September 7th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in News, Opinion
Tags: Benefits, Birth Control Pill, Condoms, Contraception, Diaphragms, Essure, Heart Attack, IUDs, OCP, Pregnancy Prevention, Side Effects, Sponge, STDs, Sterilization, Stroke Risk, Television Show, The Doctors, the Patch, the Ring, TV, Unintended Pregnancy, USA Today
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That’s the opinion of television’s The Doctors, a syndicated TV Show that appears to be giving Dr Oz a run for his money, in USA Today. In fact, that’s the headline – IUDs: The Best Contraceptive Option.
What you know about birth control: Nearly half of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended; abstinence is the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy (and protect you from STDs); smoking while on the Pill may increase your risk of heart attack or stroke; as long as you are still getting a period, you can get pregnant during menopause. But here’s something you may not know:
We think IUDs work best.
This is contraceptive education at its worst. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
September 5th, 2011 by DrWes in News
Tags: Cardiac Death, Cardiomyopathy, CMS, Durable Medical Equipment, ICDs, Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator, Insurance Company, LifeVest, Medicare, Medicare Administrative Contractor, Myocardial Infarction, Reconsideration, Reimbursement, Wearable Defibrillators, Zoll Medical
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I know what you’re thinking. “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?
Well, do ya, punk?
Harry Callihan, from the movie Dirty Harry
It was a small article in the Wall Street Journal on 8 August 2011: “Zoll Medical Falls As LifeVest May Face Reimbursement Revisions.” No doubt most doctors missed this, but the implications of this article for our patients discovered to have weak heart muscles and considered at high risk for sudden cardiac death could be profound.
That’s because Medicare (CMS) is considering the requirement for the same waiting period after diagnosis of a cardiomyopathy or myocardial infarction as that for permanent implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs). To this end, they issued a draft document that contains the new proposal for their use. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
September 4th, 2011 by Medgadget in News, Research
Tags: AeroForm, AirXpanders, Bolus Saline Injections, Breast Cancer, Breast Reconstruction, FDA, Implantation, Investigational Device Exemption, Mastectomy, Open-label study, Palo Alto, Saline Solution, Surgery, Tissue Expansion, XPAND
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Though mastectomies are often a necessary and even welcome intervention to save the lives of women suffering from breast cancer, they also may contribute to the overall physical and emotional trauma facing the patients. In order to alleviate some of these problems, surgeons have developed breast reconstruction procedures that usually entail restoring the mound by implanting a silicone sac filled with salt solution (saline) or gel under the skin and pectoral muscles. The traditional process to prepare for implantation of the sac may be long and sometimes painful because it involves weekly bolus saline injections (sometimes up to 22 weeks) in order to create a pocket of sufficient size.
A potential alternative solution is being developed by AirXpanders, a med tech start-up in Palo Alto that focuses on tissue expansion for breast reconstruction following cancer. Their system, known as AeroForm, just recently Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
September 4th, 2011 by Iltifat Husain, M.D. in News
Tags: Apple, Apps, Boston.com, Classroom tools, Going-green effort, Harvard School of Medicine, iPad, Medical School, Printing costs, saving money, Smartphone, Stanford, Textbooks, UC-Irvine, Yale School of Medicine
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Add Yale’s School of Medicine to the growing list of medical schools that are embracing the iPad as the primary source of medical teaching.
This upcoming year Yale will be giving their medical students, all 520 of them, an iPad 2 with an external wireless keyboard. We’ve covered with great depth the growing list of medical schools using iPads as the main tool for learning — such as Stanford, UC-Irvine, and many more.
“Yale School of Medicine this year will outfit all students with iPads and no longer provide printed course materials. The initiative, born out of a going-green effort, could Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
September 2nd, 2011 by GruntDoc in News
Tags: Board of Regents, Brackendridge, Francisco Cigarroa, Health Science Center, Kirk Watson, Medical School, Policy, Texas Tech, Texas Tribune, University of Texas, UT, UT Austin
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The headline is disingenuous: yes, there’s a Med School headed for Austin. Congrats, Brackendridge!
Kinda amusing tale after the quote:
Lawmakers and local leaders are hopeful a plan unanimously adopted at Thursday’s University of Texas System Board of Regents meeting means they could finally get what they’ve long been waiting for: a new medical school.
One of the elements of the plan outlined by Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa is to “advance medical education and research in Austin.” Even before Thursday’s meeting ended, state Sen. Kirk Watson issued a press release reading between the lines, calling for the creation of a flagship health science center and medical school in Austin. “Within the next 30 days, I plan to offer a path – and a challenge for our community – to build on [Cigarroa’s] statement so we realize these goals that so many of us have shared for so long,” Watson said. “It’s time for Austin to come together and act, creating a flagship initiative that can fortify our future and lead the world in the fields of medical education, healthcare and bioscience.”
via Is the UT System Preparing for a New Medical School? — Higher Education | The Texas Tribune.
For those interested in the funny politics of a med school in Austin, you have to look back to the 1970′s. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
That’s the opinion of television’s The Doctors, a syndicated TV Show that appears to be giving Dr Oz a run for his money, in USA Today. In fact, that’s the headline – IUDs: The Best Contraceptive Option.
