You may think how is this possible? But it is a remarkable feat that doctors were able to keep D’Zhana Simmons, a 14-year old who has an enlarged heart that was too weak to sufficiently pump blood, without a heart for 100 days and still be alive. Read the AP news story about D’Zhana Simmons.

mydochub.com

Politicians are wisely acknowledging that primary care doctors need to be paid more.

But will that be enough? DrRich, who’s practiced on both sides of the specialist and generalist fence, notes that the “litany of professional travesties has been visited upon the primary care doctors far more than upon the specialists,” and that “merely increasing the pay of PCPs would override all these other considerations” is absurd.

He points (more…)

Antidepressants online
Concurrent use with the newer antidepressants is contraindicated. Most of these new ones say “Don’t use it with MAOI’s” because you can get serotonin syndrome. What is serotonin syndrome? High temperature, motor problems, hyperreflexia, myoclonus. It kind of looks like NMS. Remember we talked about NMS a little bit earlier and how do you distinguish it? Probably for the Boards, myoclonus. That’s (more…)

Despite all the big talk about reform, very little may actually happen.

The reason, says Joe Paduda, is the failure to address costs. Blindly focusing on the uninsured and increasing coverage will drive up utilization of services, and “once the medical/pharma/device/hospital industry figures out there are a lot more people with coverage, they will raise prices, buy more technology, and build more capacity to service (more…)

Keep exercising. Try circuit training or stability ball routines first thing in the morning for 15 minutes.Use light cooking sprays and healthy oils such as olive or canola.Bake your turkey instead of frying it.Drink low-calorie beers and limit your intake.If you drink eggnog, limit yourself to one cup, which has about 350 calories.If you stuff your turkey, don’t eat the stuffing, as it absorbs the fat dripping (more…)

There is some anxiety within the physician assistant ranks.

Do patients truly understand the role and scope of the physician assistant? Will it require more public education? It’s important, because there is no doubt that PAs will play a growing role as health delivery is reformed.

An easier idea may be simply re-branding the profession. (via ADVANCE Blog for PAs) There are plenty of PAs who have doctorate degrees, yet feel (more…)

Clomipramine: this is important. Put a check mark by clomipramine. What’s important about clomipramine? Why does it stand out among the antidepressants online? It’s useful for what? OCD. It’s Anafranil. We use it for OCD. Structurally it looks like a TCA, functionally it acts like an SSRI. Side effect-wise, it’s kind of the worst of both worlds. Not only do you get all the TCA stuff – the hypotension, the weight gain, the sedation – (more…)

For those who tend to diagnose themselves via the search engines, e.g having fever and pains, and then diagnosing one’s self with something worse like Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL). Cyberchondria According to Microsoft is “… the unfounded escalation of concerns about common symptomatology, based on the review of search results and literature on the Web.”

Furthermore, “…contents of the pages visited directly from the (more…)

Often hailed as the future of primary care, what do patients think of the medical home?

The team-based approach has the potential to annoy patients, especially those who do not want to see multiple providers, or insist on seeing a physician.

However, access should improve for practices that adopt the medical home. I suspect that patients waiting months for an appointment, or those that need same-day urgent care appointments, (more…)

When stroke symptoms begin to show up immediate treatment is crucial to insure the stroke patient makes the best possible recovery. Especially with elderly stroke victims, a stroke can have serious consequences unless treated immediately.

Often stroke victims ignore early warning signs until it is too late. When the paralysis associated with stroke strikes, it can quickly leave them unable to reach a phone and call for help. Elderly (more…)