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Some Of Cleveland Clinic’s 2012 Recommendations Lack Evidence

©iStockphoto.com/Alexander Raths

Last week, the Cleveland Clinic sent out the following “News Tips”:

“Top 5 Medical Tests for 2012

As we head into 2012, healthy New Year’s resolutions will abound. People will pledge to work out more, eat healthy foods and finally go to see their doctor for a physical.

Cleveland Clinic experts note that there are a few tests that everyone should have during their yearly physical. For men, the following tests are recommended by many physicians:”

Included in the list were: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health News Review*

Tips For Dealing With The Chronic Pain Of Osteoarthritis

Severe osteoarthritis of the hands

One of my patients came to see me today with severe right knee pain.  This is not a new problem, and in fact, we have been dealing with flare ups of her osteoarthritis for years.  It mainly affects her knees and hands and today her right knee was swollen and felt like the “bone was rubbing together” with each step. She could hardly walk because of the pain.

Osteoarthritis is also known as degenerative arthritis and it is one of the most common maladies of aging joints, affecting millions of people.  The cartilage in joints wears down and inflammation causes the bones to build up spurs and small micro tears.  It affects women more than men and  the cause is unknown.  There are likely genetic factors as it tends to run in families.  Arthritis can occur in any joint but the most common are the fingers, wrists, hips, neck and spine and knees.  Stiffness (especially in the morning) and pain are the main symptoms that limit mobility.

You can see Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Atrial Fibrillation: When The Questions Outnumber The Answers

You may have heard that AF is a tough disease to understand. Questions far outnumber answers.

What causes AF?

Why do some not feel it at all, while others are incapacitated?

What’s the best treatment? Drugs? Ablation? Surgery? No treatment?

Should I take a blood thinner…and which one?

Where should one go for the best AF care?

This short email from a reader captures the essence of AF support group mayhem: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*

Understanding The Subtext Of The Therapeutic Relationship

When we talk about psychotherapy, one aspect of what we look at is the process of what occurs in the therapeutic relationship.  This is an important part of psychodynamic-based psychotherapy, meaning psychotherapy that is derived from the theories put forth by Freud.  Psychoanalysis (the purest form of psychodynamic psychotherapy) includes an emphasis on events that occurred during childhood, and a focus on understanding what goes on in the relationship between the therapist and the patient, including the transference and counter-transference.

In some of our posts, our friend Jesse has commented about how it’s important to understand what transpires in the mind of the patient when certain things are said and done.  Let me tell you that Jesse is a wonderful psychiatrist, he is warm and caring and attentive and gentle, and he’s had extensive training in the analytic method, he’s on my list of who I go to when I need help, so while I want to discuss this concept, I don’t want anyone, especially Jesse, to think I don’t respect him.  With that disclaimer…..

On my tongue-in-cheek post on What to Get Your Psychiatrist for the Holidays, Jesse wrote: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*

Interview With Ocra Health CEO: The Future Of The Company’s Interactive Health Apps

Post image for Orca Health crafts new level of sophistication in patient education apps, interview with CEO Matt Berry #mHS11

Orca Health has had quite a year. Launching their first app in in 2010, they now have a suite of ten apps with–we are promised–even more on the way. By combining stellar art work, three-dimensional interactive graphics and high-end native programming for the iPad, they have created and may well be en route to cornering the market for perioperative patient education apps.

Recent milestones for the company include winning the startup competition at Health 2.0 Europe, having two apps, EyeDecide & FootDecide, included in the iTunes App Store’s Apps for Healthcare Professionals. Until recently, Orca Health’s EyeDecide was ranked as the #1 downloaded free medical app on the App Store, and three other other apps (FaceDecide, BreastDecide & ENTDecide) are in the Top 25. To top it off, the iTunes App Store just included EyeDecide among the best the iPad / iPhone apps in its App Store Rewind 2011. It is interesting to think about the different places, and there are many, they could go from here.

Orca Health was among those selected for the StartUp Mobile Health Pavilion at the recent mHealth Summit (check out our full coverage), along with about two dozen other great mobile healthcare companies. There, I got to meet CEO & founder Matt Berry and publicist whiz Jake Lybbert (follow on Twitter). I talked with Matt about the (short) history and future of Orca Health, and his thoughts on the potential for tablets to improve the patient experience.

First, I have to ask – why the name Orca? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*

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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