When I recently read the phrase, “I’m embarrassed to be sick,” it made my stomach clench and my breath catch. That's exactly what I've been feeling: this vague sense of social unease even with close friends, a reluctance to be seen or even talk to people--especially those that knew me before I became chronically ill.
At the age of 55, after a lifetime of seemingly ...
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1. Fighting Obesity Long-Term Will Save Money. A longer-term budget window for projecting costs in obesity prevention efforts might save the government more money.
2. Medicare Offers Pay Boost to Hospitals. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule late Friday that would increase payments to the nation's 3,400 acute care hospitals by ...
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1. Study: 'Low-T' Linked to RA Risk. Lower testosterone levels predicted an increased risk of a subtype of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in men.
2. Dementia Tab Set to Top $200 Billion. Costs associated with dementia amounted to between $159 billion and $215 billion in the U.S. in 2010, and are expected to increase nearly 80% per adult ...
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Another disturbed and disturbing night. It doesn't happen often three years later. Now – when it does happen – I generally know why.
I am preparing to make a presentation of a sentinel event from my daughter's final illness to a group of medical professionals and patient advocates. Last night, I was working on key points. What issues seem most important for hospital staffs to address after these years of reflection?
I ...
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1. Synthetic Stool Stymies Stubborn C. Difficile. Fake feces may fight Clostridium difficile infection just as well as the real thing.
2. IUD Eases Severe Menstrual Symptoms. For women presenting to their primary care physicians with menorrhagia, the levonorgestrel intrauterine system (IUS) significantly relieved the effects of heavy menstrual bleeding on daily life.
3.
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In 1977, a group of doctors began a campaign to change the name of an inflammatory arthritis after discovering it was named after a Nazi doctor who planned and performed gruesome forced human experimentation that killed thousands. In one of these experiments, for example, Hans Conrad Julius Reiter inoculated Buchenwald concentration camp inmates with the microbe causing typhus, resulting in the deaths of over 250 people. The inflammatory arthritis ...
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It is the holiday season, and all through the hospital, patients are being made “NPO.” This is the medical term for “no eating or drinking allowed.”
Mr. T, silver-haired and newly unemployed, is NPO on account of his pancreatitis. "We don't want to upset your pancreas," the team tells him when we pass through on morning rounds. It is nearly breakfast time. We hover around his bed in a half circle ...
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Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 42-year-old woman is evaluated for recurring pain and swelling of the left knee and right ankle that began 5 months ago. At that time, she also had an episode of conjunctivitis as well as dysuria, both of which resolved spontaneously. The joint pain and ...
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This series is brought to you by MedPage Today.
1. Moderate Activity May Be Key to Saving Knees. Too much exercise led to early degenerative cartilage changes in the knee in healthy people and in those at risk for osteoarthritis.
2. Supreme Court Remands ACA Mandate Case. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ordered an appeals court to reconsider an Affordable Care Act (ACA) ...
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1. Advair: How Safe Is This Drug? The 2001 product launch of the asthma drug Advair (fluticasone/salmeterol) was a lavish, Las Vegas affair.
2. Treatment of RA in Older Patients Questioned. Patients with later-onset rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may be receiving less effective treatment than their younger counterparts
3. FDA Probes Deaths, Injuries Tied to ...
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-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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