Three Products That My Dermatologist Says Are “Of The Devil” – And Other Skin Tips
This actress keeps her dermatologist on speed dial too.
As a light skinned, be-freckled woman with a history of pre-melanoma, I have been sternly instructed to keep my dermatologist on speed dial. Every six months I dutifully return to his office for inspection – nervously eyeing the biopsy tray as I sweat through my paper gown, legs dangling from a vinyl exam table.
In preparation for my most recent trip, I decided to be “an empowered patient” and arrive with a list of general dermatology and skin care questions that could be answered during my skin check. Judging from the near-syncopal episodes that I i...
Source: Better Health - September 23, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Dr. Val Jones Tags: Health Tips Allergies Antibacterial Ointment Bounce Brush Clarisonic Contact Dermatitis Dermatologist Dermatology Dryer Sheets Exfoliator Hydroquinone melanoma Moisturizer Neosporin Physical Block Pores Skin Cancer Skin Source Type: blogs
Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found In Workers At Industrial Farms
The ongoing use of antibiotics in livestock has spawned controversy over the extent to which these medications jeopardize human health by causing resistance to develop to the drugs. Two months ago, for instance, a bill was introduced in the US Senate to limit antibiotic use in livestock. And for the second time this year, a study published in PLOS One indicates that such concerns have merit.
Researchers found drug-resistant bacteria associated with livestock in the noses of industrial livestock workers in North Carolina, but not in the noses of antibiotic-free livestock workers. The drug-resistant bacteria examined were St...
Source: Pharmalot - August 20, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
Stop blanket animal antibiotics now - before it's too late
Factory Farm Workers Are Carrying An Antibiotic-Resistant Pig BacteriaBy Aviva Shen on Jul 9, 2013 at 3:50 pmhttp://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/09/2270181/factory-farm-workers-drug-resistant-bugs/?mobile=wt(Credit: AP)Shortly before Americans fired up their grills for Independence Day, researchersannounced that industrial farm workers have been contaminated with “pig MRSA,” an antibiotic resistant bacteria that is increasingly found in American hogs. According to a new study, workers at factory hog farms that use antibiotics are far more likely to contract the drug-resistant bacteria from ...
Source: PharmaGossip - July 10, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 07-09-2013
More updates available tomorrow on my other blog at DrWhitecoat.com
Why does an $11,596 emergency department visit cost $1,100? A spokesperson for the California Hospital Association says that it is because of government regulation. I want to know what doctor ever gets paid $4,242 for a Level 4 emergency department visit.
California attorneys are trying to raise the cap on damages under California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act. Caps are currently $250,000 and haven’t been raised in more than 35 years.
The article says that many attorneys won’t take medical malpractice cases in California because they are t...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - July 9, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
My Dad on Exercise
Bullseye has walked four to six miles for exercise almost every day, for 25 years. When home, he’ll walk the same route around the neighborhood or on the treadmill if the weather is poor. He’ll also walk the same route when he’s on vacation at the beach (at the same hotel every year). At the last job he held for over 30 years, he walked the same blocks, or the same hallways if the weather was poor.
Despite spending more time in Washington, D.C., than almost any other location throughout his life, he couldn’t tell me about his surroundings, where landmarks are, or how to get anywhere. “What do I care where you y...
Source: I've Still Got Both My Nuts: A True Cancer Blog - July 6, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: family Source Type: blogs
MKSAP: 52-year-old man with fatigue and fever
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 52-year-old man is admitted to the hospital with fatigue and fever of 3 days’ duration. He is a health care worker and has a bicuspid aortic valve. He takes no medications.
Blood cultures are obtained at the time of admission, and he is started on empiric vancomycin for possible endocarditis.
On hospital day 2, his initial blood cultures become positive for gram-positive cocci in clusters, and on hospital day 3, his blood cultures grow methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Susceptibility to vancomy...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - June 29, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: Conditions Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
“You Have MRSA!” “Say What?” How I Got MRSA
MRSA can be deadly if not caught and treated in a timely manner. How my diagnosis of MRSA ravaged my body and damn near killed me!Contributor: James SiroisPublished: May 31, 2013 (Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content)
Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content - May 31, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Source Type: blogs
Screening inpatients for MRSA—case closed.
It isn't often that you see a headline like this in the medical world. But such are the conclusions reached by Michael B. Edmond, M.D., M.P.H., and Richard P. Wenzel, M.D.in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. The editorial commented on the results of an extensive study by Susan S. Huang et al published by NEJM, entitled, "Targeted versus Universal Decolonization to Prevent ICU Infection."This is a big deal. For a number of years, people have been arguing over the issue of whether screening patients for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, with subsequent isolation, would be b...
Source: Running a hospital - May 30, 2013 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Feel the Felon
Last time we discussed some ways to approach and manage the acute paronychia, but yet another unfortunate criminal robs our nail of its fine fettle: the nefarious felon. The felon’s early signs and symptoms may be subtle so don’t be fooled. This tender, fingerpad infection is not to be ignored. The enclosed fascial spaces of the fingertip pulp will be tender, and appear red and hot, which should mimic your aggressiveness and approach to stop it in its tracks. Figure out that felon, be tender, and forge ahead!
Some thoughts before proceeding. Your fingertip has thousands of nerves, and is very sensitive. Consider all...
Source: The Procedural Pause - May 29, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Clean Your Stuff
Alan starts each shift with a ritual of cleaning. I should be clear that I don’t use the word ritual as a literary device. Alan’s morning ambulance cleaning is as systematic and well thought out as any religious ceremony. Over the course of a few months of working together I learned the routine well.
Checking through my medical kit I’d observe him start at the back doors of the rig, spraying and wiping the outside door handles and then opening the doors and wiping the insides. Then he would climb inside wiping handles, pram rails and anything people might habitually grab for support. The overhead rails al...
Source: The EMT Spot - May 24, 2013 Category: Ambulance Crew Authors: administrator Tags: Knowledge slider Source Type: blogs
Pharmalot... Pharmalittle... Good Morning
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another busy day. As usual, we are scrambling about on the Pharmalot corporate campus in order to deposit the short people at their schoolhouses and sorting out plans for the long weekend coming up. Meanwhile, though, there is much to do. The world has not stopped spinning, of course. So here are some tidbits. Hope your day is a success and do stay in touch...
Wockhardt Says FDA Import Alert Could Hurt $100M In Sales (Business Standard)
J&J To Submit 17 New Drug Applications By 2017 (Dow Jones)
FDA Panel Says Merck Sleeping Pill Is Safe At Low Doses (Bloomberg News)
Glaxo Flu Sh...
Source: Pharmalot - May 23, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
A continuing display of weak leadership
This report shows that some of its employees failed that test.I’ve directed Secretary Lew to hold those responsible for these failures accountable, and to make sure that each of the Inspector General’s recommendations are implemented quickly, so that such conduct never happens again. But regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong. Public service is a solemn privilege. I expect everyone who serves in the federal government to hold themselves to the highest ethical and moral standards. So do the American people. And as President, I intend to make sure our public se...
Source: Running a hospital - May 15, 2013 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Please Poke My Paronychium!
THE BASICSWhat is more satisfying than draining a pus-filled paronychium? Seeing the look of relief on the face of your patient when his painful, pulsating digit is relieved of all that tension! This rather elementary procedure could be perceived as stale and uneventful for some of you. The more thorough and astute clinicians, however, realize these tiny infections around the nail root may open the door to a mixed bag of insidious and harmful bacterial infections including MRSA, chronic reoccurrences, cellulitis, subungual abscesses, osteomyelitis, herpetic whitlow, or even the dreaded felon.
Whatever your pleasure, thi...
Source: The Procedural Pause - May 1, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Nanosponges Absorb Pore-forming Toxins from Snakes and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (w/video)
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a nanosponge, a small particle that acts as a decoy for a wide variety of toxins that create pores in the cell membrane. This includes toxins produced by bacteria such as MRSA and E. coli, poisonous snakes, sea anemones, scorpions and bees. Unlike most other antitoxins, the nanosponges work regardless of the molecular structure of the toxin and thus do not need to be custom synthesized for individual toxins.Pore-forming toxins create pores in the cell membrane (with red blood cells being a prime target), disrupting the normal tight regulation of the pass...
Source: Medgadget - April 16, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Wouter Stomp Tags: Medicine Nanomedicine Source Type: blogs
Day 1 of the 13th Bangladesh Society of Medicine Congress
Many friends and family want to know what is happening here in Bangladesh. This newspaper article seems quite accurate - Bangladesh death sentence sparks deadly protests
These paragraphs resonate with what many physicians have explained -
Michael Kugelman, south Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre, Washington, also warned against comparisons with the Arab spring. "In Eypt and elsewhere it was all about movements to bring democratic change. Bangladesh already has democracy, however flawed," he said. A general election is likely later this year.
Kugelman added however that &qu...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - March 2, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
