The Times they Have A-changed
Andrew Gelman is a quantitative social scientist whose blog I recommend if and only if you are a wonk. Anyway his latest post is really enlightening.This was an actual question in a 1969 Harris survey: Now let me ask you which, in your opinion, is worse, if you could only choose one: a) A homosexual or b) A doctor who refuses to make a house call to someone seriously ill?I suppose the good news is that the doctor won (was worse) hands down, but about 20% chose the homosexual, and 10% or so weren ' t sure. I do remember a pediatrician coming to our house once when my brother had a bad strep infection to give him ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - July 27, 2020 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
How can I know if my penicillin allergy is real?
People with a penicillin allergy on their medical record are not given penicillins (or often their relatives the cephalosporins) when they have infections. Instead, the antibiotics prescribed may be broader-spectrum, less effective, and/or more toxic.
Penicillin alternatives may be less effective or more toxic
One recent national study from more than 100 US hospitals with almost 11,000 patients demonstrated that if you have a reported penicillin allergy, you are five times more likely to be prescribed clindamycin than if you do not have that label. Clindamycin is an antibiotic that is highly associated with the potentially...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - July 20, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Kimberly Blumenthal, MD, MSc Tags: Allergies Drugs and Supplements Source Type: blogs
Exploring Nature ’s Treasure Trove of Helpful Compounds
A cone snail shell. Credit: Kerry Matz, University of Utah.
Over the years, scientists have discovered many compounds in nature that have led to the development of medications. For instance, the molecular structure for aspirin came from willow tree bark, and penicillin was found in a type of mold. And uses of natural products aren’t limited to medicine cabinet staples and antibiotics. A cancer drug was originally found in the bark of the Pacific yew tree, and a medication for chronic pain relief was first isolated from cone snail venom. Today, NIGMS supports scientists in the earliest stages of investigating natural pro...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 24, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Bacteria Cool Tools/Techniques Medicines Microbes Source Type: blogs
The Medical-Industrial Complex Pads Its Pockets As We Empty Ours
By MIKE MAGEE, MD
A report this month published in the British Medical Journal found that 80% of 293 physician leaders and board members of 10 of the most influential medical associations in the United States (including the American College of Physicians, American College of Cardiology, American Psychiatric Association, Infectious Disease Society of America, American College of Rheumatology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Endocrine Society, American Thoracic Society, and Orthopaedic Trauma Association) received financial payments of $130 million in total for “leadership” activities between 2017 and 2019....
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 8, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Economics Health Policy Medical Industrial Complex Mike Magee Source Type: blogs
US government ’s WWII mobilization on penicillin is a road map to fighting the coronavirus
On March 14, 1942, an American soldier with bacteria coursing through his bloodstream was treated with penicillin, a new wonder drug that saved his life. That single treatment exhausted half the nation’s supply of the drug. Two years later, as U.S. troops prepared to launch the D-Day invasion, America had more than 2 million doses of the drugready […]
The post US government’s WWII mobilization on penicillin is a road map to fighting the coronavirus appeared first on Peter Ubel. (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - March 31, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: peter Tags: Health Care Peter Ubel syndicated Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Medical Records in Primary Care: Keeping the Story of Phone Calls and Medication Changes with Less than Perfect Tools
By HANS DUVEFELT, MD
I need the right information at the right time (and in a place that makes sense to me) to make safe medical decisions.
Here’s another Metamedicine story:
In learning my third EMR, I am again a little disappointed. I am again, still, finding it hard to document and retrieve the thread of my patient’s life and disease story. I think many EMRs were created for episodic, rather than continued medical care.
One thing that can make working with an EMR difficult is finding the chronology in office visits (seen for sore throat and started on an antibiotic), phone c...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 3, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Hospitals Medical Practice Patients Physicians Primary Care EHR EMR Hans Duvefelt Medical Records medication list medication reconciliation Source Type: blogs
Could it really be this easy?
If you take blood pressure medication (and a lot of people do, or should)a new study find that taking them at night instead of morning cuts your risk of cardiac events in half, including death. Normally we like to provide information on absolute rather than relative risk, so here it is:Commenting on the findings, Tim Chico, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Sheffield, UK, said, “The results are impressive. From the 19 084 people who took part and were randomised to taking their tablets at either bedtime or morning, just over 9% suffered a heart problem over the 6.4 years of the study. Of these, ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - November 1, 2019 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Why developing new antibiotics is a losing battle
“We believe that the current entrepreneurial development model for antibiotics is broken and needs to be fundamentally transformed.” This provocative opinion is from a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. The introduction of penicillin, the first antibiotic miracle drug, led to an 80 percent reduction in mortality from infectious diseases. Other antibiotics quickly followed, […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 29, 2019 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/christopher-johnson" rel="tag" > Christopher Johnson, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Meds Infectious Disease Source Type: blogs
Two Things to Balance to Find Your Best Life
A while back, I wrote about how to find your best possible life. Now, I’d like to dig deeper into it by discussing two things that you need to balance along the way.
You see, finding your best life is a journey. It’s not something that just happens to you. In particular, there are two things you need to balance to find your best life: planning and randomness. You need both of them and you need to balance them.
You need planning because your resources are limited. You can’t just do everything you want. For that reason, you need to plan how you are going to use your limited resources.
On the other hand, you need random...
Source: Life Optimizer - September 28, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Purpose Source Type: blogs
Phage therapy gains momentum
Shortly after Félix d’Herelle discovered viruses that infect bacteria in 1917 (also found in 1915 by Twort), he recognized their therapeutic potential for treating infections. The discovery of penicillin in 1928 began the golden age of antibiotics, which pushed aside progress in treating infections with bacteriophages. With the advent of widespread antimicrobial resistance, development of […] (Source: virology blog)
Source: virology blog - June 28, 2019 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information antibiotic resistance bacteriophage perfect predator phage therapy viral virus viruses Source Type: blogs
How non-video telehealth can be a cure for overprescribing antibiotics
When Dr. Fleming found penicillin mold in his Petri dishes in 1928, he had no idea of the impact he — and it — would have on global health. Penicillin and the antibiotic revolution that it triggered have saved countless lives and change world history. Less than a century later, though, antibiotics occupy a space […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 15, 2019 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/ray-costantini" rel="tag" > Ray Costantini, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Tech Health IT Infectious Disease Primary Care Source Type: blogs
How to help your doctor with diagnosis
To treat any condition, the doctor needs to know what it is. You would not expect to have your sore ankle treated with penicillin or to have an appendectomy recommended for your sore throat. While this may be self-evident, I know of at least one patient who had a normal appendix removed because the surgeon […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 5, 2019 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/edward-hoffer" rel="tag" > Edward Hoffer, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Physician Primary Care Source Type: blogs
Do you really have a penicillin allergy?
Chances are, you or someone you know is one of the 10% of Americans with a documented penicillin allergy. But just because you were told you had a penicillin allergy, or had one in the past, does not mean you have one now. People with a penicillin allergy history have their allergy disproved with allergy testing more than 90% of the time.
Penicillin: a primer
Penicillin is part of a larger drug class called beta-lactam antibiotics, which include the common penicillins and cephalosporins.
Common penicillins include ampicillin, amoxicillin, and Augmentin. Among other uses, penicillins are often used to treat ear infections, ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 26, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Kimberly Blumenthal, MD, MSc Tags: Allergies Health Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
Are penicillin allergies fake news?
Penicillin allergies are fake news. More than 95 percent of people with penicillin allergies are not allergic. A recent article highlighted the opportunity anethesiologists have in helping evaluate beta-lactam allergies, in particular to cephalosporins. The author was correct, these allergies are common and usually not real. Unfortunately, premedication with antihistamines as suggested may mask allergic reactions and […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - January 31, 2019 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/cathleen-collins" rel="tag" > Cathleen Collins, MD, PhD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions Allergies & Immunology Source Type: blogs
Penicillin allergy, probably not
The current issue of JAMA has a wonderful review of penicillin allergy. This conclusion is important:
Many patients report they are allergic to penicillin but few have clinically significant reactions. Evaluation of penicillin allergy before deciding not to use penicillin or other ?-lactam antibiotics is an important tool for antimicrobial stewardship.
This concept has great importance. Almost every time I give a pharyngitis talk, someone asks me about second-line antibiotics for patients with “penicillin allergy”. Since penicillin (or amoxicillin) work well against group A strep, group C/G strep and Fus...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - January 20, 2019 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
