The recent concentration of misleading media hooey about health has been excruciating, but the problem is perennial. I trust I needn’t make the case that you are under constant assault by distorted, contorted, titillating, and insipid headlines. This is certainly true in my domain of health and medicine; it may well be true more generally, but I tend to limit my commentary to the realm of my actual expertise. But to …
Sluggish cognitive tempo may possibly be the very dumbest and most dangerous diagnostic idea I have ever encountered.
And I have seen some beauts during my forty years of shooting down crazy new diagnostic dream lists. The wild suggestions are usually created by “experts” brim full with diagnostic exuberance — sometimes well meaning, sometimes influenced by extensive drug company affiliations — and always ungoverned by simple common sense, a respect for …
In November of last year the American Heart Association released to recommendations on who should be taking statins (drugs like Lipitor/atorvastatin), the most common medicines we use to control cholesterol levels. High cholesterol levels are associated with higher risk of heart attacks and strokes, and taking statins, which lower cholesterol, can reduce those risks. The drugs have pretty significant side effects, though, and not everyone with high cholesterol or …
I’m no economist. In fact, I have never taken any business or accounting classes in my life. But it doesn’t take a formal education to get this. We are speeding down the wrong path.
The call at three in the morning woke me from a deep sleep. I fumbled and strained to hear the whispered voice of the apologetic nurse. Apparently Mrs. …
I asked why physicians were dying by suicide. Here’s what they told me:
“I definitely graduated from med school with PTSD. It has changed me forever. My mom’s friend that I have known since I was born saw me for the first time since I went to med school and she [told my mom], “She has changed so much. Was it worth …
News broke recently that Daniel Murphy, second baseman for the New York Mets, recently took two days off for paternity leave, causing him to miss Major League Baseball’s opening day and the season’s second game to be with his wife and child.
Mike Francesa, a popular New York sports radio personality, devoted about 20 minutes of his Wednesday broadcast on WFAN to a rant against paternity leave. According to him, a …
I have a set of wind chimes hanging from an arbor that catch my attention whenever I am out in the garden and the breeze kicks up. They were given to me by Mrs. Mary Marlboro’s niece. Mary had purchased them while in hospice with instructions for her niece to give them to me after she passed on. I had cared for Mary for several years after I removed her …
I recently published an article on that garnered a lot of attention. It was titled,”The Myth of the Entitled Single Mother Remains as Relevant as Ever.” In it, I reversed the popularized notion that single mothers are a societal liability and suggested that instead, they are powerful forces in our local economies and influential leaders of future generations. I presented the idea that how society …
Postmodern cultural values have seriously impacted medical care and the patient-physician relationship. Corporate control of medical care, computerization of medical information and consumerism in the clinical encounter, plus the destruction of the myth of the physician are all embodiments of postmodern values.
Postmodern thinkers such as Foucault, Lyotard, Levinas, and Bauman offer powerful insights that can be applied to understand how current values have changed medical practice, including issues such as …
Hospital medicine has rapidly become one of the largest specialties in the United States. As the number of practicing hospital medicine doctors soars above the 30,000 mark and health care reform takes hold, the specialty finds itself at the forefront of American medicine. And for good reason. It is a young, dynamic, varied and flexible specialty that can be practiced in a number of different settings. Hospital medicine doctors are …
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Beginning with a deep understanding of medical science and years of training and experience, the primary care physician (PCP) needs to delve deeply into the patient’s personal, family and social setting in order to fully understand the context and causes of the patient’s illness. The PCP also needs to know when it is important or even critical to call upon others with specific knowledge, techniques or …
One of the hardest things about being a surgeon is the inevitability of complications. It’s true for any doctor; but with surgery, it’s as if they are lit in neon and given a soundtrack. At least to me. Aiming for perfection (as do we all) and beating myself up (more than healthier people) when I miss the mark, I found bad outcomes of nearly any magnitude deeply disturbing. The big …
On March 10, I found myself at the front gate of the Florida State Prison, stethoscope and blood pressure cuff in hand, to examine Robert Henry at the request of his public defender.
Henry is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening by lethal injection. His crime was the murder of two people during a robbery more than 30 years ago.
He’s a 55-year-old African-American man with hypertension, elevated cholesterol, and a history …
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There’s been a lot of hype about the “Ban Bossy” campaign in the news lately, and the talk is all over the map. I was thinking about it in regards to health care, especially nursing, since nurses are notoriously “bossy,” or at least referred to as such.
I can remember being a nursing student and talking with a physician about a patient during my clinicals. He told me, “You …
For more than a decade I’ve taught a seminar in dynamic psychotherapy to psychiatry residents. One tricky issue that arises every year is the apparent choice between conducting a “supportive” psychotherapy, versus an “analytic” or “insight-oriented” one. I developed a sailing analogy to clarify this issue, and to teach an important point about it.
Most patients appreciate emotionally comforting support. Many seek a therapist who will provide a listening ear, who …
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Primary care physicians (PCPs) have multiple frustrations today. The greatest frustration is “time, time, time.” From in-depth interviews with over 20 PCPs, everyone said that time or more correctly lack of time was the greatest frustration of their practice (or was previously if they now were in a practice that limited the patient number to a manageable level). Each knew that they could not give the …
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Hospitals are environments where emotions can run high. These emotions cross all boundaries and can affect physicians, hospital staff, patients and their families. Dealing with an “angry” patient is a common challenge that physicians face.
The first step for a physician encountering an angry patient is to remain calm and allow the patient to express his or her concerns. In my experience, “angry” patients can be viewed as falling into several …
One of the most exciting things about working in patient safety and health care quality is that it’s not solely about advancing science or applying performance improvement methods. It is also about the excitement of being part of a social movement that is changing the culture of medicine — putting patients at the center of everything, sharing errors in the hopes of preventing future ones, and confronting hierarchies that stifle …
Weight is not a behavior, and weight is not a choice. Nobody wakes up and decides what to weigh today. In an age when healthy and unhealthy behaviors are increasingly subject to incentives and disincentives, respectively, this is all too easily forgotten.
Of course, weight is largely the byproduct of behaviors and choices, namely what and how much we eat, and what and how much we do: calories in and calories …
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In March 2014, Zohydro ER (hydrocodone extended-release) was introduced to the market. Never in my medical lifetime do I recall a medication stirring such angst. Worries of mass overdoses, backdoor FDA conspiracies, and blatant disregard for the public well-being abound. Is there method to this madness?
Zohydro ER is a pain pill that, when taken by mouth, is released slowly over twelve hours. The active ingredient, hydrocodone, is an opioid (i.e. narcotic) that’s been around for decades …
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