Giving the patient and family precious minutes to say goodbye

An excerpt from Doctor Confidential: Secrets Behind the Veil.

by Richard Sheff, MD

Dorothy suffered a second heart attack, leaving more of her heart muscle damaged and causing her to slip into congestive heart failure. There was not much we could do to reverse the many blockages in her arteries. Yet she was cheerful, as were her four children.

One morning Mary came to find me. “Dorothy says …

Read more…

Giving the patient and family precious minutes to say goodbye

Cannabis use and medicine, the debate over benefits and harms

An excerpt from Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany as Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine.

by Marcello Pennacchio, PhD

Few plants have generated as much debate and controversy as cannabis (Cannabis sativa).

Throughout the ages, it has been labelled both a dangerous drug and potent medicine. Where the former is concerned, law-enforcement agents and governments spend millions …

Read more…

Cannabis use and medicine, the debate over benefits and harms

ADVERTISEMENT

Accountable care organizations: The lost art of medicine?

by Sharolyn Rhees Medina, MD

It’s no secret that healthcare’s inevitable move toward accountable care organizations (ACOs) has many physicians feeling a bit …nervous. Admittedly, most physicians are creatures of habit who fiercely defend their individual approach to patient care, focus on cures not cost, and dread the concept of “cookbook medicine.”

And under the ACO model, physicians …

Read more…

Accountable care organizations: The lost art of medicine?

Prostate cancer from a patient perspective

by Dan Zenka

As a patient, I feel for anyone who is given a diagnosis of prostate cancer.  Hearing the “Big-C” word can be upsetting enough. But the complexity of the disease—diagnosing it, trying to characterize it and selecting the appropriate treatment—can feel like insult upon injury.  We need to talk about prostate cancers. With 24 known sub-types of this cancer—from …

Read more…

Prostate cancer from a patient perspective

97
pages