Nearly 84% of the elderly take a prescription medication regularly. Each year we pay 10% to 17% more than the previous year for our medication, which is a rate higher than the rate of inflation and even higher than the overall rise in cost of healthcare. Why is this...
On Thanksgiving Day we had a gathering of family and friends for a feast. Before the meal we all prayed together and then one by one- old and young -answered the question. “What are we thankful for?” Nearly everyone said there were thankful for “our family, our food,...
It’s 7th grade math. One 12 ounce can of soda has 150 calories. There are 365 days in a year. One can of soda per day will add 54,750 calories in a year (150 x 365). One pound of body fat has 3,500 calories. So, if one can of soft drink is added to a typical diet this...
History repeats itself, and so do epidemics. Yet, over time we have become better prepared to handle epidemics. Before the holidays, when one Holstein cow in Washington State tested positive for mad cow disease, an epidemic had occurred. Yes, just one case of mad cow...
Have you ever wondered how the wonder drug works? What magic does aspirin have that allows it to reduce pain and fever, save 110,000 lives globally per year, save the muscles of the heart, and the working power of the brain? And now, a recent study shows that women...
My dad gets his beta blocker (high blood pressure medicine) from overseas, but my wife insists on carrying an entire course of antibiotics when we fly out of the country. Just like our family, the Congress is uncertain if it should legalize the import of drugs from...
Mrs. Johnson refused to have her second leg amputated. She lay on the hospital bed with her one prosthetic leg leaning against the wall, the straps dangling; the dark skin of the prosthetic leg matched her skin color. The leg almost looked life like. Her other foot...
“We should go to Africa for our next vacation.” said my friend. “Africa?” I questioned. Imagining exotic diseases, I shuddered at the thought, while my friend was contemplating an open-jeep safari in the grasslands of Kenya racing a zebra. Each year million of...
You have a fever of 100 degrees and a runny nose, but you still manage to go to work. So you think you have the flu? Nope. You don’t have the flu. Relax, it’s just a common cold. The flu is – well, like getting hit by a Mack truck. Symptoms of flu include sudden...
Mrs. Scott insisted she had been bitten by a spider as she caressed a deep ulcer on her right thigh.” “Did you see the spider?” I asked. “No, but it looks like a spider bite” she said. When we got the wound culture report back, we realized it was not a spider bite,...
Last week I along with several of my public health colleagues sat with Governor Bredesen during lunch. He pointed to us and asked “I need a simple message. Just as children we learned that ‘we must brush our teeth daily and visit the dentist,’ what message can I use...
As a doctor I rarely recommend herbal or alternative therapy for the common cold to my patients, but as a parent I use it all the time. Why such different behaviors? The common cold is “common” occurring 1 to 3 times a year in an average American. Yet, the...
It is not the calls from patients or the hospitals that keep doctors awake at night, but it is the risk of a potential malpractice lawsuit. Nearly 1 in 2 doctors has been sued. Nearly, 3 of 4 doctors in practice for more than 10 years have been sued. Almost all the...
In our society soy foods do not get special preference, in fact some people find them disgusting. However, a recent study that showed that eating soy foods could protect us from getting bone fractures may change our minds. The September issue of Archives on Internal...
My brother called me several months ago and asked, “do you know if cell phones cause brain tumors?” He was calling from his cell phone with a hands free headset while driving. “I don’t know.” I said, “but, I will look into it.” Several years ago, one Swedish study had...
Each fall Halloween kicks off the candy eating season- still to come are Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Valentines Day. By the end, an average American would have gained an extra pound of weight. Thought this may not seem much, we never shed this extra pound,...
I was stranded overnight in a car and then waddled 5 miles through hip deep dirty brown water. This was not in New Orleans last week, but in Bombay, India a month ago when 38 inches of rain fell in one day (Memphis receives 48 inches in a year). Flooding is common...
I told my wife about a recent study, “Honey, married people live nearly a decade longer than unmarried people.” She smiled. Then asked “Who.the married men or the women?’ “Both,” I said. “The data from federal death records...
We went to McAlister’s Deli for lunch last Saturday. As my daughter and I peered at the four columns of menu items above the counter, she noticed one column entitled “Vegetarian”. “Daddy, one-fourth of the meals are vegetarian”, she said. (She is learning fractions...
Like it or not medicare is here to stay – infact there are many who advocate it as the insurance plan for all Americas who cannot insurance from their employees or self-insured. Now that would qualify for a mid-life crisis. The big 4-0 The health program that provides...
Many Christmas dinners have come and gone and you still have not talked with Uncle Stan. Since that heated family argument ten years ago, neither has apologized and neither has forgiven. This holiday season reconsider your grudges. Forgiveness is not just a virtue,...
Last Thursday I along with 20 other physicians met with Governor Bredeson for over an hour and a half. He was selling his TennCare reforms. Most of us listened. Some of us praised him. Some griped and others gave him new ideas, which he jotted down. Most obviously,...
During morning rounds at the hospital I examine Mr. Jones. He had a lung transplant a year ago, and has made more visits to the hospitals than to the supermarket. I ask myself, “Is Mr. Jones happy?” I pass the automatic double door out of the ICU onto the hospital...
This school year in addition to getting a scholastic report card on your child, imagine receiving a health report card, which would tell you how overweight or underweight your child is. If you lived in Cambridge Massachusetts, that would be the case. A study...
Last week we dined at a restaurant, we have been frequenting for the past 10 years. The young polite waiter asked for the order. I looked at the menu, then I paused and asked for something completely out of the ordinary. “Do you have a menu that lists the nutritional...
My wife is a drinker. She drinks 7-10 glasses each day – of water that is? She wants me to be like her, but I refuse. I am stingy with my drink – only with meals or after a work-out or when my thirst nudges me to bend over a water fountain, suck up a few sips of cold...
Our pediatrician poked a pen in my teenage daughter’s arm and said “That’s how much it will hurt, or I will give you ten dollars” He was talking about the meningitis vaccine. Meningitis is an infection of the fluid surrounding the spinal cord, and can be caused by...
If an African-American patient comes into a doctor’s office, does he get similar care compared with a Caucasian patient? “No,” says the Institute of Medicine. The present research “demonstrates significant variation in the rates of medical procedures by race, even...
A few months ago, a hospital surveyor asked me. “As an infection control practitioner, what would keep you awake at night?” “Outbreaks of staph infections and hospital acquired infections are a concern,” I said. “But, we can manage them....
Do patients have “needs” or do patients have “rights?” When I was in medical school – a couple of decades ago – we talked about patient’s needs. Today, the concept has matured to patient’s rights. In fact, in 1997 President Clinton signed a Patients Bill of...
Parents and pediatricians can add another vaccine to their laundry list (now at 15) of childhood vaccines. Oh no…another shot, that sounds painful. But wait, the new vaccine, RotaTeq, is an oral suspension given in 3 doses to babies younger than 8 months old. RotaTeq...
An estimated 11 million people in Africa will die of famine this year. Approximately, two-thirds of all adults and one-third of all children in the United States are now overweight; of these, nearly 50% of adults and 16% of children are obese. Though, we live in an...
