Here are a few tips to keep that from happening again.

The problem

Many visits with healthcare providers are poorly timed and less productive than they could be. Why? Because nobody is looking out for you between visits. It’s not that your doctor doesn’t care. He or she is simply too busy with …

Physician voices

Are malpractice lawsuits really responsible for the rise in C-sections?

Louise Marie Roth, PhD

January 16, 2011Jan 16, 201161

by Louise Marie Roth, PhD About one third of all births in the contemporary United States occur via c-section. Physicians and the public at large often attribute this to a "malpractice crisis," whereby obstetricians perform c-sections routinely to avoid malpractice…

by Louise Marie Roth, PhD

About one third of all births in the contemporary United States occur via c-section. Physicians and the public at large often attribute this to a “malpractice crisis,” whereby obstetricians perform c-sections routinely to avoid malpractice litigation. Over the last couple of years, I have been conducting research on obstetric practices and malpractice.

One of the things that I have learned …

Drugs and prescribing

How cocaine can be used in sinus surgery

Christopher Chang, MD

January 16, 2011Jan 16, 20116

Many people are already aware that marijuana is now legal in some states in the US with a medical prescription. What many people may not realize is that cocaine is also used in medical care, especially in the ENT world.…

Many people are already aware that marijuana is now legal in some states in the US with a medical prescription.

What many people may not realize is that cocaine is also used in medical care, especially in the ENT world.

Cocaine is one of the most potent anesthetic and vasoconstrictor. These two characteristics make it an ideal medication for use during sinus surgery as well as any nasal procedure where bleeding and …

Drugs and prescribing

Why doctors should profit from dispensing medications

Richard Reece, MD

January 15, 2011Jan 15, 201162

Hold onto your hats. I am about to enter dangerous territory. I am about to suggest maybe doctors should profit from dispensing medications from their office to offset declining reimbursements and rising expenses by using prescriptions as a source of…

Why dangerous? For a number of reasons.

One, physicians still grapple with the perception that it is improper for a physician to make money from …

Health policy

What health reform compromise could look like

Donald H. Taylor, PhD

January 15, 2011Jan 15, 20114

While the rhetoric around health reform has been incendiary from day one, in policy terms, a compromise between Democrats and Republicans using the outline of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has always been available. The two primary problems with the health care system are costs and lack of coverage. The ACA does pretty well on the second, and is a start on the first, but much more is needed. It …

Medical education

Alternative medicine and osteopathic medical education

Tayson DeLengocky, DO

January 14, 2011Jan 14, 201118

by Tayson DeLengocky, DO There has been a growing public interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in recent years. Osteopathic manipulative therapy, a form of physical manipulation of the body for improvement of health and body function, has been…

by Tayson DeLengocky, DO

There has been a growing public interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in recent years. Osteopathic manipulative therapy, a form of physical manipulation of the body for improvement of health and body function, has been designated as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

According to data reported in 2007 by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative …

Medical education

Using failure as motivation for medical residents

Mary L. Brandt, MD

January 14, 2011Jan 14, 20113

Dear Dr. Brandt, As a second year medical student, I know that my peers and I all struggle with what we view as "failure" at some point or another. I imagine this problem doesn’t stop (... ever), especially since medicine…

Dear Dr. Brandt,

As a second year medical student, I know that my peers and I all struggle with what we view as “failure” at some point or another. I imagine this problem doesn’t stop (… ever), especially since medicine seems to attract people who hold themselves to extremely high, if not impossible, standards. If you’re looking for topics, I wonder if you might have some insight to offer on how

…

Conditions and diseases

What is a concussion, and what does it mean for the child?

Christopher Johnson, MD

January 14, 2011Jan 14, 2011

When it comes to football season, it’s time to think about sports injuries. We frequently have children admitted to the PICU (or to what we call the intermediate or step-down unit) for observation, typically overnight, who have struck their head.…

The term itself is centuries old, but even thirty-five years ago, when I was in …

Conditions and diseases

Obesity and the crossroads between relative health and medical illness

Shantanu Nundy, MD

January 14, 2011Jan 14, 20117

At the end of a busy afternoon, Mrs. MJ was exactly the kind of case I needed. Two of my patients had come in late but needed to be seen and another was acutely short of breath and refusing to…

At the end of a busy afternoon, Mrs. MJ was exactly the kind of case I needed.

Two of my patients had come in late but needed to be seen and another was acutely short of breath and refusing to be admitted to the hospital. The chaos had put me almost an hour behind schedule, and I still had to return to the wards to round on my cancer patients. Fortunately …

Drugs and prescribing

How the vaccine and autism scare was a fraud to make money

Toni Brayer, MD

January 13, 2011Jan 13, 20116

Most parents and all pediatricians are aware of the 1998 study published in The Lancet by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that mentioned a causal link between measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and the increased incidence of childhood autism. It shook the…

Most parents and all pediatricians are aware of the 1998 study published in The Lancet by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that mentioned a causal link between measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and the increased incidence of childhood autism. It shook the medical community and created an international movement of parents questioning the extensive combination of immunizations that are given to children. Could these immunizations be the cause of the increase in …

Real physician voices, twice a week

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