August 11th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Academic Fraud, Annals Of Internal Medicine, Blogosphere, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cut-And-Paste, Digital Reverberation, General Medicine, Harvard University, Medical Residency, Medical Students, New Generation of Doctors, Plagiarized Content, Residency Applicants, Technology and Medicine, Unethical Academic Conduct, When Young Doctors Lie
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This is something: A study published in the July 20, 2010 Annals of Internal Medicine finds that 5 percent of residency applications contain plagiarized content. The study from Boston’s Brigham & Woman’s Hospital is based on the personal statements of nearly 5,000 residency applicants that were matched against a database of published content.
The authors comment that the study is limited, among other things, by the fact that it was done in just one institution. It makes me wonder if the number is artificially high or potentially too low.
So why would medical students lie? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
August 11th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Research
Tags: Baby Boomers, CDC, Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, Chronic Conditions, Coronary Atherosclerosis, Diabetes, ED, Emergency Department, Emergency Medicine, Emergency Room, ER, Family Medicince, General Medicine, Hypertension, Internal Medicine, medicaid, Middle Aged Patients, National Center for Health Statistics, National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, Office Visits, Older Adults, Older Patients, Primary Care, SCHIP, State Children's Health Insurance Program
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Office-based practices are focusing increasingly on patients 45 and older, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2008, those 45 and older accounted for 57 percent of all office visits, compared to 49 percent in 1998. Prescriptions, scans and time spent with the doctor also became increasingly concentrated on those middle aged and older, according to data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Also, physician visits increasingly concentrated on medical and surgical specialists and less on care provided by primary care practitioners for those ages 45 and older. Furthermore, for patients ages 65 and older, the percentage of visits to primary care specialists decreased from 62 percent to 45 percent from 1978 to 2008, while the percentage of visits to physicians with a medical or surgical specialty increased from 37 percent to 55 percent. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
August 10th, 2010 by Steven Roy Daviss, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Baltimore Sun, Cat Parasite, Developmental Neurobiology, DNA, Dr. Robert H. Yolken, Frank D. Roylance, Genetics, Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Johns Hopkins University, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Mood Disorders, Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychotic Behavior, Schizophrenia, Suicide, T. Gondii, Toxoplasma Gondii, Toxoplasmosis, University of Maryland
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From the front page of [the August 1st] Baltimore Sun: Researchers Explore Link Between Schizophrenia, Cat Parasite. Frank D. Roylance writes:
Johns Hopkins University scientists trying to determine why people develop serious mental illness are focusing on an unlikely factor: a common parasite spread by cats. The researchers say the microbes, called Toxoplasma gondii, invade the human brain and appear to upset its chemistry — creating, in some people, the psychotic behaviors recognized as schizophrenia. If tackling the parasite can help solve the mystery of schizophrenia, “it’s a pretty good opportunity … to relieve a pretty large burden of disease,” said Dr. Robert H. Yolken, director of developmental neurobiology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
August 10th, 2010 by Harriet Hall, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: Evidence Based Medicine, GAIT Trial, Glucosamine, Hip Pain, JAMA, Joint Pain, Journal of the American Medical Association, Knee Pain, NEJM, New England Journal of Medicine, Orthopedics, Osteoarthritis, Pharmacology, Placebo Medicine, Research Dollars, Science Based Medicine, Unnecessary Research
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Glucosamine is widely used for osteoarthritis pain. It’s not as impossible as homeopathy, but its rationale is improbable. As I explained in a previous post:
Wallace Sampson, one of the other authors of this blog, has pointed out that the amount of glucosamine in the typical supplement dose is on the order of 1/1000th to 1/10,000th of the available glucosamine in the body, most of which is produced by the body itself. He says, “Glucosamine is not an essential nutrient like a vitamin or an essential amino acid, for which small amounts make a large difference. How much difference could that small additional amount make? If glucosamine or chondroitin worked, this would be a medical first and worthy of a Nobel. It probably cannot work.”
Nevertheless, glucosamine (alone or with chondroitin) is widely used, and there are some supporting studies. But they are trumped by a number of well-designed studies that show it works no better than placebo, as well as a study showing that patients who had allegedly responded to glucosamine couldn’t tell the difference when their pills were replaced with placebos. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
August 10th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News
Tags: Advice For Parents, BabyMedBasics, Children's Health, Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Healthy Baby, Heimlich Maneuver, Infant Care, Infant Choking, Infant Emergencies, Infant Safety, iPhone App, Pediatrics, Primary Care, Tara Summers
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RN Tara Summers was inspired to make an iPhone app after a frightening episode where she saw her infant child choking. Because she was a nurse, she sprang into action and gave the Heimlich maneuver, but worried about parents (or babysitters) without the same training.
So, along with her emergency medicine physician husband, she created MedBasics — a readily-accessible information packet for the home about things to do in an emergency. Now they’re announcing an iPhone app called BabyMedBasics for emergencies when you’re not at home.
More from MedBasics…
iTunes link to the iOS app…
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
