Category: Neurology

Teleneurology works. Here’s why.

Teleneurology is the new and vastly expanding practice of neurology involving the use of technology and/or video chat to improve access to services. With an ever-increasing aging population there is and will continue to be a shortage of neurologists in the United States. Teleneurology has increased patient access to neurologists especially in rural areas but […]

What the medical profession can learn from this patient

A excerpt from A Mind Unraveled: A Memoir. Copyright © 2018 by Kurt Eichenwald. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. I awoke in pain. Sometime during a seizure, I had fallen down the stairs outside of my bedroom and banged myself up. […]

Best practices in head CT imaging: How are we doing?

Computed tomography, or CT scanning, is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools to emerge during my medical career. Just look at the detail in the brain images above, taken at 90-degree angles through the brain. And I was there at the beginning. I remember well when I was a medical student taking neurology, and […]

My younger brother’s brush with death

“Do your parents realize that he could die?” I had been summoned to the workspace of the ED physician who was trying to save my brother’s life. I remember noticing that he was short with thick brown hair and a crisp white coat which were both too tidy and incongruent with the message he was […]

A case of instant gratification in primary care

Few things in primary care give patient and doctor mutual and instant gratification. It’s been a while since I reduced a “nursemaid’s elbow” or a spontaneous shoulder dislocation other than my own, or a finger dislocation, but those all count. I once wrote about curing deafness in a man with a movement disorder by flushing ear […]

When should insurance companies be held responsible for medical malpractice?

In July, 2009, the family of Massachusetts teenager Yarushka Rivera went to their local Walgreens to pick up Topomax, an anti-seizure drug that had been keeping her epilepsy in check for years. Rivera had insurance coverage through MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid insurance program for low-income children, and never ran into obstacles obtaining this life-saving medication. […]

MKSAP: 56-year-old woman with a 1-year history of tremor

Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 56-year-old woman is evaluated for a 1-year history of tremor. The tremor is more prominent on the right side. She also reports increasing problems with balance and numerous falls, especially when arising from a chair or turning. The patient does […]

MKSAP: 56-year-old woman with a 1-year history of tremor

Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 56-year-old woman is evaluated for a 1-year history of tremor. The tremor is more prominent on the right side. She also reports increasing problems with balance and numerous falls, especially when arising from a chair or turning. The patient does […]

What can physicians do to combat confirmation bias?

The day begins at 6 a.m. I am rounding on my nine patients, quickly examining them and providing a brief update about the plan. Like the other harried residents, I am speeding from one room to the next, trying to get everything done on time. And then, inevitably my beeper goes off — “Patient in […]

Delirium is a serious and common outcome of treatment in hospital intensive care

Since intensive care units (ICU) were created in hospitals more than a half a century ago, there has been a steady decline in death rates for individuals who are critically ill and require life support. That’s significant and meaningful progress, and it’s thanks to the pioneering work of many doctors, nurses and researchers who have discovered better […]