On April 29th Anthony Fauci announced the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an institute he runs, had completed a study of the antiviral remdesivir for COVID-19. The drug reduced time to recovery from 15 to 11 days, he said, a brea…
This time of COVID-19 has brought us to a scenario of scale and scope that most had never planned for. Whether you are at a small practice or a large one, you are likely looking for ways to rapidly evolve your business and patient care processes to sur…
My patient was a young man who wanted to be placed back on buprenorphine. He had started using again. He often missed appointments, did not pick up phone calls. So when I saw him in the room, I masked my surprise. “What makes you want to start today?” …
In 2002 pro baseball manager Billy Beane accomplished the impossible. He took the Oakland Athletics, a low-budget team comprised of unknown baseball players to the playoffs. The story’s magic is that he was able to compete with the Goliaths of the base…
The Joint Commission of Hospital Accreditation requires hospitals to ask the patient for their level of pain, just subjectively. They require we use a 10-point scale, from 0 for no pain to 10 being the worst pain ever. I knew instinctively that this wa…
Sometimes, old ideas and time-tested treatments remain the best. Newer doesn’t always mean better. Except in the case of one of our oldest antihistamines, tried-and-true Benadryl. It is time for that old drug to be retired, sent off to pasture, and nev…
Imagine a looming global crisis that threatens the health of countless people, confounding scientists and governments with its sheer magnitude and complexity and growing at a pace that will quickly exceed our ability to reverse course. Sounds a little …
At least a few times a year, I am asked to prescribe antibiotics to people who are not my patients. From my point of view, there is only one answer that makes sense here – no. I have the same reaction when patients call me for a refill or advice when I…
“Boxed warnings” or “black boxes” are the strictest FDA label warnings. They appear on cigarettes, fluoroquinolones (for tendon rupture), Lamictal (for SJS and TEN), Accutane (birth defects), and other products with well-known r…
Antibiotics are ubiquitous in today’s society. Prescriptions for these bacterial killers have become so prevalent that a wonder drug cure phenomenon for any illness has become the cultural norm. The evidence is overwhelming that antibiotics are far too…
