Physician Recommends Against Quitting Smoking for Smokers Who Do Not Want to Use NRT or Cessation Drugs; Hides Conflict of Interest
An article in the Annals of Family Medicine argues that smokers who do not wish to use nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), varenicline, or other drugs should be counseled by their physicians not to quit smoking. Specifically, these patients should not be encouraged to try to quit using e-cigarettes. Moreover, the article scares physicians into thinking that if they do encourage smoking cessation via e-cigarettes, they are putting themselves into legal danger.According to the lead author - Dr. Adam Goldstein of the University of North Carolina - e-cigarettes are dangerous and have not shown to be helpful in smoking cessatio...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - July 19, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
Confronting Race Issues in Medicine
As I am writing this, our nation is
mourning both the death of several police officers in Dallas, and the end of
two more young black men’s lives at the hands of police in Minnesota and
Louisiana. The issues of racial
prejudice, racial distrust, and racial profiling and stereotyping affect every
aspect of American life and culture, and so medicine is certainly not an
exception. Despite what I would wish, I
know that I have racial prejudices, and perhaps at times my patients can sense
them. But if medicine in non-unique in its racism, it bears a special
responsibility to heal itself so it can best heal oth...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - July 14, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Bioethics Today Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
2-Month Old Infant Suffered Apnea and Died Following 8 Vaccines
Conclusion
After watching their son get buried, Cash’s parents were thrown into a world they didn’t know much about. They were now another set of grieving parents who senselessly lost their child due to medical practices recommended under a doctor’s care.
Vaccines are being ignored when compiling infant mortality data. In 2013, Cash Dewayne Thomas was one of 23,440 babies who died in the United States before reaching their first birthday, according to the latest infant mortality data published in 2016. [19] About 11,300 newborns die within their first day of life, many soon after receiving their first hepatitis B vac...
Source: vactruth.com - June 16, 2016 Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Augustina Ursino Tags: Augustina Ursino Human Top Stories apnea Cash Dewayne Thomas Jesse Dewayne Thomas newborn vaccines truth about vaccines Vaccine Death Whitney Hill Source Type: blogs
Why EHRs are Essential for Patients and Healthcare Providers
Physicians and other health care providers are overworked. The number of patients seen daily has grown dramatically in recent years. In fact, according to a 2012 survey by The Physicians Foundation, 40.7% of American physicians see over 20 patients a day. Such a large caseload presents many opportunities for errors, miscommunication, and omissions. Electronic health records (EHRs) can provide a solution for these issues. What are EHRs? Simply put, EHRs are health records in a digital format. They usually contain all the data of a traditional paper chart plus billing information, imaging and records across different insti...
Source: ePharma Summit - May 13, 2016 Category: Pharmaceuticals Tags: Digital Health eHealth EHR EHR systems Electronic health records Electronic Medical Records ePatient healthcare providers patients' data primary care Primary care doctors Source Type: blogs
MKSAP: 30-year-old woman with right antecubital fossa and biceps pain
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 30-year-old woman is evaluated for a 2-day history of increasing pain in the right antecubital fossa and biceps. She reports daily injection drug use. Medical history is otherwise unremarkable, and she takes no prescription medications.
On physical examination, temperature is 39.7 °C (103.5 °F), blood pressure is 90/56 mm Hg, pulse rate is 120/min, and respiration rate is 28/min. BMI is 28. She appears ill. No lymphangitis or right axillary or epitrochlear lymphadenopathy is evident. The right biceps area i...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - April 9, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: mksap Tags: Conditions Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 140
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…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 140
Question 1
What would you smoke to bring on acute diffuse alveolar haemorrhage?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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Crack
that is…Cocaine. [Reference]
Question 2
What is the more common name for ephelides?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
expand(document.getElementById('ddet910144064'));expand(document.getElementByI...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - April 8, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five aide's pupil argyll robertson pupil cocaine crack crack cocaine ephelides freckles lhermitte's sign ms multiple sclerosis neurosyphilis nitrous oxide torus transverse myelitis Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 139
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…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 139
Question 1
Who is likely to have given one of the first blood transfusion in the United States (clue: famous surgeon)?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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William Halsted, at the age of 29.
His sister had delivered her first baby and severe haemorrhage followed.
His sister had uncontrolled haemorrhage and others thought ...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - April 1, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five blood transfusion botulinum botulism FFFF herpes zoster hutchinson sign jarsich-herxheimer melanoma syphilis topagnosis William Halsted Source Type: blogs
How Antibiotics Work
Antibiotics work according to the mechanism of action (what the drug “targets” in microbes or how the drug “works” in the microbe) that is driven by the drug’s distinguishing chemical structure.
Chemical structures also define the “classification” of antibiotics. If you hear doctors talk about “macrolides” versus “quinolones”, they are talking about families of drugs (not “one” specific drug) and they are referring to the way each family of drugs targets microbes.
When you hear about “generations” of an antibiotic, this means the chem...
Source: NAKEDMEDICINE.COM - March 16, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jane Tags: Antibiotics Business of Medicine Critical Consumer Source Type: blogs
Research and Reviews in the Fastlane 124
This study, using skin tests, found that 0 out of 211 patients demonstrated cross-reactivity between penicillin and aztreonam. The authors recommend skin testing prior to administration and skin testing isn’t a perfect surrogate for a systemic reaction upon IV administration but the best evidence we have shows that cross-reactivity is highly unlikely.
Recommended by Anand Swaminathan
The Best of the Rest
Emergency medicine
Minneci PC et al. Effectiveness of Patient Choice in Nonoperative vs Surgical Management of Pediatric Uncomplicated Acute Appendicitis. JAMA Surg 2015:1-8. PMID 26676711
Surgeons at a ch...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - March 3, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Soren Rudolph Tags: Dermatology Education Emergency Medicine Gastroenterology General Surgery Immunology Intensive Care Pediatrics Pharmacology Pre-hospital / Retrieval R&R in the FASTLANE Respiratory Resuscitation Toxicology Toxicology and Toxino Source Type: blogs
A Stem Cell Treatment for Optic Neuritis
Some classes of first generation stem cell transplants are known to reduce inflammation, though the signaling mechanisms involved are still poorly understood. Nonetheless, this means that a range of conditions thought to have a strong inflammatory component to their pathology are potential targets for treatment. Here for example, a clinician has found that stem cell transplants produce benefits in some patients suffering from the blindness produced by optic neuritis, chronic inflammation of the optic nerve that can occur for reasons that are unclear in many cases:
Vanna Belton was in Washington in 2009 when, while stuck i...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 19, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
What Do We Know About Medical Errors Associated With Electronic Medical Records?
By ROSS KOPPEL
Recently, the Journal of Patient Safety published a powerful and important article on the role of EHRs in patient harm, errors and malpractice claims. The article is open access. Electronic Health Record–Related Events in Medical Malpractice Claims by Mark L. Graber, Dana Siegal, Heather Riah, Doug Johnston, and Kathy Kenyon.
The article is remarkable for several reasons:
Considerably over 80% of the reported errors involve horrific patient harm: many deaths, strokes, missed and significantly delayed cancer diagnoses, massive hemorrhage, 10-fold overdoses, ignored or lost critical lab results, ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 11, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
#43 My Father the Pediatrician
I recently wrote a new book geared to help parents have more meaningful conversations with their pediatrician and which will hopefully save them a copay or two as well! As I reflect back on the five year journey in writing this book, I wanted to highlight the contributions of my biggest influence – my dad.In the summer of 1973, my father, thirty years at the time, boarded a plane with his best friend to fly overseas for the very first time in his life. Having recently finished medical school and his mandatory army training in South Korea, he was headed to the United States to begin his residency in Passa...
Source: A Pediatrician's Blog - December 10, 2015 Category: Pediatrics Source Type: blogs
Post #43 My Father the Pediatrician
I recently wrote a new book geared to help parents have more meaningful conversations with their pediatrician and which will hopefully save them a copay or two as well! As I reflect back on the five year journey in writing this book, I wanted to highlight the contributions of my biggest influence – my dad.In the summer of 1973, my father, thirty years at the time, boarded a plane with his best friend to fly overseas for the very first time in his life. Having recently finished medical school and his mandatory army training in South Korea, he was headed to the United States to begin his residency in Passa...
Source: A Pediatrician's Blog - December 10, 2015 Category: Pediatrics Source Type: blogs
The Limitations of Healthcare Science
By SIDNEY LE
Every once in awhile on the wards, one of the attending physicians will approach me and ask me to perform a literature review on a particular clinical question. It might be a question like “What does the evidence say about how long should Bactrim should be given for a UTI?” or “Which is more effective in the management of atrial fibrillation, rate control or rhythm control?” A chill usually runs down my spine, like that feeling one gets when a cop siren wails from behind while one is driving. But thankfully, summarizing what we know about a subject is actually a pretty formulaic exercise, involving a...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 21, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: THCB Healthcare Science Journals Negative Studies Population Health Publication Research Sidney Le Source Type: blogs
China Persists in the Myth of Planning
The government of China has launched its 13th five-year plan (known as 13.5), sticking with the form if not the substance of Stalinism. But in our modern and networked world, China wants the world to understand its planning process, so it released this catchy video in American English:
What’s China gonna do? Better check this music video
The video explains how comprehensive the planning process is:
Every five years in China, man
They make a new development plan!
The time has come for number 13.
The shi san wu, that’s what it means!
There’s government ministers and think tank minds
And party leadership contribu...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 2, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: David Boaz Source Type: blogs
