I have been following the controversy surrounding the approval of the new Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab with great interest. Until a year and a half ago, I worked as a neurologist in an adult general neurology clinic. Many of my patients had dementia. While I thoroughly enjoyed seeing these patients and their family members, I often felt helpless when treating them. When I left clinical practice to explore a non-clinical career …
The percentage of teens using illicit substances dropped significantly in 2021 as the pandemic forced them into isolation from friends, classrooms, and extracurricular activities. Alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine vaping – the most commonly used substances by teens all showed declines from 2020.
These findings were reported by a Monitoring the Future survey conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.
The survey is given annually to students …
Like most parents, my children are my world. I would do anything to protect them and keep them healthy. It is Darwinian. Instinctual.
Most of us get by with a combination of sage advice from generations past interspersed with a “know better do better” approach. Personally and professionally, I encountered this duality pretty quickly. In March 2016, my husband and I hopped on a plane to Los Angeles with our 4-month-old …
A 37-year-old man was diagnosed with Lyme carditis after presenting to the emergency department (ED) with fever, weakness, history of tick bite, and prolonged PR interval of 394 ms (a type of heart block) and positive Lyme testing. In the ED, second-degree AV block was noted intermittently on the monitor but not documented. Both infectious disease and cardiology were consulted, and the recommendation was to continue IV ceftriaxone for 28 …
As we anticipated the release of new CDC data on overdose deaths, those of us who specialize in substance use disorders braced for grim statistics, but this milestone was still shocking: over 100,000 lives lost to overdoses in one year, the great majority from opioids. Overdose deaths began outpacing traffic fatalities in the United States in 2013, but 2.5 times as many people died from …
It became a prison to me — impending doom.
I knew I had only three months left before I could retire. Three months isn’t long, but it is a lifetime away.
That long drive to work in that heavy highway traffic where there was always a collision. The anxiety of the drive knowing all along there was even more anxiety to come.
The patients that were involuntarily committed — forever schizophrenics and bipolar, …
Thank you, Dr. Kara Pepper, for your recent article “Why you should not use BMI for your New Year’s resolution.”
Our weight-obsessed, BMI-focused culture has been a thorn in my side for much of my life. And since eating disorders thrive in secrecy, let’s get talking. In sharing my story, I hope to encourage revision of the way we speak to patients and utilize (or do not utilize) …
“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort,” says James Austen. So, instead of traveling and waiting for hours by standing in a queue, what if health care is provided to you at home? That’s why home hospital care (HHC) is a viable solution for physicians and patients. HHC is an innovative, technologically advanced, and effective care model in which certain patients receive hospital-level care at their homes …
I would love to say 2021 outshone 2020. But I think sometime around mid-fall of last year, we realized the joke was, sadly, on humanity, and that was not going to happen.
Yes, we finally had vaccines (thank God and bless those involved forever), but the life purpose of a virus is to replicate, somehow, someway — and Delta was born.
The tragedy of the preceding winter still haunted all of us …
“It’s my right not to be vaccinated. It’s my body.”
So goes the argument for the COVID anti-vaxxers, emphasizing personal freedom taking precedence over everything else. Unfortunately, and perhaps unfairly, we health care providers do not have that same freedom; our profession requires us to perform our duties despite the risks to us. We place ourselves in jeopardy each day we come to work, and we cannot simply refuse care for …
“You have to show proof that you have something wrong with you in order for you to get the medicine. I put forth, and I maintain that if I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that.”
– Dr. Susan Moore.
In a 7-minute-and-22-second Facebook video documenting her treatment at a suburban hospital in Indiana, Dr. Susan Moore, a Black woman physician, articulated the collective desperation and frustration that was a …
An executive father. Alcoholism. And that gallon of wine.
As I walked through the wine section at the grocery store, I spotted one of those gallon jugs of wine. I was searching for Christmas presents for my friends. But that brand glared at me.
Daddy — my IBM executive father.
We loved him so. But year by year, his demons took over. Every night, there was a gallon of wine. On weekends, he’d …
People who experience debilitating back pain come to their doctors with one pressing question: Do I need back surgery? Often, they are surprised to hear me, a neurosurgeon, answer, “No.” In many cases, physical therapy, pain management, weight loss management, and physiatry can help people to delay – and in some cases avoid – back surgery.
However, if those remedies don’t work well enough, a person might decide that spine surgery …
Almost two years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have confronted the illness and loss of millions of lives and the sad and dangerous reality of having a health care system and a society full of moral gaps, inequities, and disparities. This unprecedented and complex situation challenged all of us on many levels. While facing high levels of unexpected fear, uncertainty, and distress, the well-known socio-cultural and demographic …
As a family physician for more than 40 years, I have seen countless patients struggling to alleviate chronic pain, with far too many turning to self-destructive coping methods such as alcohol and opioids. Unfortunately, the struggle with chronic pain isn’t going away – and more alarming is the fact that those suffering from it are getting younger and younger. The latest data on chronic pain show patients between age 18 …
Along came COVID, and no one was prepared. We had minimal PPE. We were told to put our N95 mask in a paper bag, use it on every patient, and use it for one full week. Normally the N95 mask would be disposed of after each patient room exit.
Health care staff was dying at the hands of COVID and lack of PPE. Over 115,000 health care workers died from COVID. …
Mental health has blazed its way to the forefront of the national conversation over the last decade. Increased awareness and decreased stigmatization around mental health issues have undoubtedly allowed many to have access to necessary resources, and the world is better off because of it. Influencers no longer shy away from discussing these topics, and employers are taking steps to create cultural change in …
March 2020. Administrators informed us that primary care physicians would be deployed to the “front lines” – either the emergency department or the COVID-19 wards. When I shared my news with my 21-year-old daughter, she cried and hugged me and said, “I don’t want you to die.”
Fate intervened, and I didn’t get deployed. By the time I was up, the numbers improved, and it was time to return to my …
My patient balanced precariously in the bustling hallway as she carefully removed her boots and slipped into lightweight sandals. My medical assistant offered to hold her purse and jacket as my patient held her breath and stepped onto the scale. Squinting at the numbers, my patient sagged in frustration. “Same as last year. Nothing I do ever works.”
By the time I met her in the exam room, the patient had …
My energy level was plummeting as Mrs. Jones explained how much her shoulder, her knees, her back, her belly, her head, hurt. She was worn out.
“And I don’t ever think I’ll feel better. I’ve felt like this for so long and I think I’ll always feel like this. I’m so sore. And so tired. And my family doesn’t do anything to help. In the evening after I’ve finished making dinner, …
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