At the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, the results of the ARBITER 6-HALTS study were released. No Vytorin was used in the study, but I am sure that all the headlines will mention Vytorin.
The actual study published ahead of press online in the New England Journal of Medicine. Essentially, they enrolled over 200 patients from Walter Reed and Washington Adventist who had known heart disease or were at …
I recently cared for a patient who raised my heart-rate a bit. Of course, any emergency physician will tell you, the potentially difficult and complicated cases often come at the end of the shift, as you’re trying to clean up all of the paperwork and ‘head for the house.’ Nurse Ginger came to me and said, ‘we need a doctor in room 11.’ I snarled, snatched the paper, grumped and …
Originally published in Insidermedicine
Nearly half of women who undergo surgery and other treatments for breast cancer report having persistent pain in and around the treatment area a year or more later, probably because of nerve damage, according to research published in the November 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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by Paula Hartman Cohen
Have we overlooked the public health aspect of health care reform?
In the health care reform debate, we’ve heard and read how health care reform will or will not work, what it will or will not cost, and how it will or will not impact each one of us as individuals.
We’ve also heard from those who have great faith in our current system, and sincerely believe we should …
by Michael Kirsch, MD
This is a less controversial issue than patients ‘friending’ their doctors on Facebook, which I oppose. Although most physicians’ offices are not e-mailing with patients, perhaps they should. There are several obvious advantages.
* Decompress phone lines, which are suffocating nearly every medical practice in America.
* Relieve patients of the cruel and unusual punishment of languishing on ‘hold’ listening to elevator music or dead air.
* Allow office staff …
by an anonymous radiologist
I recently read the article and comments on this link from this post, concerning radiologists, from Musings of a Dinosaur.
I was disturbed to discover the animosity with which this topic is covered. The tenor of the blog is that radiologists are greedy, self-serving and are out to erode the doctor-patient relationship. The suggestion that radiologists would schedule percutaneous breast biopsies for their financial enhancement is both …
by Chris Emery, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today
A large number of U.S. medical schools say students have posted unprofessional material on Web sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, but few schools have adequate policies in place for dealing with such behavior, a new study found.
Of 78 U.S. medical schools that responded to a survey, 60% reported incidents of …
Caster Semenya is the South African track and field star who recently was engulfed in controversy at the recently concluded World Track and Field Championships.
Turns out, there are some who are questioning her gender, and subsequently, tests are being conducted to see if she is really a woman.
It’s not as cut and dry as it appears.
Consider the possibility of Read more…
Recent reports have said that Michael Jackson died from a propofol overdose. Is that really the case?
Here’s what happened, according to the published timeline.
— At about 1:30 a.m., [Dr. Conrad] Murray gave Jackson 10 mg of Valium.
— At about 2 a.m., he injected Jackson with 2 mg of the anti-anxiety drug Ativan.
— At about 3 a.m., Murray then administered 2 mg of the sedative Versed.
— At about 5 …
by Jeoffry B. Gordon, MD, MPH
The public policy and current political action around changing the system overlooks two important technical fallacies:
(1) That health care is most efficiently distributed by a free market mechanism; and,
(2) That medical services are an ordinary commodity.
The commercial market model is a failing economic and public policy ideology used to rationalize and justify corporate control of the health care system to profit from the enterprise. …
Most prefer the bottom line, sparing them the raw data.
Primary care physician Rob Lamberts asks that exact question, and reprints sample reports of lab tests and an echocardiogram, demonstrating the wealth of information they contain.
So, borrowing this image from Dr. Rob, I’m not sure how useful something like this would be to patients (sorry for the small type, but you get the idea):
Read more…
When physicians in other countries come to the United States, they often become nurses or lab technicians, rather than re-taking rigorous board exams to remain doctors.
One example includes doctors from Cuba. According to this story in The New York Times, “6,000 medical professionals, many of them physicians, have left Cuba in the last six years.” Cuban doctors, who often earn $25 per month, find it significantly more …
Robert Ricketson is a spine surgeon who was involved in a high profile 2003 medical malpractice case in Hawaii where a surgical screwdriver was implanted into a patient’s back. This is his account of the ordeal.
by Robert Ricketson
I am writing today out of frustration and anger, as I am frankly quite tired of passively going along as my name appears year after year in malicious “medical blogs” and …
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And should you assume that no news is good news?
The answer is no. According to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 7 percent of abnormal test results from primary care offices were never reported to the patient. And in a large, unnamed, academic medical center, that number ballooned to 23 percent.
That’s almost a quarter of abnormal test results from that center that patients were never …
The FDA has declared war on acetaminophen, with Vicodin and Percocet being collateral damage. You can bet Dr. Gregory House is sweatin’ pretty hard over this news.
In the last few days, acetaminophen, otherwise known as the brand name Tylenol, has been squarely in the FDA advisory panel’s crosshairs. In general, it’s a very safe medication, but there is …
Michael Jackson’s death continues to consume the news cycle.
There is currently no clear explanation. Some have speculated that it may be related to the narcotic pain drug, Demerol. According to this report from the UK’s The Sun, “An Emergency Room source at UCLA hospital said Jackson aides told medics he had collapsed after an injection of potent Demerol …
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Michael Jackson is dead at age 50.
I’ve received several e-mails to comment on this story, but there’s really too few details to go on. I’m sure more will emerge in the near future.
According to news reports, emergency medical services were called to his home in Los Angeles, where he was found in presumed cardiac arrest. CPR …
Orac, a general surgeon who blogs at Respectful Insolence, writes the most comprehensive entry I’ve seen thus far on Apple’s Steve Jobs’ liver transplant.
For those interested in the medicine behind the transplant, go and read his post in its entirety. I’d like to highlight some of the potentially questionable ethics surrounding the case.
For one, there is the question why Mr. …
A common complaint is that doctors these days are spending more time doing clerical tasks.
Examples include filling out pre-authorization forms, talking to health plans for pre-certifications on imaging studies, and spending time jumping through bureaucratic hoops. Generally, you do not need a medical degree to do these tasks.
Bob Doherty points to a study that gives some numbers to back up the claims. Primary care doctors spend about 3.5 …
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A few days ago, we talked about how Scrubs was a relatively accurate portrayal of medical life.
Let’s talk about the other end of the spectrum, namely, Fox’s House M.D.
As an emergency physician notes, the doctors in the House-universe seem super-human. Indeed, “the docs on that show are not only walking encyclopedias of rare diseases, but they are …
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