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The Friday Funny: Anti-Trust Meets Anti-Bacterial

antitrust

Dodged One: Meningitis Discovered By Trusting One’s Instincts

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Saw a nine-year old with a headache today.  His dad brought him in, and explained that all the men in his family get migraines; he figured this was his son’s first one.  The kid seemed perfectly well, with a positive Cheetos sign and my gut instinct was that I would discharge him with no work-up.  But when I flexed his neck fully, he winced. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

Connecting The Dots: Deer, Car Accidents, Lyme Disease, And You

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds over at InstaPundit, I learned that motor vehicle collisions with deer are up 18% compared to 5 years ago.

State Farm calculates the chances of a West Virginia vehicle striking a deer over the next 12 months at 1 in 39. Michigan remains second on that list.  The likelihood of a specific vehicle striking a deer there is 1 in 78.  Pennsylvania (1 in 94) and Iowa (1 in 104) remain third and fourth respectively.  Montana (1 in 104) moved up three places to fifth.

Now, aside from the fact that deer present challenges to our driving friends in West Virgina, Michigan, and beyond – they are also the definitive host for Lyme disease. Ticks feed on the deer (who, by the way, become infected with Lyme spirochetes but suffer no symptoms) and on unsuspecting humans – passing the infection along. And so when deer populations increase, Lyme disease often does too. Read more »

The H1N1 Flu Vaccine: Who Should Get It?

mazeIn April I co-authored, Swine Flu Vs. Soap:  Our bet’s on the soap! with pediatrician, Dr. Gwenn O’Keefe, founder of Pediatricsnow.  We gave a brief overview about the swine flu H1N1 and discussed preventative measures.

While the information remains the same in our post, I’d like to now add a little info about the the H1N1 flu vaccine.

Health information about H1N1 is circulating the web faster than tweets zip through cyberspace and it can be very confusing.

It’s like you’re stuck in a maze and you don’t know which way to go to get out.  Information about the swine flu is circulating so quickly that it can even be frightening.  It’s really important that you don’t panic.

Gather your information and talk with you doctors and nurses.

Information about the H1N1 flu vaccine Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

H1N1 Flu Vaccine: The Bottom Line

If you’re a bit confused about the H1N1 vaccine recommendations, you are in good company! They are a bit confusing because this year’s flu season is a bit confusing. To add insult to injury, the recommendations for H1N1 are just similar and dissimilar enough from “seasonal flu”, Influenza A&B, that sorting it out can make your head spin and your tongue get tied.

Kim Carrigan and I attempted to clear the air about this challenging topic recently on Fox News Boston…as you’ll see, I even got tripped up once, so don’t feel badly if you’re a bit confused!

Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at DrGwenn Is In*

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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