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Study Hopes To Help Those Seeking Breast Reconstruction Surgery

Jeffrey A. Ascherman, MD, FACS

Jeffrey A. Ascherman, MD, FACS

After the jubilation of beating cancer, many women who seek breast reconstruction have another journey to complete. Before they can receive a permanent breast implant, they must first undergo a process to create the space to house the new implant – a process which can be uncomfortable at times and may take many months.

“Traditionally, women undergoing breast reconstruction have had to endure a long process of inconvenient and sometimes uncomfortable saline injections every 2 to 3 weeks to create a pocket for the permanent implant following a mastectomy,” said Jeffrey Ascherman, MD, Site Chief, Division of Plastic Surgery, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. According to some women, this process can also involve a significant time burden, since they must visit their doctor’s office every few weeks for an average of four to six months.

Dr. Ascherman is now the first physician in the United States to be enrolling patients in a study of a new, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Columbia University Department of Surgery Blog*

Doctors Fail To Disclose Evidence About Spine Product’s Cancer Risk

Reporter John Fauber has published the latest in his “Side Effects” watchdog series, headlined “Doctors didn’t disclose spine product cancer risk in journal: Spine-product paper omitted key data.” Excerpts:

“Doctors paid millions of dollars by Medtronic failed to identify a significant cancer risk with the company’s spine surgery product in a 2009 paper about results of a large clinical trial.

The surgeons left out important data and claimed there was no significant link between the product and cancer.

The company and doctors had become aware of information on Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

Apixaban Finally Showing Superiority Over Warfarin In Clinical Trial

With the publication of “Apixaban versus Warfarin in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation” (the ARISTOTLE trial) in the New England Journal of Medicine, the third drug in a series of medications designed to attack thrombin in the clotting cascade. The study was announced with quite a fanfare in Europe as cardiologists, financial analysts and reporters gushed forth with ‘mega-blockbuster’ praise this past weekend.

And for good reason.

This is the first trial to conclude that Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

How Effective Are Antidepressants?

Antidepressant drugs have been getting a bad rap in the media. I’ll just give 3 examples:

  • On the Today show, prominent medical expert :-) Tom Cruise told us Brooke Shields shouldn’t have taken these drugs for her postpartum depression.
  • In Natural News, “Health Ranger” Mike Adams accused pharmaceutical companies and the FDA of covering up negative information about antidepressants, saying it would be considered criminal activity in any other industry.
  • And an article in Newsweek said  “Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo. In fact, they may be worse.”

Yet psychiatrists are convinced that antidepressants work and are still routinely prescribing them for their patients. Is it all a Big Pharma plot? Who ya gonna believe? Inquiring minds want to know:

  • Are antidepressants more effective than placebo?
  • Has the efficacy of antidepressants been exaggerated?
  • Is psychotherapy a better treatment choice?

The science-based answers to the first two questions are Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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