Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

The FDA Provides The Dos And Don’ts Of Medical Waste Disposal

All medical offices must dispose of medical waste in a safe manner.  I closed my office at the end of September, but my last medical waste pickup is the first Friday of December.  My dear husband is going to open the office and wait for them.

How have you told patients over the years to deal with their medical waste?  Needles?  Syringes?  JP drains they pull out or that fall out before they get back for follow up?

Last week the FDA sent out a press release announcing the launch a new website for patients and caregivers on the safe disposal of needles and other so-called “sharps” that are used at home, at work and while traveling. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

Are People Undergoing Body Contouring Following Bariatric Surgery?

A study on this topic was presented at the recent American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) annual conference in Denver.   The article is also in the October issue of the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery journal (reference #2 below).

The article notes that more than 220,000 bariatric procedures are done annually in the United States.  This number (IMHO) is likely to increase as these procedures have become an major tool in the treatment of obesity which now affects a third of adults in this country.

Massive weight loss, regardless of whether by bariatric procedure or by diet/exercise, will often leave the individual with excess skin.  This excess skin can be both a cosmetic and functional issue for the individual.

Jason Spector, MD and colleagues designed their study to “explore demographic features and patient education regarding body contouring procedures in the bariatric surgery population.”

Their study consisted of Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

More Specialty-Specific Apps Are Coming On The Market

The explosive growth of medical applications for smartphones, launched by the  debut of the innovative Apple iTunes App store in 2008, promises to fundamentally change the physician’s tool set. While many specialties have always been heavily dependent on technology, such as radiology and cardiology, the ubiquity of these small, interconnected computers means that every physician will soon have access to a broad array of software and hardware to help them perform their daily work.

At iMedicalApps.com, we have been reviewing the most interesting medical apps on the market today as well as watching for trends in mobile medical technology. The most popular categories thus far have been clinical reference and utility apps.  Some of the largest download numbers have been for apps that provide drug and disease reference information, such as the encyclopedic Medscape app, or medical calculators.

However, more targeted apps that are specialty specific are slowly coming on the market. Some early ones, not surprisingly, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*

Why Are Some Physicians So Bad At Communicating With Their Patients?

“I don’t have the time…I don’t get reimbursed for that.”  This is an all too common refrain from primary care physicians and practice managers when ever the subject of improving physician-patient communications comes up.

I get it.   Primary care physicians in particular are under tremendous pressure to produce.   Just imagine…physicians in small primary care practices spend about 3.5 hours/week just on dealing with insurance-related paperwork.  Then there’s keeping up with recommended treatment guidelines, journals, and IT issues and routine staffing issues…not to mention routine patient care, much of which they in fact do not get paid for.  Physicians do have it rough right now.

But Doctors Can Sometimes Be Their Own Worst Enemies

Currently, in just about every State, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*

Many Parents Still Lack Confidence In Vaccines

Some parents remain unpersuaded that all childhood vaccines are safe or even necessary, a new survey published in Health Affairs shows.

Photo by James Gathany via the CDCWhile most parents vaccinate their children, they lack confidence in them, researchers pointed out. Parental education should include thorough explanations why infants should be fully immunized before age two.

Vaccination levels for most recommended vaccines were above 90% of national immunization goals in 2009, reported the CDC’s National Immunization Survey. But, researchers wrote, high immunization rates aren’t the same as high confidence in the vaccines.

Using data from the 2010 HealthStyles survey of 6,253 households (response rate 67%), researchers identified Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles