In our blog’s first, but hopefully not last, cultural review, I encourage all readers to watch the movie Wit, which first appeared on HBO television in 2001. Directed by Mike Nichols and starring Emma Thompson, Wit is one of the most powerful movies Continue reading
Infants are surprisingly tuned in to their environment
During their first months of life, babies may seem to be exclusively focused on eating, sleeping, crying, cooing, and passing various forms of waste products. But there is increasing evidence from ingeniously designed studies that babies are Continue reading
BRCA Screening under Partnership HealthPlan
With the courageous public revelation of her decision for prophylactic bilateral mastectomy due to her BRCA deleterious mutation status, actress Angelina Jolie has brought into the public eye testing to determine genetic risk for developing Continue reading
How to ensure follow-up when a sick patient moves away?
Have you ever been concerned about follow up of a patient with tuberculosis, HIV, Hepatitis C, a complicated pregnancy, or complicated diabetes who is moving out of your area, or out of the country? Continue reading
Adverse childhood experiences impact adult’s health
Childhood experiences have an enormous impact on people’s health in adulthood. This blog post is not based on any new breakthroughs or just-published research. Rather, it is a reminder to all clinicians to keep in mind the ACE Study as we Continue reading
The Zoster Vaccine? It’s a Cinch!
There are approximately one million cases of herpes zoster (HZ) every year in the US. HZ is the re-emergence of latent childhood varicella-zoster in the form of a painful outbreak of vesicles that track along a peripheral dermatome. Shingles, the term Continue reading
To prophylax or not to prophylax – that is and remains the question for total joint patients
Physicians pride themselves on taking a scientific, evidence-based approach to therapeutic questions. Unfortunately, in many clinical situations the evidence is scant or limited. One common and thorny situation is whether to give antibiotic prophylaxis to total joint Continue reading
CURING our prescription drug abuse ills
The California State Senate Business and Professions Committee recently passed out of committee SB 809, a measure which will levy a 1.2% license fee for pharmacists, NPs, physicians, and podiatrists to increase funding for the Continue reading
What preventive services does my patient really need?
Thank goodness for the steady march of technology. Do you remember how hard it was to find a BMI calculator in the good old days? You’d actually have to go to Google or Bing and enter “BMI calculator” to find one. How arcane is that? Ditto to find Continue reading
Palliative care — a new tool in our arsenal
For those of us who take care of aging, increasingly frail patients, the office visits can be very difficult. These encounters invariably last longer than the time allotted. The patient’s needs are often crescendoing with each visit. Symptoms proliferate and Continue reading