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 …
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 …
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 …
A recently reported method of torturing gay men in Iraq sounds horrifying.
Andrew Sullivan points to an article that spares no graphic details: “. . . anti-gay Shiite death squads are sealing their anuses with a powerful glue, then inducing diarrhea, which leads to a painful and agonizing death.”
But, can someone really die from this novel form of torture?
Emergency physician Shadowfax has his doubts. …
Cool x-rays, but more importantly, why was this man cleaning his teeth with a pair of scissors in the first place?
(via Shadowfax)
More hospitals are resorting to so-called “dayhawk” radiology services to read their x-rays.
It’s modeled after the “nighthawk” model, where radiologists (via Shadowfax), in some cases as far away as India, remotely read films in the middle of the night.
Now, the phenomenon is happening during business hours as well, which according to radiologist Giles W. L. Boland, means that “some radiologists can no longer assume long-term …
A recent California court denied extra time for aspiring medical students with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder when taking the MCAT.
The body that administers the test has to straddle a delicate line, in granting extra time to a broadening definition of the disabled student versus maintaining the overall fairness and integrity of the high stakes test.
Despite the ruling, three of the four plaintiffs have gone …
Would Natasha Richardson be alive today if she had gone skiing in the United States instead?
I don’t think it would have made a difference.
To recap the tragedy, Ms. Richardson died from an epidural bleed, after she fell while skiing. Her presentation was somewhat classic, with the well-described “lucid” period before she deteriorated.
According to Canada’s Globe and Mail, “ambulance workers were not …
Have you ever wondered why doctors have to perform a digital rectal exam?
Well, look no further, as primary care doctor Rob Lamberts gives us the answers discerning readers demand.
Simply by looking at the rectum, which by the way, indeed “takes some getting used to,” can lead to significant diagnostic findings. Furthermore, does tight sphincter tone matter? And should you be worried about the large hands …
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For those who don’t know, every piece of work that a doctor performs is quantified and measured.
The base unit of physician work is known as the relative value unit (RVU). Most physician salaries are determined by the amount of RVUs a doctor produces in a given year, and in most cases, can range between$35 and $45 per RVU in primary care, depending on geographic location and …
Cosmo Magazine, that bastion of reliable medical advice, declares, “An orgasm almost killed her.”
Intrigued, gynecologist Amy Tuteur reads further, and finds its about case where a woman developed stroke-like symptoms after intercourse, and was diagnosed with an embolic stroke.
The patient was taking the birth control pill, which can raise the risk of blood clots. In this case, it was also combined with the presence of …
That’s a question I was asked more than once, in light of this week’s story about the birth of octuplets.
For the answer, I’ll refer to this article in Slate. The largest reported number of fetuses in a single womb is 15.
The limit is not so much the number of fetuses, but the combined size and weight. As Christopher Beam explains, “once the total …
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Mariana Bridi da Costa, a 20-year old Brazilian model, tragically died early Saturday morning from Pseudomonas aeruginosa urosepsis.
How can this happen?
Miss Bridi da Costa initially presented on December 30th, and was diagnosed with kidney stones. An ultrasound, plain film, or CT scan likely would have been done to confirm the diagnosis. I assume that a urinalysis was also performed, and if …
A primary care doctor guides us through the abdominal physical exam.
He deciphers the much-written notation of “Abd: Soft, NT, Normal BS, no HSM or masses*,” and explains what physicians look for when they poke, prod, percuss, and listen to when examining a patient’s belly.
You’d be surprised at some of the things we find simply by pressing on the abdomen.
* For those who need translation, …
Jett Travolta tragically passed away yesterday, after being found unconscious in his hotel room by his caretaker. There is speculation that he had a seizure and hit his head on a bathtub.
Travolta apparently had a long history of medical problems, including Kawasaki disease, which is a vasculitis that primarily affects children. It is one of the most common causes of acquired heart disease in children, and …
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This is an important article to read.
Many of the incentives today encourage doctors to order more advanced imaging scans, like CTs and MRIs. This expensive practice is invariably caused by this common scenario, as “patients who are in pain often demand scans hoping to find out what is wrong, doctors are tempted to offer scans to those patients, and then, once a scan is done, it …
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