A cold is almost never just a cold …
So much to do, so little time. And I wasn’t supposed to get a COUGH again, either.
No, I’m not kidding.
I know where I was infected. To make a very long story short, exactly a week ago I accompanied a friend (who has very little Italian) and her 5-year-old daughter to a pediatric dentist. We had to wait for a couple of hours (the dentist was very busy and behind schedule) in a small, airless waiting room with other adults and their…kids.
Yes, I’m well aware of the danger of my being around potentially ill kids, especially in a situation like that where I couldn’t escape, but my friend needed m...
Source: Margaret's Corner - November 22, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll Source Type: blogs
Urgent care centers prescribe more antibiotics. Why is that?
Urgent care centers are way ahead in prescribing unnecessary, potentially harmful antibiotics that are doing no one any good – at least no patients any good. The owners of the urgent care centers are the ones who are benefitting. And you and your family are being bilked, misled, and harmed.
A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at the proportion of antibiotic prescriptions that were made for viral respiratory infections – things like the common cold and bronchitis. These are viral infections, caused by viruses (sorry if I’m hammering that too much – but obviously it bears repeating.) The rese...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 30, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/roy-benaroch" rel="tag" > Roy Benaroch, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Infectious Disease Pediatrics Source Type: blogs
Possible case of feline oral (malignant) melanoma
Because our 11-year-old cat, Peekaboo, has been very aggressive toward the new kittens…stalking them, pushing them into corners and then hitting them until, screeching like hyenas, thus giving us heart attacks, they manage to escape (mind you, she doesn’t hurt them, no blood is shed, e.g., but she really scares them, and that isn’t nice at all!), I finally took her to the vet clinic yesterday morning for a checkup.
When, back in May, I took Pandora and Pixie to the clinic to be spayed, I spoke about this aggressive behavior with the vets who agreed with me that Peekaboo might have some sort of painful phy...
Source: Margaret's Corner - July 4, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll cat oral melanoma oral melanoma in cats Source Type: blogs
Quick post
Wow, it’s been a long time since I last published a post. Everything is fine, more or less…This has just been a super busy period…
In a nutshell: our two mischievous kittens (see the awful cellphone photo on the right) were spayed a couple of weeks ago after the scare with Pandora’s heart turned out to be just that. I mean, it was just a scare, luckily!!! They are doing just fine and are as mischievous as ever.
Then Stefano and I spent four days at a cousin’s wedding in Avellino, a town near Naples, then there were a million things to do once we got back to Florence, teaching English blablabl...
Source: Margaret's Corner - June 6, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll bronchitis myeloma spayed kittens Source Type: blogs
The unscientific lure of antibiotics
Although my father did not discover penicillin, he helped do the research showing its effectiveness in curing infective endocarditis. As an internist, he then became enamored with the role antibiotics could play in treating infections. Growing up, my siblings and I can attest to his unbridled enthusiasm, as every time we contracted a cold, we would get a shot of the wonder mold in our butts. The fact that colds were caused by viruses and not bacteria did little to dissuade him from the utility of the treatment. When I finally developed a rash after another shot, I celebrated the fact that the painful solution would never e...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 22, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/david-mokotoff" rel="tag" > David Mokotoff, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Infectious Disease Primary Care Source Type: blogs
Many medical nouns need adjectives
Last week on twitter I wrote a series of tweets about necessary qualifiers. Here are the tweets which represent an incomplete sample of the problem:
1st tweet on importance of qualifiers w/ “diagnoses”
Do not label the patient as COPD exacerbation without saying why: Differential includes acute bronchitis, pneumonia, pneumothorax, left side heart failure, anemia, opiates, PE etc.
2nd qualifier tweet – Never tell me the patient has CKD without giving me the stage and the cause. Corollary – do not give me the eGFR for patients with AKI – the estimates do not work with increasing creatinine levels...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - March 5, 2018 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
How cancer transformed this physician
“Wouldn’t it suck if you made it all the way through residency and then got cancer at the end?” my buddy Ron, a fellow medical student, and master of dark comedy, joked. I winced at the thought. God has a funny way of foreshadowing.
Three-quarters of the way through pathology residency I noticed my feet were starting to itch, especially at night. It was a deep itch. I scratched so hard it bled. I thought I hope I don’t have Hodgkin’s, and then put it out of my mind. I had a pile of cases waiting for me in surgical pathology.
Four months and 20 pounds-lost later, I could barely stand up long enough to put on m...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 2, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/collin-ohara" rel="tag" > Collin O'Hara, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Oncology/Hematology Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 218
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 218, all about colours.
Question 1
What colour are you if you are suffering from ‘argryia’?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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Purple or Purple/Grey
Argyria is t...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - December 15, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Mark Corden Tags: Frivolous Friday Five amphotericin B argryia black lung blue bloater ciprofloxacin coal workers pneumoconiosis COPD emphysema infantile acrodynia mercury pink disease pink puffer Red man syndrome rifampicin silver skin teic Source Type: blogs
A Safer Way To Legalize Marijuana
Eight US states, the District of Columbia, and the country of Uruguay have recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana, with Canada and more US states poised to do the same. The new laws include limits on youth access, operation of motor vehicles when using, and high-volume purchases or possession. However, none of the laws consider which kinds of marijuana products should and should not be legally sold.
While we take no position on the overall desirability of marijuana legalization, we propose here that policy makers in favor of it consider only permitting the sale of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) extracts intended ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 8, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Rebecca Haffajee, Alex C. Liber and Kenneth E. Warner Tags: Featured Public Health drug policy legalization of marijuana Source Type: blogs
Podcasting with the Curbsiders – please listen!
I just had the great honor of being a repeat guest for the Curbsiders. Published today, we discuss #54: Upper Respiratory Infections: Coughs, colds, gargling, and antibiotic underuse?!
Regular readers can probably imagine my comments. I mostly focused attention on defining when upper respiratory infections are not routine. As I have written previously, while we do not want to prescribe unnecessary antibiotics, we also do not want to withhold necessary antibiotics. My concern with most guidelines and algorithms is the lack of specificity in defining routine bronchitis, sinusitis or pharyngitis in the context of the ...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - August 28, 2017 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
Cigna Continues to Expand into the Provider Side of Healthcare
It has become clear to me that some health insurance companies have decided to try to control some aspects of healthcare delivery as a cost-saving measure. Evidence of this trend was the recent decision byCigna to partner withCVS' MinuteClinics. This new program applies only to Cigna's employer-sponsored health plans. (see:Cigna teams with CVS Health in collaboration to rival urgent care clinics). Below is an excerpt from the article:In June,...[Cigna] and CVS Healthannounced the initiative [to partner with CVS] for Cigna's self-funded employer-sponsored health plans. Retail pharmacies a...
Source: Lab Soft News - July 26, 2017 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Insurance Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Medical Consumerism Preventive Medicine Reference Laboratories Source Type: blogs
How Is This Medical Bill Possible?
By RICHARD WAGEMAN, MD
Two recent hospital admissions and the medical record dictation records events, visits, and documentation of physical examinations that did not occur.
Hospital stay 1 was for asthmatic bronchitis. Thru the ED I was admitted to a FP, who consulted a Pulmonary doc. The Pulmonary did H & P and all of the treatment and exams during stay, and did a great job.
The FP spent about 2 minutes total during the stay. He did no exam ever, yet billed Medicare for multiple visits, exams and did discharge note, including physical that was never done.
Is this the new way if generating income by false docume...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 10, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
NIH News in Health, May 2017
Check out the May issue of NIH News in Health, the monthly newsletter bringing you practical health news and tips based on the latest NIH research. In this issue:
Keeping Your Gut in Check: Healthy Options to Stay on Tract
Cough Culprits: What’s the Difference Between Bronchitis and Pneumonia?
How Your Eating Habits Affect Your Health
Spanish-Language Health Materials
Featured Website: Understanding the Human Genome Project
The May issue of NIH News in Health is available online here, https://nnlm.gov/bhic/is9x (Source: BHIC)
Source: BHIC - May 5, 2017 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kay Deeney Tags: Articles Chronic Disease General Minority Health Concerns Source Type: blogs
When you have a cold, I want you to know why I ’m not giving you an antibiotic
I want you to know about colds, and integrity.
Every day I see a hand full of colds. Viral upper respiratory infections. Bronchitis. Coughing, sneezing, congestion, fever. You come to me because you are miserable, and I appreciate that you trust my advice. I want you to know that I can commiserate with you. I don’t want you to feel miserable either.
Truthfully, as odd as this sounds, I wish could find something bacterial — something “curable” on your exam or testing. Not because I want you to be sick, but because I can “do” something. And frankly, a lot of the times it would be easier. If you have strep thr...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - February 10, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/eileen-sprys" rel="tag" > Eileen Sprys, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
