In my forays into the history of medicine I came across these six little words by Hippocrates.
They seem strangely modern, almost like something you might find on a Hallmark-card for today’s medical school graduates. I don’t know how old the translation is and I couldn’t understand the original text if I tried – but these simple words really touched me when I …
Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease
David C. Kibbe and Joseph C. Kvedar’s article, “Building a Research Agenda for Participatory Medicine” highlighted two of their “ready-to-go” research questions:
Recently, the Legacy Foundation’s Schroeder Institute focused …
Using social networks to help patients quit smoking
by Diana E. Lee
None of us really wants to sabotage a doctor’s appointment through our own behavior. But it’s easy to do just that by not paying attention to the factors within our control that affect the quality of our appointments.
These are some behaviors to avoid at all costs:
1. Show up late for appointments. It’s an unfortunate …
How to sabotage a doctor’s appointment
by Sally Scroggs, RD
About 130 million Americans will eat out on any given day this year. While dining out shouldn’t mean “pigging out,” picking a salad over cheese fries can sometimes be difficult.
According to the American Cancer Society, making healthy food choices is one of the most important things you can do to reduce your cancer risks. But nutritional experts say many of us don’t make good …
by Benjamin P. Geisler, MD, MPH
Everybody is talking about Accountable Care Organizations or ACOs these days.
The reason being that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS has released the rules for shared savings between ACOs and CMS.
The complete proposed rule is 429 pages long and they’re seeking comments on it now until early June.
What is an ACO?
ACOs will take care of …
How an ACO will affect physicians and Medicare patients
She was a Korean woman, spoke passable English. We always exchanged pleasantries, and she called me “doctor” when I picked up my laundry. This time she was notably quiet, distant.
I didn’t figure it out until I got home and hung up my jacket, on the inside of which I noticed she’d pinned an envelope. It contained a photo I’d taken months ago, left and forgotten in one of my pockets. …
Sixteen stab wounds, seriously delivered
Insomnia plagues me. In that, I’m no different from millions of other Americans. But I am different in that I sought supposed experts to help me deal with this situation. My experience proved to be a nightmare.
First, I believed my sleeplessness due to the fact I feel “on,” all the time, doing too many things in the space of 24 hours. …
Screen your sleep lab when evaluating your insomnia
My Google Reader accidentally picked up an intriguing abstract that examined a research study of resources that medical students use in solving diagnostic cases.
The abstract was picked up because it contained the word “exercise” that is one of my PubMed filter queries. Although we often think that most diagnostic decision-making occurs from learned information stored in physician’s brains, information resources can …
Google affects how clinicians and the public collect diagnostic information
by Neha Jain, MD
Think back to your first memory of death.
Was it a loved one? A stranger? A pet? Were you sad, happy, or just curious?
My grandmother, Nani, died unexpectedly. During the wake, my cousins and I played together in the bedroom where we had been restricted. All through that memory, there’s a strange, dark, terrible …
Palliative care and medical interventions are not mutually exclusive
by Tarcia Edmunds-Jehu
Sitting in an exam room I am watching my patient struggling to ask a difficult question that she clearly does not want to ask.
After several attempts at starting and a few half finished sentences she finally manages to mumble a request for help with obtaining food for herself and her two daughters. She is a 41-year-old woman, 32 weeks pregnant with her third …
Ordering tests may take food out of the mouths of our patients
When it comes to caring for the sick, it’s often assumed that health professionals and their patients usually get along.
But that’s not always true. Sales people call some of their customers difficult. Turns out that doctors do exactly the same thing with theirs. An article in the current issue of the journal Neurology provides a catalog of difficult …
When a patient evokes an emotional reaction from a physician
They’re everywhere, all of a sudden: little medical kiosks tucked into the back of drug stores, grocery stores, and big box outlets.
With names like “Minute Clinic” or “RediClinic,” they stress speedy, in-and-out service. And of course, you’re already there in the store, ready to buy whatever has been prescribed. A win-win, no?
No.
Everyone knows that if you’re …
If you want good pediatric care, stay away from retail clinics
The relationship a physician has not only with their patients, but also with their patient’s families, has long been the foundation of the medical system.
Over the course of time this once valued bond has had its ups and downs; however today with the internet, Obama healthcare reform, and Medicare cuts to name a few, the doctor-patient relationship finds itself in its …
Physician characteristics that are universally appreciated
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Federal law generally prohibits physicians from referring their own patients to a diagnostic facility in which they have an ownership issue – a practice called “self-referral” – unless the facility is located in their own practice.
This exemption exists to allow patients with access to a laboratory test, x-ray, or other imaging test at the same time and place as when patients are seeing their physician for an office visit. Less …
Physicians referring patients to a diagnostic facility they own
This has been a very busy week already. I have seen many second opinions and I am always very interested in the reason why the patient initiated the second opinion.
In many situations it was simply to see if I would perform the surgery. After I spent a while listening to the patient, examining them and coming up with an appropriate …
Why patients seek a second opinion
Listening to patients for the past two weeks, we learned quite a bit about what patients appreciated about their doctors and what had left them hurt and confused.
The good:
M., an elderly lady with a very close relationship with her primary care physician, said she had been to many bad doctors in her life. She knew right away that her current doctor …
What your patient appreciates, and what causes hurt and confusion
I imagine the world as a vast, boundless frontier weathered by our swirling human emotions and complicated energies — hurricanes of intense heartbreak and tornadoes of joyous, unbridled celebrations, with every weather pattern in between. Sunshine and rain included.
If I could gather this world, foolishly believing that I could sweep my arms and hands through the unsuspecting air to collect a smaller, more-contained version of reality, I know with absolute …
Becoming the official caregiver to your sick parent
Year: 1987
Setting: Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, France
Position: Specialist in tropical diseases
I am a consultant in tropical diseases at the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris in professor Marc Gentilini’s department, which has been receiving HIV/AIDS patients from all parts of the world since the onset of the pandemic.
Indeed, in the early days most patients came from Haiti and Africa and were seen primarily in tropical disease …
Maintaining private space when patients share trying times with you
Recently, I had the honor of moderating a discussion for the Sex::Tech 2011 Conference with the producers of MTVs 16 and Pregnant Morgan Freeman, Dia Sokol Savage and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
I was fascinated by the responses of members in the audience as well as the reactions I read while monitoring the online live stream via Twitter. So what did I conclude?
I concluded that the issue of teen pregnancy …
16 and Pregnant is increasing the awareness of teen pregnancy
Having a healthy level of respect for opioids is critical for any physician. For those of us who prescribe or recommend this class of medicines on a daily basis, this statement rings all the more true. Recent events and research reinforce this reality.
“Oxycontin, Other Opioid Painkillers Tied to Higher Health Risks” was the title of a recent BusinessWeek …
How the reformulation of Oxycontin has affected patients
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