This series is brought to you by MedPage Today. 1. Afib Linked to Cognitive Decline. Atrial fibrillation carries a significant risk for cognitive decline, even when stroke is not involved. 2. C-Section Rates Vary Widely. Cesarean delivery rates ranged from as low as 7% to as high as 70% at U.S. hospitals. 3. Many Docs Miss Test Results in VA's EHR. ...

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The first test tube baby was born July 25th, 1978 in the north of England.  Louise Brown was called the “baby of the century” by some and a “moral abomination” by others.  It wasn’t Brown who critics accused of being immoral, of course.  She was just a blameless infant.  Instead, it was her doctors who came under fire for their new fertility treatment—in vitro fertilization (or IVF).  Roman Catholic theologians ...

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Downton Abbey: Medicine then and now If you have not yet seen the fourth episode of the third season of Downton Abbey and wish to be surprised by it, read no further. And if you aren't watching PBS's addictive costume drama currently set in 1920--and, seriously, why aren't you?--read on anyway. This is about medicine, then vs. now. First, to recap the medically relevant aspects of the ...

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This series is brought to you by MedPage Today. 1. Deaths Trigger DEA Investigation of Pain Specialist. Among clinicians seeking ways to safely treat chronic pain, Lynn Webster, MD, serves as a beacon -- a leading expert in the use of narcotic painkillers, who created an assessment tool to identify patients who are most likely to abuse opioids. 2. Psych Meds Often On Board in Opioid ...

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This series is brought to you by MedPage Today. 1. Repealing SGR Raises Questions for Congress. Opinions on what to replace Medicare's sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula with and how to get there vary greatly. 2. Depression May Lower Response to Shingles Vax. Untreated major depression may hamper the protective effect of varicella zoster virus (VZV) vaccine against herpes zoster -- shingles -- in older individuals. 3. ...

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This series is brought to you by MedPage Today. 1. MS Patient Dies From Anti-Drug Antibodies. A reaction to anti-natalizumab (Tysabri) antibodies appears to have killed a Swedish woman with multiple sclerosis who received the drug. 2. Black Males Not Applying to Med School. Fewer black men are applying to, accepted to, and attending U.S. medical schools despite an increase in the number of overall applicants ...

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My membranes ruptured at 22 weeks during my pregnancy. It was the evening of July 5th, 2003. Two days later my first son was born and died. The task before me was bed rest and squeeze as many more days (hopefully weeks) out of the pregnancy as possible to save my other two sons. It was, to put it mildly, a very low time. To pass the hours I read, slept, ...

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Do doctors take advantage of desperate couples with infertility loans? Somewhere near where you live, a couple will discover this week that they are infertile and that if they want biological children of their own, they are going to need in vitro fertilization (or IVF).  According to treatment protocol, the woman will need to take powerful medicines to ramp up her production of fertilizable eggs.  One monthly cycle of this treatment will run ...

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This series is brought to you by MedPage Today. 1. ACOG Takes on Sexual Coercion. Clinicians need to offer "discreet and confidential contraception" to patients who have been coerced into pregnancy by intimate partners because of a "known link" between such coercive behavior and violence. 2. J&J Projects 37% Revision Rate for Hip Implants. An internal study by Johnson & Johnson into failure rates of its ...

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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cleared two major hurdles in 2012: the Supreme Court ruling on constitutionality and the reelection of President Barack Obama. However, in 2013 there is a very good chance that Courts will see much more of the health care reform law due to objections regarding the contraception mandate. Despite the bills legal successes in the past, there are (at publication) more than
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