Chronic pelvic pain (CPP, pain in the pelvis that is present for more than 2 weeks a month and has been there for more than 6 months) affects 15 percent of women and accounts for upwards of $2 billion a year in direct medical costs. To say it is a significant health burden is a gross underestimate at best. My entire practice is devoted to the treatment of pelvic pain …
Hysterectomy for chronic pelvic pain: 7 questions to ask
Preventing infection after surgery is very important as not only are these infections often uncomfortable and make you feel very sick, but they also increase the risk of more serious complications. For example, if you are less mobile because of an infection after surgery you are at higher risk for a blood clot or if you need a prolonged hospitalization because of an infection in your surgical wound you are …
Antibiotics during gynecological surgery: When are they necessary?
The reports from India read more like the review of a horror movie rather than a detailing of a government funded surgical program: 83 women receiving a surgical sterilization leaving 11 dead and another 50 hospitalized, 20 of whom (as of this posting) are seriously ill. And all of this happened in six hours with one surgeon at a government sponsored sterilization camp.
As an OB/GYN I want to tell you how bad this actually is.
The most …
The sterilization deaths in India: It’s worse than you think
Dear Dr. Oz,
I know the #OzsInBox question on Twitter didn’t exactly go the way you or your social media team expected.You told Sen. McCaskill when she asked you about the so-called miracles and medically baseless products that you promote on your show that you view yourself as a cheerleader, but consider #OzsInBox a wake-up call that doctors (or at …
A letter to Dr. Oz for his inbox
This weekend the kids and I had our influenza immunizations.
There is always a difficult lead up as Oliver has severe anxiety around every medical procedure. An EKG (painless heart rhythm test) and a throat swab cause extreme fear and often tears and anything with a needle, well, let’s just say that’s on a whole different level of terror and emotional pain.
I remind myself that his anxiety is a normal response …
My son depends on herd immunity, so thanks for getting your flu shot
To put this post in perspective the pain of childbirth is said to be equivalent of amputating a finger.
The joint statement of the American Congress of OB/GYN and the American Society of Anesthesiologists sums pain control during labor and delivery quite nicely: “There is no other circumstance where it is considered acceptable for an individual to experience untreated severe pain, amenable to safe intervention, while under a physician’s care. In …
Why are so many people opposed to epidurals?
The New York Times has reported on a woman who wanted to deliver vaginally and claims she was forced to have a repeat C-section (her third C-section) against her will. I can’t comment on the veracity of her claims, however a forced C-section is never, ever acceptable. It doesn’t mater if the fetus has an agonal rhythm (is visibly dying on the monitor), as an OB your role is …
VBAC is the love child of medical malpractice lawyers
If I were punched by an unknown man in an elevator there would be little doubt that my assailant would be prosecuted. If the trauma were enough to cause me to lose consciousness, meaning I suffered brain trauma, my attacker would likely be charged with aggravated assault. No one would be surprised if he received jail time. No one would think twice if he lost his job. However, if I …
Domestic violence and the NFL: We all need to change
Wendy Davis, gubernatorial candidate for Texas, has a new memoir Forgetting to Be Afraid. In it she describes terminating two pregnancies. One termination appears to have been in the second trimester for fetal indications and the other she describes as an ectopic pregnancy. She writes, “The only medical option was to have surgery to terminate the pregnancy and remove the affected fallopian tube — which …
Abortion or ectopic pregnancy? When politicians confuse medical terms.
A 33-year-old woman in Indiana, Purvi Patel, presented to an emergency room with vaginal bleeding and when it was obvious that she had very recently delivered a baby the doctors on call notified the authorities. The body of her 28-week gestation infant was recovered. The pathologist believed the baby had taken a breath so Ms. Patel was with charged with neglect of a dependent. …
Feticide laws force birth and punish women
You know it’s going to be one of those days when one of the first tweets on vacation inquires about the closest hospital.
Victor, one of my 11-year-olds, had something in his eye courtesy of a big gust of wind outside of Westminster Abbey. He was complaining enough to let me flip his eyelid and irrigate his eye on the square in front of Big Ben. (I’m sure several people thought …
An American doctor’s experience with the NHS
There are two new high-tech ways that aim to help you with Kegel exercises, both with Kickstarter campaigns. There is the Skea (Smart Kegel Exercise Aid), basically a video game that proposes controlling the avatar with a vaginal probe that uses the pelvic floor muscles and kGoal, a vaginal insert that is meant to connect wirelessly with your smart phone and measures your squeeze …
Vaginal video games: What to make of mobile Kegel apps
Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever that causes death by what seems like a virally induced stigmata. That statement could be even shorter. With a fatality rate that can reach 80 to 90% we could just say that Ebola is death.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says this most recent outbreak is “moving faster than our efforts to control it” and the CDC is calling this “The biggest and most complex …
Bringing the two Americans back home with Ebola: Is it worth it?
The Veteran’s Administration is under fire for covering up deaths. Men and women who were eligible for care languished on impossibly long waiting lists and even worse when some died waiting for care their deaths were covered up. This is horrific and everyone wants to know how this tragedy could have happened?
Veteran’s hospitals have long waits in my experience because they are underfunded, many (if not all) patients with complex …
The VA scandal exposes the folly of metrics
George Will continues with his assertion that it is mathematically impossible for 1 in 5 women to have been sexually assaulted while in college. He calls the statistics “insupportable” and when he replied to Senators Blumenthal, Feinstein, Baldwin, and Casey he chided them to temper their “rhetoric” about the “scourge of sexual assault.” But it’s not just the statistics that appear to bother Mr. Will as he also …
Trivializing violence against women
Dear Mr. Will,
I read your recent column on the “supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. sexual assault” and am somewhat taken aback by your claim that forcing colleges to take a tougher stand on sexual assault somehow translates into a modern version of The Crucible that replaces witchcraft with rape hysteria.
I was specifically moved to write to you because the rape scenario that you describe somewhat incredulously is not unfamiliar to me. …
College rape: A response to George Will
There is a recent and interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal by an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Craviotto, about the maddening aspect of forced mandates and bureaucratic requirements in medicine that seem to have very little to do with actual medical care and more about hoops through which we must jump that seemingly lead to nowhere.
While I do find the bureaucracy of medicine in the United States insane versus the Canadian system, I …
Measles is on its way to an all time high.
In 2000, measles was eliminated (meaning some travelers from areas with low vaccine penetration might arrive in the U.S. with the disease, but no case came from U.S.), but has been slowly creeping back. Since 2008, this has been more than a trickle.
Let’s put the important goal of measles elimination in perspective. Before …
Dr. Bob Sears deserves blame for declining vaccination rates
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a statement about power morcellation during hysterectomy and myomectomy (surgery to remove uterine fibroids), raising concerns about these devices spreading unanticipated cancers. There have been several reports in the literature and the press alike of this happening and when it does it significantly worsens the prognosis. The American Congress of Obstetrician and Gynecologists (ACOG) is now re-exploring this issue. Pending a full review the FDA …
Power morcellation: Answers to your safety questions
Reports that Mila Kunis, the actress, plans on a “natural” delivery is all over the Internet. As a celebrity she is clearly a medical expert and somehow it is relevant to hear how an actress with no financial concerns, doesn’t need to work on her feet until she goes into labor, has a BMI of 19 (OK, that’s a guess) who has never delivered before is planning to have her …
Having an epidural doesn’t mean you’re any less of a mom
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