It’s strange how some diseases struggle to make a comeback. When we Baby Boomer’s were infants, a little known bug caused serious respiratory infections and distress. The disease, Whooping Cough, caused by a bacterium now known as Bordetella pertussis, resulted in fever, generalized lethargy and severe coughing. As the cough persisted, it came in staccatic […]
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Accounting for Taste
November 14, 2010 
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Today I’m feeling like the lyrics in the country song: “Can’t explain, there’s something strange about the early Fall. It’s a comfort leaving me without a care. I remain but everything around me hears the call. And tonight, I feel a change in the air.” Only the change that I’m feeling is the sweeping health reforms brought to […]
Continue readingA Tip of Our CAHPS to Coming Clean in America
November 10, 2010 0 Comments
Are hospitals coming clean? An article just published in Health Affairs reveals details of a government–required survey conducted in 2008 and 2009. The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey or CAHPS (thank goodness for acronyms!) is required of all hospitals receiving and hoping to continue to receive federal funding. Analysts compared CAHPS […]
Continue readingSuccessful Sleep — by Jim Rollince
November 6, 2010 0 Comments
Successful Sleep –Stress +Exercise There are an endless number of ways to achieve a longer and better night’s rest. It’s apparent that we lose sleep through countless tosses and turns, along with the occasional bathroom trip. There are the typical “Don’t eat before bed” and “Use a sleep aid” suggestions, and then there are also […]
Continue readingRash Decision
November 3, 2010 0 Comments
“Didn’t it hurt?” That’s the first thing I asked the 81 year-old female patient of mine, as she was trying to look up at me through a swollen eyelid. “I noticed tingling on my forehead,” she explained, “But I wasn’t aware there was a rash until someone pointed it out to me. It never was […]
Continue readingPatient Heal Thyself
October 27, 2010 1 Comment
It must be Kismet. A patient, who I hadn’t seen for over a year, returned for evaluation after developing a medical complication. Three weeks before, he entered a private specialty hospital for a total knee replacement. After suffering with arthritis in his knee for over five years he stated that, “Enough was enough.” He went […]
Continue readingHeard It Through the Grapevine
October 24, 2010 2 Comments
Occasionally a patient will come in for a visit and during discussion will ask that we run a specific blood or diagnostic test. Sometimes it’s just a matter of curiosity (“What’s my blood type?”), other times it’s because they have a friend or relative recently diagnosed with a disease and they want to be checked […]
Continue readingBlocking Bad Memories
October 17, 2010 0 Comments
The last thing Jim (not his real name) remembered was the growing lights in his rear view mirror. When the garbage truck actually struck his car, spinning him 360 degrees and slamming him into a bridge abutment he had (thankfully) lost consciousness. He spent several days in the ICU recovering from a head […]
Continue readingThe Gift*
October 14, 2010 0 Comments
We can still remember that first anatomy class in medical school. Everything up to that point was abstract—on paper, or PowerPoint, or plastic laminate “mnemonic” cards—all intended to plug gaps in our medical knowledge. Professors stood in front and tried to help us connect the dots of Krebs’s cycles, Korotkoff’s sounds, or how to classify […]
Continue readingBack Away
October 10, 2010 0 Comments
There is probably no more frustrating problem for patients and physicians alike as persistent low back pain. For most people with back pain resuming their activity quickly, taking occasional muscle relaxants and acetaminophen, gets them back on their feet in no time. When back pain becomes persistent, it’s not unusual that patients become […]
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