If you develop a swollen knee, please don’t consider it a normal occurrence.
If there was a clear cause, such as a fall to the knee, or some twisting injury to the knee, it’s likely that the cause is due to some mechanical damage. An easily recognized example would be a football or rugby player sustaining such an injury on the playing field. In that case, its typically serious and when …
Why you shouldn’t ignore a swollen knee
Private practices are organized in a corporate model where the physicians are shareholders, or where one or more physicians own the practice and employ other physicians or providers. Private practices are almost exclusively for-profit. Physician practices are organized into corporations for the tax benefits as well as protecting the owners from liability judgments.
Hospitals can be for-profit, not-for-profit …
Pros and cons of private or hospital owned practice
The FDA has issued a statement alerting physicians and patients to a possible link between breast implants and a rare type of cancer. Although anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is extremely rare, the FDA believes that women with breast implants may have a very small but increased risk of developing the condition.
ALCL in the presence of breast implants has been noted in sporadic case reports over the past 25 years. To date, …
Breast implants and the risk of cancer
by Joe F. Lau, MD and Jeffrey W. Olin, MD
Physicians who perform percutaneous endovascular procedures encounter a multitude of vascular diseases that may masquerade as obstructive atherosclerotic arterial disease. While atherosclerosis is clearly the most common condition seen, complex inflammatory, genetic or structural processes may either not be amenable to an endovascular approach or actually be harmful and thus lead to outcomes that are not …
Vascular diseases that present as obstructive atherosclerotic arterial disease
Medical care in America isn’t doing so well when compared to other developed nations. Historically physicians did not want to take ownership of their patients’ problems. Patients have free will. They can “choose” to be non-adherent. They can choose to not take the medication the doctor prescribes — even if the one prescribed is $70 dollars a month when there is a $4 dollar Read more…
How physicians can take more responsibility in the care of patients
Do we treat diseases or symptoms in psychiatry? While this question might sound philosophical in nature, it’s actually a very practical one in terms of treatment strategies we espouse, medications and other interventions we employ, and, of course, how we pay for mental health care.
It’s also a question that lies at the heart of what psychiatry is all about.
Anyone who has been …
Does psychiatry treat symptoms or diseases?
So, you’ve cut off your breast(s) and poisoned and radiated your body. You’ve hit all your medical milestones – surgery, chemo, herceptin. You’ve recovered and the hair on your legs has grown back to plague you, and you have gotten back to a normal life. Work, jobs, family. Shaving.
Yet you are changed. You didn’t expect this, but each time you get dressed or undressed, you can’t help but notice your mastectomy …
Cancer will always be a part of a patient’s identity
Most of us are uncomfortable talking about our waste products, urine and feces. However, changes in the color and odor may signify disease that can be treated or prevented. This article will review causes of discoloration of urine and when there is a change in the odor of urine.
For hundreds of years doctors have looked at urine as a barometer of what is happening in the body. The urine can …
Pay attention to the color and smell of your urine
The Theresa Brown furor has got me thinking. To be honest, I don’t think the doctor’s apparent offense was really that bad. I remember giving and taking worse.
When I was at medical school and in specialist training, there were senior doctors and nurses of legendary temper and bad disposition. Tiptoeing around them, and working to their satisfaction, however unreasonable, was an accepted part of the job. But the …
A tough disposition is required to endure physician training
by Paul Rousseau, MD
Communication between physicians and patients is critical to quality care and improved outcomes, however, such discussions often seem labored and fraught with anxiety and stress.
Physicians commonly speak too much and listen too little, while patients feel swept up in an unfamiliar and frightening situation with loss of control and little-to-no input into care.
As I have …
Two words that hurt communication between physicians and patients
Recently, an editorial from a plastic surgeon Lloyd Kreiger, MD, appeared in the Wall Street Journal entitled “ObamaCare Is Already Damaging Health Care.”
While I’m not sure I’m ready to concede that Obamacare has already damaged health care in America, I will agree the law is certainly is changing health care, aligning health care corporate interests with political interests, …
Predictions on the future of medicine after health care reform
Actually I’ll take a Ford Shelby GT500 Convertible, thank you very much …
Today’s stream of socially conscious thinking comes to you after having feasted on a tasty lunch paid for by a drug company (and no, it wasn’t Pfizer).
It has spurred me to contemplate the ever increasing scrutiny paid to the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry …
Lunch money Pharma spends on physicians
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
– Albert Schweitzer
The middle-aged Tanzanian woman lived many hours away and had traveled to the academic medical center in Moshi. She had now waited all day to see …
6 ENT physicians practicing in Tanzania, a country of 40 million people
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Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 26-year-old woman is evaluated for a 4-month history of amenorrhea. Menses began at age 13 years. At age 18 years, the patient was placed on an oral contraceptive pill to control heavy bleeding. She discontinued the oral contraceptive pill 4 months ago because she and …
MKSAP: 26-year-old woman is evaluated for amenorrhea
by Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, MD, PhD
Lately I’ve been using social media sites like Quora and Stack Overflow and I’m awed by the intelligent and creative solutions that arise from collective conversation and collaboration.
We hear about Twitter-revolutions and see sites like Ushahidi empowering Africans …
Can social media promote global health?
Every day, mental health clinics, emergency departments, psychiatric hospitals, physicians’ offices, counselors’ offices, school counselors and police officers are faced with an almost impossible responsibility. It is a responsibility, a burden, often highlighted retrospectively, after a tragedy. Their job is this: identify every dangerous person, treat them properly and avoid horrific events like the recent murders in Tuscon.
I sympathize greatly, since I work in the emergency department of a hospital …
Mental health and the shortage of psychiatric help in the ER
The Douglas County Health Department in Omaha, Neb., responded to a 26-person outbreak of pertussis from Sept. 26 to Nov. 21, 2008. Afterward, the department and the CDC assessed the total cost in time and personnel of the response.
“The elevated incidence of pertussis and the burden of response placed on health departments warrants exploring the impact of alternative response and …
The best way to control a pertussis outbreak is to vaccinate
by Susan Y. Chon, MD
You know you need sunscreen. But with so many lotions, sprays and gels to choose from, how do you know which sunblock will actually prevent sunburns — and skin cancer?
When it comes to shielding your skin from the sun, the type of sunscreen you choose is as important as how you use it.
I hear many people blame their sunscreen when …
Sunscreen advice from a dermatologist to prevent skin cancer
If you need laser eye surgery in the state of Kentucky, or a little cosmetic work around the eyelids, it now behooves you to ask your prospective surgeon the following question before signing the operative consent form:
“Say doc, did you go to medical school?”
Kentucky joined the company of Oklahoma earlier this year as the second state to conflate optometrists and ophthalmologists. Only ophthalmologists are the sort of doctors who graduated …
Why the ophthalmologist and optometrist conflict should concern patients
As an academic gastroenterologist at a tertiary care university medical center, I often see patients who have failed traditional therapies that many of my colleagues in the community have tried.
Over the past several years my practice has evolved, from dealing with predominantly the medical aspects of my patients’ diseases to embracing the biopsychosocial model of illness. One of my colleagues has been the world leader in patient care and research in the …
Health related anxiety in patients with complex problems
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