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This page shows you the most recent publications within this specialty of the MedWorm directory.

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Dance healed this physician and helped with burnoutEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Susan Biali, MD Ten years ago, I was an Emergency Medicine Resident and wanted to die. Today, I’m a general practitioner in part-time practice and am in love with life. What made the difference? I signed up for a dance class. Reports on physician burnout list the personality traits that set us up for trouble: we’re excessively conscientious, feel overly responsible, want to please everyone, and function on an extremely high level – even if we’re overloaded, exhausted, or our personal life is falling apart. We burn out because we bend over backwards to help others, until something (like our minds or our healt...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 18, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Physician practice primary care Source Type: blogs

Medicare and how a grandmother worries about its costsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Originally published in MedPage Today by Liz O’Brien My grandmother and her hospital roommate — aged, tiny, frail, and sporting matching bright pink hairnets. They looked like twins — two thin shrubs in winter that had each sprouted an improbable, big pink rose. Although sick and scared, my grandmother had admired the pink hairnet on the lady in the next bed, so my mother bought her one too, to make her feel better. It was 1966 and the first time my 77-year-old grandmother had ever been a patient in a hospital. I felt sorry for her. Her English was broken, her understanding of medical science minimal, a...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 18, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Medicare Source Type: blogs

Match Day and how each medical school celebratesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Brian Eule While the debate continues to rage over the health care reform bill in Washington D.C., today at Noon Eastern time, the newest class of 15,000-plus graduating medical students will get their marching orders, beginning their lives working in medicine. It’s called Match Day and each year, on the third Thursday of March, the nation’s graduating medical school students gather with their classmates and wait for an envelope with their name on it. Match Day is the culmination of four years of study, and months of an intense process leading up to this moment. These students have applied to hospitals and residenc...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 18, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Medical education medical school Source Type: blogs

How CTs and MRIs drive health care spendingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
It’s well known that the use of imaging scans, like CTs, MRIs and PET scans, have been growing at an alarming rate. But a recent study provides some stark numbers. According to a recent CDC report, “MRI, CT or PET scans were done or ordered in 14 percent of ER visits in 2007, the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. That’s four times as often as in 1996.” Although a physician called that growth “astounding,” it’s really no surprise. Emergency departments are becoming more crowded, and with patient satisfaction scores becoming more influential in financ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 18, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Diagnosis and treatment health reform hospital Source Type: blogs

Dr Donald Blake, HandymanEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Heh, heh. Nice one, Foster. Use his “mallet” indeed. Oh wait, you were being serious? Damn. There are about a half a dozen different styles of reflex hammers. The most common in the United States are the Taylor (or Tomahawk) hammer and the Babinski hammer. Personally, I prefer the former, but it’s all a matter of what you’ve trained and feel comfortable with. Blake seems to be using neither of these, but instead a Dejerine reflex hammer (or it might be a Buck reflex hammer, or possibly a plain old ball peen hammer. (Source: Polite Dissent)
Source: Polite Dissent - March 18, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Scott Source Type: blogs

Overweight Gordon and Quite Possibly, Gallstone TeodoroEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Health is never a priority in this country. Only 2 out of the 9 presidential candidates running for the May 10, 2010 election showed up at the much-publicized health forum sponsored by the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP) last Tuesday evening inside the Medical City hospital. Who showed up? Richard Gordon and Gilberto Teodoro. Doctors were in the audience, and so, it was expected that they will ask about the two candidates' ailments and how fit they are for the top post of the land. Gordon complained of sore throat that time. He said he is overweight from eating too much food, but had normal blood press...
Source: .PARALLEL UNIVERSES. - March 18, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Dr. Emer Source Type: blogs

Communication with the patient may not be helped by timeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Steve Wilkins, MPH If the lack of time is the chief barrier to poor physician-patient communications, it logically follows that longer patient appointments are the solution. Ok, let’s say that I could wave a magic wand and add 5 or even 10 more minutes to the average primary care office visit. Would more time really make a difference? Probably not. A quick examination of just some of the key drivers of physician-patient communications reveals why: More time will not change how physicians view the physician-patient relationship A physician’s communication style is a “window” into how they view the physician-...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Physician practice patient Source Type: blogs

Medicare doc fix questions and answersEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Vineet Arora MD A 21% cut for Medicare physician fees is set to go into place soon. This year, fixing physician payment has been overshadowed by all the talk about health insurance reform. In fact, I remember being invited to talk about healthcare reform on a panel for medical students this past fall. As part of my remarks, I mentioned the 21% pending cut in physician payment and recall the questions and quizzical looks. Another panelist said – “oh but that won’t happen – they (meaning Congress) will fix it.” Actually, the truth is we believed they would fix it . . at least in the short-term. After all...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Health policy and politics health reform Medicare Source Type: blogs

The Colonoscopy Song, for colon cancer screening enthusiastsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary has teamed up with CBS to deliver a serious health message to CBS viewers and audiences beyond: be screened for colon cancer. (via Clinical Cases) 15 cancer screening posts you may have missed Is prostate cancer being overdiagnosed? Virtual colonoscopy and the message President Obama sent (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Medical humor and the bizarre Source Type: blogs

Taxing junk food may improve your healthEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Originally published in MedPage Today by Kristina Fiore, MedPage Today Staff Writer Taxing junk food may help reduce obesity and improve health, researchers have found. Patients got significantly less of their energy (calories) from soda or pizza when there was a 10% increase in the price of either (P<0.001), Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. “Policies aimed at altering the price of soda or … pizza may be effective mechanisms to steer U.S. adults toward a more healthful diet and help r...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Patient care Source Type: blogs

Twitter has problems in the operating roomEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Twitter has been making its way into the operating room. I recently wrote about it, saying, “It’s an efficient, and effective, way to transmit medical findings instantly, and to a wide audience.” But patient privacy concerns remain, given the relative ease it takes to Tweet news. Cardiologist Wes Fisher, however, isn’t convinced. He notes that when a hospital representative is sitting in the corner of the operating room providing live updates, “they risk appearing more concerned about their marketing efforts than the patient’s well-being.” And what happens when a complication arises? ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: social media twitter Source Type: blogs

More middle-income Texans go without health insurance | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest NewsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Nationwide, the total number of uninsured middle-income people increased more than 2 million since 2000, to 12.9 million in 2008. (Source: Ideal Medical Practices)
Source: Ideal Medical Practices - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: L Gordon Moore Source Type: blogs

Docs, it's time to embrace online chat and texting with patients - FierceMobileHealthcareEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
(Source: Ideal Medical Practices)
Source: Ideal Medical Practices - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: L Gordon Moore Source Type: blogs

Dr. Donald Blake, Henpecked EmployerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In all her appearances, did Jane Foster perform any actual nursing? (Source: Polite Dissent)
Source: Polite Dissent - March 17, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Scott Source Type: blogs

The Future in Health CareEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
From the New England Journal of Medicine, a recent physician survey on the effects of the pending health care reform legislation on physician supply: Key Findings Physician Support of Health Reform in General • 62.7% of physicians feel that health reform is needed but should be implemented in a more targeted, gradual way, as opposed to the sweeping overhaul that is in legislation. • 28.7% of physicians are in favor of a public option. • 3.6% of physicians prefer the “status quo” and feel that the U.S. health care system is best “as is. Health Reform and Primary Care Physicians • 46.3% of primary care phy...
Source: The Doctor Is In - March 16, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Dr Bob Tags: Health Care Reform Health Care Policy Politics & Culture Medicine Source Type: blogs

Homebirth does not protect against serious maternal infectionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Amy Tuteur, MD Homebirth advocates like to tout the many “advantages” of giving birth at home. High on the list is limiting exposure to hospital acquired infections, and since only your “own germs” are in your home, you are protected. Yes, you are protected from hospital acquired infections, but the most dangerous infectious agents are actually those that live inside the mother, not the ones in the hospital. Consider that for newborns both Group B strep and herpes virus represents potentially deadly threats. And both Group B strep and herpes virus are infectious agents carried by the mother. In o...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 16, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Diagnosis and treatment specialist Source Type: blogs

Patient costs when making medical decisionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Edward Pullen, MD At my office we provide care for a fair number of patients without medical insurance. Sometimes we are faced situations with no good options. At a patient visit, often times the diagnosis is not clear without doing some diagnostic tests other than the history and physical exam. Many of these tests are ordered from sources outside the office, where I have little or no control over the cost of the test to the patient. In other than straightforward visits, where the diagnosis is apparent and treatment can be recommended from what is learned at the visit, these tests can cost more than the charges from my ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 16, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Patient care Source Type: blogs

EMR conversion doesn’t always help physician communicationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Stuart Sutton, MD Our very large and very integrated health care system is plowing ahead with EMR implementation. All the offices are gradually converting from paper charts and all the hospitals have completed the process. As a member of one of the last offices to be converted to the EMR, I’ve had the pleasure of patients being assured that the notes were sent to me (albeit via the EMR we are not yet using). I’ve come to accept that notes which I do receive from consultants who use the EMR (or indeed their own and different EMR) will be voluminous reams of boilerplate intended to maximize reimbursement and provide o...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 16, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Health IT and EMR Source Type: blogs

CRNA salaries surpass those of primary care doctorsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I received several requests asking me to comment on this CNN story, “Some nurses paid more than family doctors.” This isn’t really news, as CNRA salaries have been on a trajectory surpassing primary care physicians’ for a few years now. In fact, I wrote about it back in June of 2008. According to the latest numbers, “Primary care doctors were offered an average base salary of $173,000 in 2009 compared to an average base salary of $189,000 offered to certified nurse anesthetists, or CRNAs, according to the latest numbers from Merritt Hawkins & Associates, a physician recruiting and consult...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 16, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: primary care Source Type: blogs

House — Episode 15 (Season 6): “Black Hole”Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Tonight’s episode of House tried to hard to be edgy and ended up losing a coherent plot and any semblance of logical medical care along the way. Abby is a seventeen year old high school senior who becomes unresponsive while on a school outing to the planetarium. Foamy red sputum drips from her mouth and her boyfriend reports that she’s not breathing; she is rushed to the hospital and admitted to House’s service. Abby is found to have pulmonary edema (fluid build-up the lungs). The team understands this to mean that she has either a heart problem or a lung problem. Her drug screen was negative and her blood alco...
Source: Polite Dissent - March 16, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Scott Tags: newtag Source Type: blogs

No To Magic SugarEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
What is magic sugar? Not too many people know what it is.What you need to know about it:Magic Sugar is sodium cyclamate. Depending on the concentration, it is an artificial sweetener that is 30 to 50 times sweeter than sugar.It is banned for use in the United States since 1969. It is, however, still used in Europe, and approved as sweetener in more than 55 countriesStudies have implicated cyclamate in increasing the incidence of bladder cancer in rats, and a council report has found that it accelerates the formation of tumors and cancer.In dogs, a study has found that it causes testicular atrophy and infertility.According ...
Source: .PARALLEL UNIVERSES. - March 16, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Dr. Emer Source Type: blogs

Physical exam evidence and whether it’s still usefulEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Zackary Berger, MD A number of respected physicians have called for a renewed emphasis on the physical exam. Perhaps most prominently, Abraham Verghese has joined with colleagues at Stanford University to publicize the Stanford 25, a list of physical-exam maneuvers that they hold should be required of internal medicine residents. These calls reflect in part the fear that checklist medicine will lead to doctors’ obsession with what Jerome Groopman calls the “iPatient” (the virtual patient reflected in the electronic chart) over the living, breathing person. Groopman writes that medical care in our socie...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Diagnosis and treatment patient primary care Source Type: blogs

All Together Now: "Aww"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
DS hates to travel. He doesn't sleep well away from home, even with his CPAP. (Funny. You'd think having enough room to stretch out your legs without impinging on anywhere from one to three cats would be downright restful.) Although he enjoys sampling assorted global gastronomies, his GI tract doesn't share his enthusiasm. He doesn't mind traveling for pleasure, but business trips really knock the stuffing out of him.So it was that he sent me an email, titled "Good news/Bad News" which contained the bad news that he was almost certainly going to have to go to the UK for a week in April, and to Japan and Singapore, probably...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Source Type: blogs

Use iPhone apps for emergency room wait times with cautionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Satish Misra Emergency rooms are notorious for their long waiting times – that’s pretty common knowledge. But now the Hospitals of Central Connecticut are looking to a new medical app for the iPhone to help improve their emergency room wait times. Having spent a fair amount of time recently working in an emergency room, I (and probably everyone with similar experiences) can assure you that no one – physicians, nurses, administrators – want it to be that way. Much effort has been made in improving patient triage, workflow management, and other areas of opportunity that could increase the efficiency with which a p...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Health IT and EMR emergency Source Type: blogs

PSA for prostate cancer screening is likely to continueEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Originally published in MedPage Today by Crystal Phend The ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium met recently, just after the American Cancer Society updated its prostate cancer screening guidelines to emphasize shared decision making and Congress heard testimony over use of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer screening. Now urology is no stranger to debate. Controversy continues on overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and other issues raised by use of PSA for screening. But the emotional, anecdote-driven can of worms opened up last fall when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against mammography ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: cancer Source Type: blogs

USA Today op-ed: How patient satisfaction influences medical decisionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
My latest USA Today op-ed was published this morning: Patient satisfaction surveys have drawbacks. I discuss how patient satisfaction scores affect physician salaries, which may, in turn, influence medical decision making. Of course, patient satisfaction is important and should be measured — but it’s a mistake to use them in part to determine physician compensation. Here’s an excerpt: Quality health care sometimes means saying “no” to patients; denying them habit-forming pain medications that can feed an underlying, destructive drug addiction, or refusing to order unneeded CT scans that can ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Physician practice emergency hospital Source Type: blogs

Nursing needs to confront a culture of bullyingEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Who knew nursing could be so abusive? Nurse Theresa Brown, in a blog post from the New York Times’ Well, reveals the ugly side of nursing. It’s known within hospital walls that “nurses eat their young.” Indeed, as Brown writes, “the expression is standard lore among nurses, and it means bullying, harassment, whatever you want to call it. It’s that harsh, sometimes abusive treatment of new nurses that is entrenched on some hospital floors and schools of nursing.” But isn’t this prevalent in most professions? Medicine, in particular, can have a culture similar to what was describe...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Medical education medical school residency Source Type: blogs

A patient live blogs his hospital stay, looking for a cureEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Here’s a novel, and incredible, use of social media in health care. A 40-year old man was admitted several days ago with a fever of unknown origin. His significant other, Laura, is live blogging his hospital stay — hoping to solicit other medical opinions on the case, as there is no clear reason on what is causing his symptoms. Blogging at The Z Update, here’s an excerpt of how he presented: Z’s been running a nightly fever for the past 3 weeks (gone by day), and last Monday saw his GP when the fever persisted and began to creep upwards. His doctor recommended a few basic tests, which led to a CT scan ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: hospital patient Source Type: blogs

Thor #600: A Medical Review (Day 1 of “Pick on Donald Blake Week”)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Sorry Doc, but you don’t treat a black eye by putting some sort of cream on it. Think of it this way: a black eye is essentially a bruise around the eye — and when do you put anything on a bruise? The real treatment of a black eye is easy: ice, and time. That’s it. Nothing fancy needed. (Now in his defense, I guess the skin around the eye could have been broken open by the punch, and Blake might be putting some sort of antibacterial ointment on it, but that’s still a stretch). (Source: Polite Dissent)
Source: Polite Dissent - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Scott Source Type: blogs

New Clopidogrel (Plavix™) WarningEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the US, the FDA has added a warning to those patients taking clopidogrel, a widely-prescribed anti-blood clotting medication.There is a subset of patients who are poor metabolizers of the drug. Because of this, these patients are not getting the full benefits of the medication. This particular group of patients have low CYP2C19 enzyme activity in their livers, which is necessary to convert clopidogrel into an active form which can prevent blood clotting.In the US, there is a test available to detect if a patient has low or sufficient CYP2C19 enzyme activity. In the Philippines, however, I am not to sure. Even if it were...
Source: .PARALLEL UNIVERSES. - March 15, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Dr. Emer Source Type: blogs

Top health blog posts, February 2010Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Here are the top posts from the past month, based on the number of times they were viewed. 1. How fame has corrupted Dr. Mehmet Oz 2. Why did Canadian premier Danny Williams come to the United States for heart surgery? 3. Does your cardiologist deserve his salary? 4. When doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with a patient 5. What air travel would look like if it worked like health care 6. What doctors do when they don’t know the answer 7. 10 ways an Apple iPad can help doctors improve patient care 8. How to convince doctors to accept a salary or lower pay 9. Why primary care doctors need to practice insurance free ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 14, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: social media Source Type: blogs

PSA screening for prostate cancer debated in CongressEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Originally posted in MedPage Today by Emily P. Walker, MedPage Today Washington Correspondent A day after the American Cancer Society (ACS) released updated prostate cancer screening guidelines, the group’s chief medical officer was before Congress urging the government to fund research into alternative screening methods for prostate cancer. Otis Brawley, MD, an oncologist and chief medical officer for the ACS, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the country needs to move beyond PSA tests and discover new screening modalities that can better detect only cancers that will turn deadly. “...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 14, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: cancer primary care Source Type: blogs

Why doctors should blog with their real nameEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Martin Young, MBChB, FCS(SA) Blogging is a great way to get things into an open forum for discussion. But I still have nagging doubts about doctors who post blogs or replies about healthcare issues without giving their names. As a new blogger, I often look at those replies to my postings that are anonymous and think, “Who are you? Why do you think the way you do? Why will you not put a name and face to your thoughts?” My personal belief is that the anonymous person may lack conviction, confidence or courage. Would they be as brazen or critical if I could research their credentials? Anonymity is an ethical issue in...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 14, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: social media Source Type: blogs

This week in Twitter – 2010-03-14Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
is off work for a couple of days but I'm not being slack – have a birthday, adoption assessment, church meeting, dinner, airport trip & more # Has seen Jen off for her flight to Sydney – now I'm a single dad for the next five days. # Kids up, dressed, and ready for school, lunches made, house tidied after last night – time for one more cup of coffee before work.. # I am far too busy – as soon as I book in one important meeting then another opportunity arises for something else at the exact same time! # is putting together my weekend to-do list as usual – two days is never enough�...
Source: Baggas' Blog - March 14, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: baggas Tags: Twitter Source Type: blogs

Rejecting the gatekeeper paradigm and focus on the core functions of primary care gets better resultsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I'm simultaneously thrilled and dismayed by the tone of an article Kathleen Patton MD (one of our IMPs in Boston MA) found on Yahoo Finance. Mr. Kurt Mosley, VP Business Development for Merritt, Hawkins & Associates (a leading physician staffing organization) is quoted: (Source: Ideal Medical Practices)
Source: Ideal Medical Practices - March 14, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: L Gordon Moore Source Type: blogs

Placebo Television #19: President Obama makes an offer you can’t refuseEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Doug Farrago, creator of the Placebo Journal, presents his latest episode of Placebo Television. Placebo Television returns with episode #16 Placebo Television gives another take on President Obama’s address to the AMA Medscape op-ed on how to help today’s tense, frustrated doctors (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 13, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Medical humor and the bizarre patient Source Type: blogs

Poetry that your patient can appreciateEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD When I make rounds with my students and interns, I always try to sneak in a poem at the end. I think poetry is important because it helps convey the parts of the medical experience that don’t make it into textbooks. It’s important because it teaches creative thinking—something of immense value to doctors. It’s important because interpreting metaphors is a critical clinical skill in diagnosis; patients’ symptoms often present in metaphorical manners and we doctors need to know how to interpret our patients’ metaphors. Last but not least, there is a therapeutic value to introducing beau...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 13, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Patient care hospital residency Source Type: blogs

Playing the billing game: Dr Rob describes medical billing via chaos theoryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Chaos theory – Noun - The branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behavior is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences. (Source: Ideal Medical Practices)
Source: Ideal Medical Practices - March 13, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: L Gordon Moore Source Type: blogs

7 ways inmates can receive quality medical care from doctorsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Jeffrey Knuppel, MD Many non-correctional health care providers will also treat inmates from time to time. This may occur in the office or hospital. How can one best approach the challenges of working with the incarcerated in order to deliver the best possible care while simultaneously managing risk? 1. Treat the patient with respect. Not submissive respect, but mutual respect — the way we all want to be treated. I believe that this principle alone goes a long way towards helping one to establish a therapeutic alliance and to minimize interpersonal conflict and hostility. Inmates are people, too. Those who do not agr...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Patient care Source Type: blogs

Farewell to PrincessEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
(Source: Tundra Medicine Dreams)
Source: Tundra Medicine Dreams - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Tags: Dog Mushing Source Type: blogs

Wear your seatbelt, and other shocking public health adsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
No words are needed in this graphic, high-impact public health ad. (via Street Anatomy, where you can find other shocking public health ads) Brain ads for aspirin A swine flu, or H1N1 influenza, mask that tells you to get the hell away How to make a urinal sexy (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Health in the media Source Type: blogs

Children with special healthcare needs are underinsuredEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Originally published in MedPage Today by Chris Emery, MedPage Today Contributing Writer Nearly a third of children with special healthcare needs are underinsured, and where a child lives strongly influences whether he or she will have adequate healthcare coverage, a new study found. The unadjusted proportion of underinsured special-needs children varied strongly by state, ranging from 24% in Hawaii (standard error=1.75) to 38% in Illinois (SE=2.13), found the study published online March 8 in Pediatrics. After adjusting for factors such as age, race, and poverty level, the proportion of children without adequate healthca...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Health policy and politics health reform Source Type: blogs

Mammogram screening divides doctors and patientsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Mammogram screening for breast cancer continues to simmer in the news. The recent USPSTF guidelines, no longer recommending a routine mammogram for women between the ages of 40 and 49, continue to stir controversy between physicians and their patients. In a recent survey from the Annals of Internal Medicine, it looks like the debate between doctors and patients will continue for the foreseeable future: . . . a divide has emerged between doctors and patients — with the doctors more inclined to accept the new recommendations and the patients wanting to stick to early and annual screening . . . Most of the 345 doctors who ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: cancer Source Type: blogs

Touching baseEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Alright it’s time for that time honoured cliche of bloggers worldwide – the “apology for why I haven’t updated this blog in a while” post. As you can see from my twitter updates, life has suddenly become very busy for us this year. I’m finding myself very busy at work, out several afternoons a week after work with various kids’ activities, and then out 3 nights most weeks with church stuff (our pastor is leaving and so I’m involved with searching for a new one and keeping the ship sailing in the meantime..). In the midst of all this Jennifer and I are now doing our adoption a...
Source: Baggas' Blog - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: baggas Tags: Housekeeping Source Type: blogs

Creation, Evolution, and ChristiansEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Tim Keller is a pastor of a big church in NYC who has written some excellent books. In this article attempting to reconcile religion and science he posits a third way between fundamentalist creationists and militant atheists for which evolution becomes a world-view rather than just science. He provides some useful answers to some key questions often faced by those who want to be faithful to God and the Bible yet not blindly reject the vast body of scientific evidence supporting evolutionary biology. Well worth reading. (Source: Baggas' Blog)
Source: Baggas' Blog - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: baggas Tags: Christianity Religion Science atheism creation evolution keller Source Type: blogs

Smart Doctors Office: Back To The Future: Small is beautifulEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- This year, the typical American family of four with health insurance will spend almost $3,000 out-of-pocket on healthcare, and costs keep going up. Though you're spending more money on medical expenses, you're probably spending less time with the doctor. As practices get bigger, doctors have less time for each patient. Now, new research on doctor's offices and their efficiency finds that bigger may not mean better. (Source: Ideal Medical Practices)
Source: Ideal Medical Practices - March 12, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: L Gordon Moore Source Type: blogs

AMA: Health insurance consolidation can undermine physiciansEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The following is part of a series of original guest columns by the American Medical Association. by J. James Rohack, MD Physicians in nearly every area of the country face a David and Goliath scenario when negotiating with entrenched health insurance companies. This is clearly illustrated by a new AMA study showing that competition in the health insurance industry is disappearing as more markets across the country are dominated by one or two insurers. Most alarmingly, in 24 of the 43 states reported in the new AMA study, the two largest insurers had a combined market share of 70 percent or more in 2007. The year before...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 11, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Health policy and politics health reform Source Type: blogs

Health care reform needs to pass now, and here’s whyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
by Matthew Mintz, MD There are certain actions we take even though we know that ultimately we will not be successful. Sometimes we do this out of hope for a better tomorrow (like playing the lottery) or because we are taking a moral stand (like supporting a candidate that has no chance of winning). Supporting health care reform is probably a little of both. Even if any of the currently proposed health care reform plans pass, it will make little impact on our crumbling health care system. That said, you MUST support health care reform now. Why? 1. The current system is worse then broken. You probably know about the over 40...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 11, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Health policy and politics health reform Source Type: blogs

Autism in children can be missed early in lifeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Originally published in MedPage Today by Chris Emery, MedPage Today Contributing Writer The symptoms of autism tend to emerge in children after six months of age, with a loss of social and communications skills that is more common and more subtle than previously thought, according to a new study that questions previous assumptions about the progression of the condition. At six months, children with autism spectrum disorder demonstrated behavior similar to other children, gazing at faces, sharing smiles, and vocalizing with similar frequency, researchers reported online in the Journal of the American Academy of Child &...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 11, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: Diagnosis and treatment primary care Source Type: blogs

Nurse practitioners will not solve the primary care shortageEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
With health reform possibly passing within the next few months, attention now turns to the primary care doctor shortage. Regular readers of this blog know that there are not enough primary care doctors currently; it’s frightening to think what would happen if an additional 40+ million newly insured patients start looking for care. A recent piece from Newsweek nicely encapsulates the problem. It’s a good piece, elucidating the myriad of reasons why new medical students shy away from the field: The close relationships that general practitioners once had with patients drew many idealistic students into the field....
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 11, 2010 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Kevin Tags: primary care Source Type: blogs