There is a pervasive tendency to turn to medicine looking for magic. Patients and health care professionals alike generally expect medicine to be able to cure diseases, alleviate symptoms, and relieve suffering. Historically, medicine has met and excee…
You can save your baby for $2 million. Can you afford to do this? If you cannot, should we all pay? Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare genetic disease affecting the part of the nervous system that controls voluntary muscle movement. All types of S…
In recent years, a flood of cannabis and cannabis-derived products like CBD have entered the market – often claiming to cure or treat an array of health issues and ailments. These products are everywhere, but there is little scientific evidence to supp…
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 60-year-old woman is evaluated for persistent constipation symptoms of 2 years’ duration. She has reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndro…
While the vast majority of measles cases in the U.S. and worldwide are occurring in unvaccinated children, a fair percentage is also occurring in adults. With more-widespread transmission of measles, it’s becoming more important for all of us – yes, t…
A lot of parents ask me, about the HPV vaccine, “Isn’t that the optional one?” Well, let me walk you through why my answer to that question is a hard “no.” Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus that causes warts and severa…
Much media attention has been paid to the new guidelines from American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Based on new clinical trial data, ACC/AHA no longer recommends that h…
What if I told you that your adolescent child could contract a disease that can never be cured, but only maintained? That it would be a lifelong struggle that could change their personality, compromise their potential and values, destroy their relation…
Recently, I was at a health care facility in a semi-urban region, less than 100 miles from a major metro. It had a whiff of industry from good times that have long drifted by. I tried to locate a Starbucks. Google Maps spotted one and took me towards t…
An excerpt from Frankie: How One Woman Prevented a Pharmaceutical Disaster. Between September 1960 and November 1961, when the news broke around the world about thalidomide’s responsibility for the birth of deformed babies, Dr. Frances Kelsey — F…
