Some years ago, when a biologist studying mosquito-borne viral illnesses returned from abroad to his home in Colorado, he became ill with fever, rash, joint pain and body ache. Soon his wife, too, became ill with similar symptoms. The children remained healthy. The...
At a time when our lives are filled with news of violence, it seems appropriate to talk about peace. With the attacks in Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels fresh in our memory, with Sandy Hook, Charleston and the Wisconsin Temple shooting not yet faded from our...
When he turned 45, Mitch Alsup bought a red Corvette. Mitch is a quick-talking guy with dirty blonde hair and a short, trim physique. He has a ready smile and is willing to share his story. “As a kid, I use to go down to the Chevrolet dealership and sit in a...
I am about to place my plate in the sink, until I see a single pea left on my plate. I recall a recent article in National Geographic that stated that one-third of all the food we produce is wasted. I have a Zen moment, and think of the journey the pea made to reach...
Last week, an old friend of mine, Arun Gandhi, came to Memphis to speak at Rhodes College on “Conscious Compassion and Commitment — Ingredients of a Peaceful Society.” Arun is well suited for this: He is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, the mentor to Dr....
Every few years it seems a new virus captures the public’s attention. Over a decade ago, it was SARS, which had people in Hong Kong wearing masks, then it was avian flu, then H1N1, then the West Nile virus, and then Ebola, and now it is Zika. We don’t know...
It’s Jan. 1, 2016, and I just landed in New Delhi, India, for a medical conference. The city of 16 million, like any other city, has large factories, miles of concrete structures, traffic gridlock and millions of cars spewing pollution. And today, like every...
At peak time, 6 p.m., the average 911 call answer time is 150 seconds. In June, 10,000 youths participated in athletic activities. In August, 244 complaints about potholes were resolved in an average of 11 days, with over 60 percent in less than 5 days. This data...
A grandmother develops a boil which turns out to be a difficult-to-treat staph infection (MRSA). She needs high-powered antibiotics. A middle-aged man who received a blood transfusion decades ago now has hepatitis C and needs anti-viral medicine. A young woman with...
Last month, a house was being built in the Uptown neighborhood — not by construction workers, but by the former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter; the future Mayor of Memphis, Jim Strickland; and dozens of other volunteers. The volunteers, many of whom...
I am standing in line at the lunch buffet at my hospital and I have an option: a red meat steak entree or an eggplant parmesan. If each day I choose the red meat or a processed meat entree, I increase my chance of colorectal cancer by almost 20 percent. If I am...
A few summers ago during a week-long vacation, I started playing a mind game. In the mornings, I would sit outside on a comfortable deck chair, surrounded by the shrill call of cicadas, and gaze across the lawn into the trees. After getting settled, I would close my...
I am standing at the kitchen counter and conducting a simple demonstration. In a tall glass of carbonated water, I begin to add teaspoons of sugar. I put in one and then two teaspoons (this is what I add to my tea or coffee). Then I add three and then four teaspoons....
Pencil marks dot up the white door frame of my 16-year-old son’s room. The highest is at 5-feet-8 inches, and it reads “Dad.” Just last month one evening, my son stood tall against the door frame, and I reached above my shoulder. We posted it...
On International Peace Day, commit to nonviolence in your own life For years, I had driven by it, admiring the architecture, but I had never visited it until this summer. The building, one of the newest and most beautiful in Washington, D.C, is on Constitution Avenue...
For years, I had driven by it, admiring the architecture, but I had never visited it until this summer. The building, one of the newest and most beautiful in Washington DC, is on Constitution Avenue near the Lincoln and the Vietnam Veterans Memorials. Completed in...
Last month, a deeply religious man in India ended his life in a way that has been practiced for millennia by devout members of the Jain religion. His death made headlines when a state court in Rajasthan declared the practice, known as Santhara, illegal. The Jain...
It was a week into my elderly patient’s hospital admission when he began to have fever and profuse diarrhea, some 10-12 bowel movement a day. The diagnosis was not hard to make: a stool test showed he had C difficile. Another patient, a thin women in her late...
This summer’s Disney-Pixar movie “Inside Out” makes us think about our thinking. But, I wonder, first of all, “can we even think about our thoughts?” In fact, over the summer with campers at Lausanne Collegiate School, from junior kindergarten to seventh grade, I was...
Two weeks after my wife has a hysterectomy, she begins experiencing fevers that rise and spike each evening: 99.2, then 100.7, then 101.5. I am an infectious-disease doctor and a consultant for Medicare. And I am puzzled and a bit frightened. “What do we do?” asks my...
Sitting across the desk at the car dealership, Steven Ethridge, a soft-spoken salesman, was copying down the VIN number of our newly purchased van. “Last year, I couldn’t read the numbers,” he casually remarked. As a doctor, I was curious why a middle-age man would...
Recently, health insurance companies across the nation have petitioned to increase premium rates for customers covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In North Carolina, Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) has proposed a 25.7 percent raise in premiums; in New Mexico,...
This week, when I read the headlines “Blue Cross proposes premium increases,” I cringed. Health care premiums are a significant burden on many American families, averaging about $1,000 a month, not counting thousands of dollars people pay in deductibles, copayments,...
The morning after his brother’s bachelor party, standing on the fourth floor of his family home, Dr. Arvind Goel, felt the ground move under his feet. “First it was minor vibrations and then it built up in a crescendo and then the couch where my four month...
Some years ago, when my father underwent bypass surgery, he was anxious, depressed and in pain as he lay in the hospital bed tied to IV catheters and tubes. Each day, his surgeon, his hospitalist, and other consultant doctors whisked in and out, asking how he was...
Last Tuesday evening after dinner, with a cup of tea in hand, I read a newspaper column titled, “Women still earn a lot less than men.” This prompted me to ask my wife, “Do you think this is really true?” Then, I editorialized, “But it can’t be true in health care.”...
When I walk into an exam room and my patient is black, do I treat him differently than if he were white? I may say “no”, but the data say “yes.” When I walk into an exam room and I see a patient who has no health insurance, do I treat her differently from a patient...
We sit in a conference room on red swivel chairs, quiet, motionless, eyes closed. We turn off our senses just like we turn down the house lights, switch off the television, and close the garage door at the end of the day. We become numb and detached from our bodies....
What’s in an itch? Walking out of a patient’s room, I develop an itch. An itch around my neck, on my forehead, and in the middle of my back. I cannot help but scratch and feel some relief. My patient, a thin woman in her 50s, who works in a day care center, has a...
This week, I was going to write my usual health column, but then I decided to take a “snow day.” Yet, soon, I realized that the snow and ice we have experienced was not hindering the path from my bedroom to the computer room, nor was the snow preventing...
Last week, when my beloved New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, barely any friends shared my joy. Even my wife, a New York Giants fan, retorted with “The Patriots are a bunch of cheaters,” referring not so subtly to the deflated football scandal. “They scored 45...
Last week, we were awestruck watching the last three minutes of the NFL’s National Football Conference championship game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers. My 15-year-old son and I watched Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson score a touchdown and...
Co-authored by Rishab Jain As lifelong New England Patriots fans, we stood with bated breath in the last four seconds of this past Saturday’s AFC Divisional Round playoff game against the Ravens, as Joe Flacco heaved up a Hail Mary that was, thankfully, batted...
On the first of the year, while making my rounds at the hospital, I did something I hope to continue: I took the stairs. My action was prompted by something that had happened a few days earlier. I had “sticker shock” when I stepped on my bathroom scale and saw that I...
My wife loves to watch holiday movies. Each Christmas season she watches James Stewart’s 1946 movie “It’s A Wonderful Life.” “Every year, everyone should watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ and ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’” she insists. She watches them because they have...
This year, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. So, last week, one evening, I told my wife about a news story I heard on National Public Radio (NPR) about the microbiology of a kiss. My wife smiled. A group of researchers, I said, looked at the oral bacterial...
This year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. So one evening last week I told my wife about a news story I’d heard on National Public Radio (NPR) about the microbiology of a kiss. My wife smiled. A group of researchers, I said, looked at the oral...
As I write this, I am on a flight back from India after a weeklong medical mission trip for a Rotary Club Global Grant on the elimination of tuberculosis (TB). In America, we don’t worry about TB because it is one of our many medical success stories, along with...
Contact Dr. Manoj Jain (mkjain@aol.com / 901-681-0778) A few weeks ago an emergency room doctor called our infectious disease physician group concerning a patient who had returned from Liberia and was having nausea and vomiting. Several of the patient’s family...
Contact Dr. Manoj Jain (mkjain@aol.com / 901-681-0778) Two weeks ago at our community hospital, after we concluded a nearly two-hour standing room only Ebola preparedness meeting, I practiced donning and doffing the personal protective equipment (PPE) for Ebola cases....
Last week, I casually mentioned to my wife, “I spoke with volunteers at Doctors Without Borders today, and they need help.” This was before the first case of Ebola was diagnosed on U.S. soil. Doctors Without Borders is a nonprofit organization delivering emergency...
Last week, after dinner, as I was rinsing the dishes, I casually mentioned to my wife, “I spoke with the volunteers at Doctors Without Borders today, and they need help.” This was before the first case of Ebola was diagnosed on U.S. soil. A pregnant...
t’s nearly 100 degrees in the mid-August Memphis sun. At the side of the exit ramp to Winchester Road from Bill Morris Parkway East, a middle-aged man sits on a bucket. He is wearing a clean white T-shirt, gray shorts and a faded orange cap partially covering his...
For my 50th birthday my doctors give me a present: a colonoscopy. The prep instructions are daunting. “In a large pitcher pour two 32 oz. bottles of Gatorade and 8.3 oz. bottle of MiraLAX. Begin drinking every 15 min. until completed.” I start this at 4 p.m. the day...
It’s another busy day at the hospital and as I dictate yet another consult note, I find I am repeating myself: “Patient has a history of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease …,” and then on the next patient, “heart disease, breast cancer and...
If an ill patient, who unexpectedly has Ebola, landed in Memphis, it is likely that my partner or I would see him. We work as infectious disease doctors at the hospital closest to the airport. The Ebola patient would present with fever, nausea and...
I am Dr. Manoj Jain, and I am running for Shelby County Commissioner for District 13, which includes portions of Midtown and East Memphis stretching to Germantown. I am a medical doctor and live with my family in East Memphis. My parents immigrated to the United...
Lying in a hospital bed, my seriously obese patient can barely see her swollen and odorous right foot over her abdominal fat. The foot is soon to be amputated, the result of an untreatable infection exacerbated by diabetes and kidney failure, which developed in part...
Over the past month my daughter, my aunt, my father-in-law and sister-in-law all have been taking antibiotics for a sinus or an upper respiratory infection. As the infectious disease doctor in the family, I feel partly responsible for all this. For my teenage daughter...
The night before I was leaving for a three-week medical mission trip, I was called urgently to the ICU to see a patient I’ll call Rachel, a previously healthy woman in her late 40s, slightly overweight. She had started a new job as a customer service agent. Rachel was...
The night before I was leaving for a three-week medical mission trip, I was called urgently to the ICU to see Rachel (name altered), a previously healthy woman in her late 40s. She had started a new job as a customer service agent. Rachel was the sickest patient I had...
Some years ago, driving through an end of town where pawn shops and boarded up homes are common, I saw a small placard sign nailed on a telephone pole. “Buy Health Insurance,” it touted with premiums as low as $25 a month. I was tempted....
Last Friday, I was among a dozen people who sat privately to talk about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, with the embattled Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius. Dressed in a light green blazer, sitting alongside Memphis Mayor AC Wharton...
A patient, a burly black man in his 40s who works as a cook, is in the hospital wincing in pain from a staph infection on his leg. He has no health insurance and earns about $15,000 a year. You would think that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, would help...
Standing in the dimly-lit cave-like radiology reading room, I was looking at a CT scan which was done in the emergency room on a man in his 40s who had a testicular mass — likely a cancer — which had spread through out his body. It wasn’t that the...
Lying in a hospital bed, my seriously obese patient could barely see her swollen and odorous right foot over her abdominal fat. The foot was soon to be amputated, the result of an untreatable infection exacerbated by diabetes and kidney failure, which developed in...
My uncle, Vinay Mehta, who had his second bypass surgery four days earlier, is rushed back to the ICU hooked up to monitors and multiple IV lines. A critical care doctor who wears cowboy boots and uses words sparingly is at the foot of the bed, and three nurses adjust...
My uncle, Vinay Mehta, lies quietly on a gurney in the hospital’s pre-post catherization room. His wife of 40 years is by his side. The TV across the room is flickering, and the EKG monitor behind him beats a regular rhythm. His cardiologist, who just performed the...
Karen Young, a woman whose short reddish-brown hair reminded me of Julie Andrews from the movie “Sound of Music,” tells me her fever and body aches started a few days before the 4th of July weekend. “I was hurting all over, like arthritis bothering me on a rainy day.”...
For a number of years in the holy month of Ramadan, I have joined my Muslim friends in the “breaking of the fast” dinner. I am not Muslim, and neither were half of the 500 Memphians gathered last month at the Esplanade Banquet Hall for the seventh annual Memphis...
The Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case has once again opened the racial wounds of our nation, and it reminded me of the first piece I wrote for The Washington Post six years ago. I wrote about racial disparity in the health care system, titled “How I Learned to...
We have done it. We have decreased the increase in the cost of health care. Let us explain. For three decades (1980-2009), the cost of health care has been increasing each year at an average rate of 7.4 percent — double the rate of inflation. [1] However, over...
We have done it. We have decreased the increase in the cost of healthcare. Let us explain. For three decades (1980–2009), the cost of healthcare has been increasing each year at an average rate of 7.4%—double the rate of inflation. However, over the past three years, ...
Years ago, when my children (now teenagers) were babies and they dropped a pacifier on the floor, we rinsed it with tap water before putting it back in their mouth. As a parent and as an infectious disease doctor, sterility is of utmost importance to me. While this...
An effective apology involves a delicate balance between tact, tone and timing. In high-stakes settings, when jobs and reputations are on the line, it can be even harder. The significance of an apology can vary in different settings and professions. Listen to the...
In 2007, I published a story in my local paper in which I confessed to having made a medical error years earlier. I’d mistakenly prescribed an antibiotic for a patient whose chart indicated an allergy to the drug. Thankfully, the story had a happy ending. My patient...
Years ago, when my children, who are now teenagers, were babies and they dropped a pacifier onto the floor, we rinsed it with tap water before putting it in their mouth. As a parent and as an infectious disease doctor, sterility is of utmost importance to me. While...
Two weekends ago, when the temperature hit the low 70s and the afternoon sun was warm, but not Memphis hot, my 13-year-old son and I put on our helmets and hopped onto our freshly serviced bikes for a ride. I had not seriously ridden a bike for a generation, and my...
I know Boston and the Boston Marathon well. I lived for 20 years in Needham and Wellesley, the western suburbs of Boston, the halfway mark of the 26-mile race, from where I have watched the marathon in route. Many times I picnicked at Hopkinton State Park near where...
As I walk into the hospital each day, I notice patients and families sitting outside on benches that are surrounded by large signs prohibiting smoking on hospital grounds. For over five years, a collaborative and concerted effort by Memphis hospitals has successfully...
A few weeks ago, as I watched the white helicopter rise above St. Peter’s Basilica and carry the pontiff emeritus to a life of seclusion, I was reminded of Hindu and Jain saints who withdraw from the world and live a renounced life. With his last words on March...
“The Taboo of Menstruation,” by Rose George (Op-Ed, Dec. 29), sheds a welcome light on the unfortunate effects of menstrual superstitions and ignorance in parts of India. Unfortunately, similar taboos with similar debilitating outcomes exist in other regions saddled...
On Thanksgiving weekend, with family and friends, I watched Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece “Lincoln.” It was a history lesson on racial inequality. Abraham Lincoln championed the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, paving the way for the 15th Amendment in 1869, giving...
To the Editor:Your article reflects the changes occurring in the medical landscape in Memphis and Nashville. We believe that hospital-doctor consolidation is appropriate and inevitable, and can provide more seamless care, yet it must be done with caution. We need to...
In Health News, a new study suggests moms who get sick with the flu, or fever, while pregnant may increase their risk of having a child with autism. But some caution not to read too much into the results. Infectious disease expert Dr. Manoj Jain explains.
Thirty percent of health care spending — amounting to $750 billion a year — is wasted, according to a recent report by the Institute of Medicine. I know. As a doctor, I am party to this waste, and I think doctors can play a major role in recovering it. In a private...
To the Editor: Re “Cutting the Deficit, With Compassion” (Economic View, Sept. 9), in which Christina R. Romer suggested reducing the federal budgetdeficit “in a way that does as little harm as possible to people, jobs and economic opportunity.” Sadly in this election...
A few months ago, as I drove my daughter to the airport on Interstate 240 for her summer internship in Boston, I read the overhead message sign: “TN ROADWAY FATALITIES 371 — PLEASE DON’T BE NEXT” The same day, walking into my hospital’s ICU, I...
As I approach my 50th birthday, I worry about Medicare not being there for me when I become eligible. I have some inside knowledge about Medicare. My parents and in-laws are patients on Medicare. As a doctor, I am a provider for Medicare, and as a public health...
As I approach my 50th birthday, I worry about Medicare not being there for me when I become eligible. I have some inside knowledge about Medicare. My parents and in-laws are patients on Medicare. As a doctor, I am a provider for Medicare, and as a public health...
On Tuesday night, I sat with my children at the Sikh temple in Cordova and wondered what triggered Wade Michael Page to massacre six people at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisc. Though no one will know for sure, this much seems certain: Page had the seeds of white...
Last fall, I went with my 12-year-old son to his middle school’s opening home football game. The bleachers were lined with parents, the smell of hot dogs and nachos wafted over the field, the announcer’s voice blared, and the cheerleaders jumped out of...
I once thought that only the federal government in Washington could effect changes that would impact the cost of health care in the United States, especially with so much attention on the recent Supreme Court decision on the 2010 health care reform law. But now I...
On the day the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its historic decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, I was rounding on my hospital patients: a man on the ventilator with pneumonia who had private insurance, one elderly woman with abdominal pain going for...
SUBMITTED PHOTO Juana Boyland won medals in several events in the 2002 Transplant Olympics. She underwent a lung transplant. I had not recognized the deep bonds between sisters until I saw my two daughters holding each other in a long embrace after the older one...
Often patients and families think their doctor is all-knowing when it comes to the causes of their illness and the plan for treatment. Yet, uncertainty underlies each diagnosis and treatment plan. This could not have been more true in Jay Killen’s case. I know...
Texas just became the 4th state to pass a law requiring the meningitis vaccine for college students who plan to live in dorms. While it’s not a law here, we wondered if it really is important enough. That it should be. Infectious disease expert, Dr. Manoj Jain, is...
“Ouch,” that hurt, I said last Sunday. It was not a reaction to the Grizzlies’ Game 7 loss to the Clippers, but Chris Peck’s scathing must-read commentary on Memphis being the national hub for obesity and our lack of concern about it. I will...
As I was scrolling through the newspaper online recently, an ad kept blinking on the side of my computer screen. It read: “A Tip from a Former Smoker. After a stroke from smoking, get used to losing your independence.” In the background was a middle-age...
Rarely do people think about medical costs when there is a medical emergency or an urgent need for a test. Recently, I was in such a situation. A few days after a 22-hour international flight, the calf muscle in my right leg began to ache. If it were not for the...
Fifteen years ago, I proudly hung a sign outside my office with my name followed by “MD.” I had started my own business. A small private medical practice is much like a mom-and-pop store, where the doctor has the autonomy to decide the hours, which insurance to...
Last week, I hurried through the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library to attend a forum on Asian-Americans. Afterward, Wang-Ying Glasgow, the coordinator for library services, urged me not to miss the new gallery exhibit on the history of African-American doctors in...
Acclaimed author Salman Rushdie and Indian Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao are among the speakers at the third annualIndia Summit on March 2-3 at Emory University. Grounded in the cross-cutting theme of innovation, the summit features panels on medical...
February 17, 2012 White House officials made a trip to Memphis Thursday to talk with the Asian American and Pacific islander community, one of the fastest growing communities in the Mid-South. view video
A few years ago at a conference, I learned about a hospital initiative that allowed family members to be present 24/7 with their loved ones, often in the most challenging of environments, such as the intensive care unit. I was hesitant to accept this practice. An ICU...
On a Friday afternoon last month, Niti Mehta, a second-grade teacher at Shady Grove Elementary, began to “shake like a leaf.” A week earlier, she had the sniffles and nasal congestion, but no fever or shivering. RICHARD ROBBINS/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL...
Some years before his retirement, when my father-in-law went in for his routine physical, his doctor ordered a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, along with a cholesterol test and blood count. My father-in-law was not having any symptoms, and no one in his family...
My patient, who was built like a linebacker, was a week out from major heart surgery. He sat in a chair in his ICU room with his head drooped down. The surgery had gone well, and his heart rate, blood pressure and respirations were all normal. When I asked him how he...
In January, when my close friend’s lymph node biopsy came back as a rare form of T-cell lymphoma, I scoured the scientific literature. What was his prognosis? He was 56, a little overweight but otherwise healthy. He had helped us move into our home more than a decade...
When my father had a toothache, he saw a dentist in Boston who recommended a root canal and dental crown costing about $2,000. He decided to wait until he was in India, his native land, for holidays and had the procedure done there for $200. Extremely satisfied with...
