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Latest Posts

How To Choose A Great Doctor

As a practicing family doctor, it’s easy for me to figure out how to choose a great doctor. Let me tell you the secrets in finding the best one for you and what I tell my family and friends. Look for the following:

— Board certification
— Report card on quality
— Licensing/public reporting

As a doctor, I know many doctors who have great bedside manner but aren’t particularly reliable in giving the right medical care you deserve, and these traits separate the so-so doctors from the truly excellent ones. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*

When A Patient Outgrows A Childhood Disease

At a [recent] session on caring for adult survivors of pediatric diseases, Bradley J. Benson, FACP, and Niraj Sharma, FACP, had some interesting statistics to share.

For example, more than 90% of children with a chronic or disabling health condition are expected to live more than 20 years, meaning they’ll eventually need an internist’s care, and every year more than 500,000 children with special healthcare needs turn 18.

As Dr. Sharma noted, “We’re not talking about a handful of folks.” Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Healthy, Active Kids Come From Healthy, Active Adults

First RunKids are like dogs — you can train them until they’re too old to train. Then they’re going to do whatever they want.

The key to getting kids to exercise is to make it fun for them. But they aren’t going to exercise if it isn’t made a part of their normal routine. It’s up to adults to train them.

Mrs. Happy and I had the joyous opportunity of inviting our 10-year-old niece to her first-ever running event. She had never ever run in a race before. We did the two-mile race and she loved it. And amazingly, she finished without stopping — not even once.

Our nation is raising a nation of fat and lazy kids because we’re lazy adults. We drive everywhere. We sit at our desks. We get food on the run. We watch a lot of television. We surf the Net a bunch. And we have stopped moving. We have literally stopped moving. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

The Diaphragm Is Back, And It’s Latex-Free

DiaphragmAfter a prolonged hiatus, during which diaphragms became as scarce as Elaine’s treasured sponges, the Ortho All Flex diaphragm is back, and it’s now latex-free.

The over one-year (at least in my area) shortage happened as the manufacturer transitioned from the old latex to new silicone diaphragms, and suppliers everywhere began backordering this important barrier contraceptive. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog that Ate Manhattan*

Good Sense In The Sun

SunSense WristbandWe’re past spring break and headed toward the end of the school year and summer vacations. I noticed this product in the April issue of Plastic Surgery Practice.

UVSunSense is a wristband that monitors your exposure to sun. If you and your children have trouble remembering to reapply sunscreen or to just get out of the sun, then this might be just the ticket. Read more »

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

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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