A Kentucky judge rejected the claims made by a teenager who sued his local health department for temporarily barring students at his school who aren’t immune against chickenpox from attending classes and participating in extracurricular activitie…
Category: Conditions
Many diseases represent an arbitrary number
A wag once said: “There is no such thing as a healthy person, just one who has not had enough tests.” As we make every minor deviation from the average into a disease, that jest is becoming uncomfortably close to the way our current medical system beha…
MKSAP: 28-year-old woman with decreased exercise tolerance and ice cravings
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 28-year-old woman is evaluated for decreased exercise tolerance and ice cravings for the past several weeks. Medical history is notable for…
Don’t blame Chasidim, or anyone, for not vaccinating. Understand their reasons.
“Let’s ask Ben Shapiro to come speak,” the nurse practitioner said. “He’s popular.” “Or we can mention the ten plagues, since Passover is coming up,” offered a pediatrician. They were talking about countering anti-vaccine propaganda among ultra-Orthodo…
Teenage suicide: trouble in a virtual paradise
It’s not just someone obsessed by Columbine. Last year, a seemingly normal teen was found dead from suicide in a Corona del Mar park. Just a few weeks ago, a young man walked into a local South County fast food joint, then into the restroom, where he …
Move quickly because Parkinson’s builds slowly
When a patient comes to me long after he or she suspects that something is amiss, I tell them, “I understand.” I know why they had ignored their tremors for too long. I understand why they had dismissed their balance issues as insignificant. Depictions…
The eyes are a window to the brain
Nothing quite catches our collective attention like clear and dire issues that need solutions and traumatic brain injuries (TBI), the leading cause of death and disability across all population demographics, are no exception. More and more research is …
Interpreting 2 recent studies involving Alzheimer disease
Two prestigious medical journals published studies involving Alzheimer disease (AD) and amyloid beta in successive weeks; both were paired with guest expert commentaries (editorials). One editorial, about a drug study, also reviewed several other fail…
MKSAP: 62-year-old woman with hypertension
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 62-year-old woman is evaluated during a routine examination. She feels well and has no exercise limitations. Medical history is significant…
Autism and advocacy go hand in hand
“As soon as I mentioned the ‘A’ word, I knew she would not be calling me back.” This was what one of the parents I met at my preschool told me about what it was like trying to register her son with autism in a non-specialized local communi…
