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Which kills more? Guns or cars? The answer will surprise you.

Conditions

June 17, 2015

Here’s a question for you: Which causes more deaths, motor vehicle traffics accidents or firearms?

I asked a bunch of people that question, including a bunch of doctors, and everyone said that motor vehicles did, by a lot.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2013, 33,804 people died from motor vehicle traffic accidents — and 33, 636 died from firearms.

They kill the same number of …

The physical genius of Lionel Messi, and how it relates to surgery

Jeffrey Parks, MD

Physician

June 16, 2015

lionel-messi-2013-hd-wallpaper-2219075

Quintessential Messi. One moment he is standing over the ball, in a seemingly harmless position at midfield, the next thing you know you are picking the ball out of the back of the net. How did this come to pass? How did things change so rapidly? When you watch it the first time, it’s disorienting. It makes no sense. How does …

My child has hand-foot-and-mouth disease. What do I need to know?

Roy Benaroch, MD

Conditions

June 15, 2015

shutterstock_189429203

Desiree wrote in, “My 15-month daughter and a few other kids at her daycare were just diagnosed with hand-foot-mouth disease. I would like to hear how common it is, what treatments (or ways to soothe) you find helpful, and how you would differentiate this from measles or chickenpox. For example, my little one has blisters all over her body, not just H-F-M. …

What’s it like to be a rural surgeon? Read this to find out.

Hope Amantine, MD

Physician

June 15, 2015

shutterstock_149069183

Recently I’ve been asked to write about rural surgery, what it’s like, what’s good about it. Everything has its ups and downs.

First of all let me say that whatever your job is, the money you get paid to do that job is for the crappy part, and every job has a crappy part. The trick is to find a job that …

The controversy about shaken baby syndrome actually isn’t one at all

Christopher Johnson, MD

Conditions

June 14, 2015

A recent series of articles in the Washington Post and a segment on NPR have caused quite a stir. The articles are about what we have called for decades shaken baby syndrome. It can be fatal. We now use the term non-accidental head trauma. This term replaced the older one because it is more specific; children can be …

Stop the Humpty Dumpty approach to health care

David Jones, MD

Physician

June 14, 2015

As a little kid, I used to love the bedtime story about Humpty Dumpty and his fall from the wall. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.” Until recently, I never thought about this story as a logical and sad analogy to …

4 reasons why business and medicine go together

Shraddha Dalwadi

Policy

June 13, 2015

I am going to make a bold statement here. Are you ready for it? There is nothing wrong with health care providers thinking like businessmen.

I know what you’re thinking, but I feel the word “business” gets a bad reputation in medicine. We immediately associate the term with profit-hungry, egocentric individuals, a preconceived notion probably rooted in their unfair depiction in popular …

For physicians, medical knowledge can be both a blessing and a curse

Chiduzie Madubata, MD

Physician

June 12, 2015

“Knowledge is power.” The words of Sir Francis Bacon still ring true almost 400 years later. For the most part, knowledge can provide the power to change lives, change communities and change the world. People born in adverse conditions can potentially improve their circumstances with a degree from higher education, and it is why the first college degree in a family …

To a patient: Stay strong. Don’t lose hope.

Arzoo Sadiqi

Education

June 11, 2015

I have been exposed to many patient interactions during my first year of medical school. However, my first real patient interaction was when I accompanied my attending to a homeless shelter in downtown Phoenix. I can clearly remember being very excited the day before the visit to the homeless shelter; this was to be the first time I would actually interact with real patients. …

How heartburn caused a patient to lose her left leg

Rourke Stay, MD

Conditions

June 10, 2015

Note: This case is meant to illustrate the potential negative effects of inappropriate imaging. It is not intended as a diatribe towards any member of the health care team. Really the only “mistake” made here was the ordering of the CT scan in the first place.

A 37-year-old woman presents to her local emergency department (ED) with a 4-hour history of heartburn …

I started a family medicine practice for $11,000. You can, too.

P. J. Parmar, MD

Physician

June 7, 2015

I am presenting my startup costs here, to give some ideas for those providers who are considering starting their own family practice, or for those who say it can’t be done anymore.

To become a business, I spent $50 for the state LLC filing, and $12 for business cards. I already had my medical license and DEA from residency, so the only certificate …

It’s time that all hospitals have single patient rooms

Suneel Dhand, MD

Physician

June 6, 2015

The medical world has made terrific scientific and technological progress over the last century. Previously incurable diseases can now be treated as day cases, and patients no longer have to accept a paternalistic, one-sided relationship with their doctors. Hospitals too, have a come a long way if you look at pictures of what they used to look like in those old …

Where are you on the physician pain scale?

James Chang, MD

Physician

June 6, 2015

This cartoon is based on data from the 2015 Medscape Physician Compensation Report. Dermatology is on one end, internal medicine on the other. The other specialties in between. Doesn’t seem to be a trend between the cognitive and procedural specialities, which is a bit surprising. You’d think the latter would skew towards the “happiness” side.

Do you …

Gross anatomy: What’s a first-year medical student to do?

Daniel Paull, MD

Education

June 6, 2015

An excerpt from So You Got Into Medical School… Now What?: A Guide to Preparing for the Next Four Years.

By far one of the most unique experiences first-year medical students can have is working in the gross anatomy lab. From the potent smell of formaldehyde to the …

10 reasons to have your baby at a birth center

Poppy Daniels, MD

Physician

June 5, 2015

1. Due to intermittent monitoring versus continuous fetal monitoring which is standard in the hospital, the patient has increased mobility and a wider range of laboring positions/options: sitting, standing, walking, water, birthing balls. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has agreed that there is not a medical benefit to continuous fetal monitoring compared to intermittent monitoring in low-risk women.

2. …

I’m a physician. But please don’t call me doctor.

Anonymous

Physician

June 5, 2015

I work in a place where nobody calls me by my name.

They all address me by a moniker of their choosing that I have asked them not to use. I have asked them to use my name. Aside from a few who respect my wish, most of my co-workers just call me by the impersonal-sounding phrase they’ve selected instead. It creates …

Medical student suicide: It’s impact is devastating. This case proves it.

Ajay Koti

Education

June 4, 2015

Kaitlyn Elkins was a medical student at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina and a member of the class of 2015. She excelled academically, named the valedictorian of her high school class and graduating summa cum laude from Campbell University. She wrote poetry in her free time. She had a cat, lovingly named Gatito. On April 11, 2013, just …

Want to enhance medical education? Use spaced repetition.

Peter Wei, MD and Alex Chamessian

Education

June 4, 2015

We’ve all heard it said that learning medicine is like drinking from a firehose. Yet many students and schools don’t use one of the most effective study techniques available to them. Spaced repetition is a powerful, evidence-based study technique that can enhance learning and long-term retention of medical knowledge. Medical students and schools could both benefit from understanding and using spaced repetition to produce more knowledgeable and better-informed doctors.

Over a …

The problems with a low salt diet

Edwin Leap, MD

Conditions

June 3, 2015

One of my favorite physician sayings is, “Don’t just do something, stand there!” Which means that it’s better to do nothing than to do something that doesn’t help. As I move through my career, I find myself agreeing. I am endlessly amazed at the number of things we do for no good reason, and that patients come to expect, also for …

Read more…

The problems with a low salt diet

Doctors: Be sure to thank the case managers

Suneel Dhand, MD

Physician

June 1, 2015

As someone who has practiced hospital medicine up and down the East Coast for the last several years, I’ve had the fortune of working with some absolutely terrific colleagues. The hospital environment is by its very nature a busy and hectic one — where we all put our heads down and work tirelessly at the coalface for hours on end. Doctors …

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