Mark Hyman, a proponent of so-called “functional medicine” promoting himself over at the Huffington Post (an online news source that essentially allows dubious medical infomercials to pass as news) has posted a particularly egregious article on personalized medicine for dementia.
In the article Hyman distorts the modern practice of medicine, the current state of genetic science, and the very notion of “disease.” It is, as usual, a fine piece of medical propaganda sure to confuse many a reader. Hyman starts with some standard epidemiology of dementia –- it’s a common and growing disorder –- but then descends quickly into distortion and pseudoscience. Read more »
Your doctor has told you not to use tanning beds anymore. Your skin is beginning to show more aging than your age should have. You have a family history of skin cancer and want to avoid it. Whatever your reason, you have decided to look at self-tanners as an alternative.
I applaud that decision, but remember to use safe sun practices and/or sunscreens as self-tanners offer no protection to your skin from UVA or UVB rays.
According to About.com:Chemistry, self-tanners have been around in some form since 1960:
In 1960, Coppertone introduced its first sunless tanning product — QT® or Quick Tanning Lotion. This lotion produced an overall orange effect. Today’s sunless tanning products produce much more realistic results.Read more »
Call it sweet, delicious vindication. It was clinic day yesterday. No longer had I completed my rant in this blog about UnitedHealthcare’s program to require all cardiac elecrophysiologists to obtain a “notification number” before performing any pacemaker or defibrillator procedure, I discovered my letter from them dated June 3, 2010, on my desk stating that this requirement will begin September 1, 2010, for all Illinois electrophysiologists for “all electrophysiology procedures.”
Not longer than an hour later I was seeing a 67-year-old patient in the clinic who asked me: “I just got my Medicare (Part A) card and must decide about which insurer I should use for Part B, C, D, E, and F,” he said jokingly. “Since I have the medical problem and might need some care in the future, is there a company you would recommend?” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
Should doctors face consequences if they run late? From The New York Times’ health blog, Well, comes a story where a medical group promises “same-day appointments and longer, more personalized visits that start on time.”
Sounds good, right? But it comes with a caveat, namely, a $199 annual membership fee. A tremendous amount of primary care can be bought with that amount of money, and if patients were willing to pay that, service will most definitely improve. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
Now three of his friends have written essays about this important issue:
We who’ve worked on it hope it will provoke thought about how healthcare is changing because of what e-patients can contribute, empowered as individuals and enabled by the Internet. To start that process, we’re publishing the introduction.
Three friends and mentors generously offered introductory essays. These essays they have little to do with my story, and everything to do with howe-patients can help heal healthcare:
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
