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The ballooning cost of prescription medications – Shelby Sun
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...
Giving Thanks for Health – Shelby Sun
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,...
A can a day will keep fitness away – Shelby Sun
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...
Remembering the mad cow disease epidemic of 1990s – Shelby Sun
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...
Aspirin the wonder drug – Shelby Sun
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...
Canadian drugs for Seniors – Shelby Sun
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...
When patients and doctors don’t agree… – Shelby Sun
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...
Travelers Beware – Shelby Sun
“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...
What to do – I got the flu? – Shelby Sun
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...
Resistant Staph Infections Disguised as Spider Bites – Shelby Sun
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,...
Education of mothers helps reduces infant mortality – Shelby Sun
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...
Herbal Therapy and the Common Cold – Shelby Sun
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 common cold...
Covering my Behind – Shelby Sun
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...
Eating Soy Foods Can Reduce Bone Fractures – Shelby Sun
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...
Cell Phones Don’t Cause Tumors, But They Do Cause Accidents – Shelby Sun
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...
Holiday Candies Expanding Waistlines – Shelby Sun
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,...
New Orleans Last Week – Not Unlike Bombay Last Month – Shelby Sun
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...
Married adults live longer. but why? – Shelby Sun
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 showed that married men lived 10 years...
Fast Food Needs To Change Fast – Shelby Sun
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...
Guess who turned 40 this year? – Shelby Sun
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...
Forgiveness – it’s healthy for you – Shelby Sun
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,...
Disease management program – a new strategy – Shelby Sun
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,...
Happiness and health – are they linked? – Shelby Sun
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...
Health report cards – Shelby Sun
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...
How healthy are our restaurant menus? – Shelby Sun
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...
How much to drink? – Shelby Sun
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...
Meningitis Vaccine for Teenagers – shelby Sun
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...
Nonviolence Conference to Address Racial Disparities in Healthcare – Shelby Sun
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...
When an epidemic becomes a pandemic – Shelby Sun
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. I worry about a global flu...
Patient’s Rights- Know Them and Exercise Them – Shelby Sun
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 Rights...
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Management of Infectious Diseases
Roadmap for Quality Improvement
Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle Rejuvenates a Marriage
MAHAVIRA - The Hero of Nonviolence
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