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Birth Control Pill Recall And Disclaimers On Medical Blogs

Just yesterday, I put up a post about the recent birth control pill recall. This recall is a big deal – millions of women are potentially impacted, and the adverse effect – an unplanned pregnancy – is very significant.

I knew women taking these pills would be very worried, and wanted very much to do more than just spit out the press release from the FDA. I wanted to both reassure women and give them information that they could use other than just a link and a phone number. I also needed to figure out  how I would be handing the recall in my own practice. So I combined the two and posted what I’ll be telling my patients to do if they find that they are taking a recalled pill pack.

As soon as the post went up, I got worried.

What if the advice I was giving my patients was not what other docs might do for their patients? Read more »

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

Scary Images On Cigarette Packages Do Make People Think About Quitting

The World Health Organization (WHO) says graphic health warnings on tobacco packages are a powerful “best buy” in decreasing tobacco use and its many health consequences.

Photo by Bill Branson, National Cancer InstituteThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the research in the MMWR.

The World Health Organization (WHO) created a treaty for tobacco product labels that many countries have ratified. Among other requirements, these warnings are expected to appear on at least 30%, and ideally 50% or more, of the package’s principal display areas, and preferably use pictures.

To assess how cigarette package labels impact quitting smoking, researchers used data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) in 14 countries from 2008 to 2010 that had ratified WHO’s tobacco control treaty. Current smokers of manufactured cigarettes were asked whether they had noticed health warnings on a cigarette package in the previous 30 days, and whether the label led them to think about quitting smoking.

Among men in 12 of the countries and women in seven countries, more than 90% of smokers reported noticing a package warning in the previous 30 days. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

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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