December 13th, 2011 by Shadowfax in Opinion
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A must-read piece from Ken Murray:
Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment. Medicare didn’t spend much on him.
Worth the full read.
And so true. I’ve joked about getting the above tattoo when my times comes. (I would quibble that the modern CPR success rate is better than infinitesimal, especially with hypothermia, but it still ain’t great.)
It may have to do with Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
December 10th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Medblogger Shout Outs, Research
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An interesting blog article from the folks at Compete came to my attention recently. Compete for those who don’t know is a fantastic analytics site to see how ANY website is doing in terms of popularity (number of visitors in a given time period). The basic data is free. For more in depth information, there’s a charge.
For example, for our practice’s website, here is the Compete data I pulled which is pretty accurate based on my own analytics information:
My nearest local competitor in terms of website popularity is the hospital, Fauquier Health System: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
December 4th, 2011 by Medgadget in Expert Interviews, Research
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Two months ago we reported on the first ovarian cancer surgeries performed with fluorescence guidance. As described in the Nature Medicine paper, the international team of researchers from The Netherlands, Germany, and Indiana used folate coupled to fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) to make ovarian cancer cells glow so they could be easily identified.
Now, in this week’s issue of Science Translational Medicine, another international team from Japan and Maryland reports their development of a spray-on probe that may provide even better sensitivity and fluorescent contrast than the folate-FITC counterpart. The editors of STM summarize this work well in the following note: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
December 1st, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Health Tips, Research
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There was important news this month on statin drugs. As one of the world’s most effective and commonly used medications, statins provide great writing topics. Lots of people have high cholesterol–including cyclists. Lots of people are interested in avoiding our mostly deadly disease.
I’d like to tell you about a recently-published (Lancet) landmark study that should quell safety concerns over statin drugs.
The punch line after I tell you the study’s results are short and sweet. Scroll down if you wish. But first, statin drugs are misunderstood enough to warrant a little blog-like simplicity. Let’s start with some background.
A brief statin review:
Statin drugs are best known for their cholesterol-lowering properties. The notion is simple: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
November 29th, 2011 by Michael Kirsch, M.D. in News, Opinion
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It’s Saturday morning, and I’m in an undisclosed location drinking a fabulous cup of coffee while turning the pages of The New York Times, knowing that ink and newsprint will be vanishing too soon. Yes, I do have an iPad now, but I haven’t figured out how to blog on it. Any suggestions?
Buried in the first section of the paper is an article on stool, which in my view as a gastro specialist, should have merited front page placement. Yes, we all know the adage, ‘one’s man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, but stool – as in excrement – should be prized by everyone. Perhaps, as a gastroenterologist, I have a jaundiced view on this issue, which explains my dyspeptic reaction.
All Whistleblower posts have an accompanying image, and I wonder what visual would be appropriate here. I opted against my first choice, and choose instead a photo of our beloved Labrador Retriever, Shoshie, of blessed memory.
The Times reported a new program to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*
