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Football is linked to dementia, and why it should be banned from high schools

November 3, 2009

by Brian E. Moore, MD
Two neuropathologists are prominently spotlighted in an article by Malcolm Gladwell in the October 19 issue of The New Yorker. The article explores a provocative question raised by autopsy results on football players: namely, should football be illegal?
Featured are Dr. Ann McKee, neuropathologist at the Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Massachusetts and [...]

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Do antipsychotic drugs cause weight gain in children?

November 3, 2009

Originally published in Insidermedicine
Second-generation antipsychotic drugs can produce unwanted weight gain and other metabolic effects among children and youths after only a few weeks, according to research published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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H1N1 vaccine adverse events, and how to reassure patients

November 3, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Crystal Phend, MedPage Today Senior Staff Writer
Failure to account for background rates when considering adverse events from pandemic H1N1 flu vaccination could spark public panic, researchers cautioned.
Coincidental cases of dramatic events including sudden death, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and spontaneous abortion can be expected to boost the true incidence of adverse [...]

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Should tobacco companies pay for smokers’ CT scans to screen for lung cancer?

November 3, 2009

According to a potential ruling in Massachusetts, tobacco companies will have to pay for smokers’ screening CT scans.
The Boston Globe (via Doug Farrago) writes that the decision “would allow thousands of other Massachusetts smokers to join the lawsuit, which covers people 50 or older who have smoked at least one pack a day of Marlboro [...]

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Does the tort-based medical malpractice system improve patient care?

November 2, 2009

by Michael Kirsch, MD
Physicians and plaintiff attorneys have philosophically divergent views on our tort system. I know the attorneys’ views on this issue well. There are lawyers in my family who have prosecuted physicians for alleged medical malpractice. Sometimes, there hasn’t been enough antacids in our house to douse my flaming heartburn after some of [...]

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Rheumatologists debate whether fibromyalgia is really a disease

November 2, 2009

Originally published in HCPLive.com
What defines a “disease?” At what point does a collection of symptoms and causes make the transition from “condition” to disease? Is it when a consensus forms around a concrete, observable, and repeatable set of biochemical and/or physiological processes and outcomes? Surely there is little doubt that diabetes or hypertension qualify as [...]

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Who’s most likely to spread infection in the hospital?

November 2, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Michael Smith, MedPage Today North American Correspondent
Good hand hygiene among healthcare workers is an important factor in preventing the spread of disease, but exactly how important depends on an individual’s job, researchers said.
In a mathematical model, so-called “peripatetic” workers — such as therapists or radiologists — were most likely [...]

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Poll: Should boys get Gardasil, the HPV vaccine?

November 2, 2009

The FDA recently approved the vaccine against human papillomavirus for use in boys and men to prevent genital warts. The vaccine has been used successfully in females to prevent cervical cancer, which is associated with the virus.
But should we recommend the vaccine for men?
Studies have concluded that the HPV vaccine was successful in reducing [...]

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Hospital IV infused Halloween pumpkin

October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween, courtesy of an inpatient unit with entirely too much time on their hands.

(via Dr. Wes)

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Is the impending physician shortage worse than we thought?

October 31, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Charles Bankhead, MedPage Today Staff Writer
The physician workforce in the U.S. is growing smaller and younger, according to data from the Census Bureau, but conflicting estimates make it difficult to determine just how many doctors are out there — and how many the nation will need.
The census survey showed 67,000 [...]

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Implementing an EMR or health IT system is harder than it looks

October 31, 2009

by Bob Wachter, MD
In 2001, when my colleagues and I ranked nearly 100 patient safety practices on the strength of their supporting evidence (for an AHRQ report), healthcare IT didn’t make the top 25. We took a lot of heat for, as one prominent patient safety advocate chided me, “slowing down the momentum.” Some called [...]

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Health reform ignores primary care doctors at its own peril

October 30, 2009

by Richard Reece, MD
I would like to introduce you a remarkable article by Edward J. Volpintesta, MD, a 65-year old solo primary care doctor in Bethel, Connecticut. Dr. Volpintesta is a veritable writing machine and has been published in The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, medical journals, and other publications. His articles cry [...]

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Depression is bad for your heart

October 30, 2009

Originally published in Journal Watch Psychiatry
by Steven Dubovsky, MD
And attaining remission significantly improves mortality risk in patients with acute coronary syndromes.

Depression is common after myocardial infarction (MI), and medical outcomes are worse in depressed patients. These researchers addressed long-term survival in a 6.7-year follow-up study of 361 patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and [...]

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Are doctors getting enough skin cancer exam training?

October 30, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Nancy Walsh, MedPage Today Contributing Writer
Opportunities to learn how to perform skin cancer examinations during medical training are inadequate, a survey of residents found.
More than half (55.3%) of residents said that they had never observed a skin cancer examination, 75.8% said they’d never been taught to perform one, and [...]

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Health care reform needs to improve physician satisfaction

October 30, 2009

Of the myriad of proposals meant to change the health care system, including switching to electronic records, paying for performance, and adhering to evidence-based standards, very little attention is being paid to how they will be implemented, and the unintended consequences that may arise.
Annie Brewster, an urgent care provider in Boston, outlines this in a [...]

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