Please enjoy this post from the archives dated August 26, 2010
By Aditya Mattoo, MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Not too long ago, a patient came to my clinic and said (I’m paraphrasing of course), “I never cared for alcohol, doctor, so I haven’t had much to drink since my college days. Maybe champagne or wine on the rare special occasion, but I keep hearing about how wine is good for your heart, so I am thinking I should start drinking regularly.” For years I have…
Sara-Megumi Naylor, MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
When Warren and Marshall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005 for their work on Helicobacter pylori and peptic ulcer disease , a long-standing controversy concerning the major cause of peptic ulcers was settled. They are not due to the reasons—spicy food, excessive coffee consumption, poor sleep, a stressful lifestyle—that we have heard from relatives and perhaps believed over the years. It is now well accepted that the leading causes of peptic ulcers are infection…
By Mark Adelman, MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Another July 1st has come and gone, marking the yearly transition in US graduate medical education of interns to junior residents, junior residents to senior residents, and senior residents to fellows. With this annual mid-summer mass influx of nearly 37,000 interns and other trainees taking on new clinical responsibilities, learning to use different electronic medical record systems and navigating the other idiosyncrasies of unfamiliar institutions, one cannot help but wonder what implications this may have on patient…
By Robert Gianotti, MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Case: Mr. T is a 32-year-old male being treated by the oncology service for Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. You are the night float intern covering overnight when you are called by the nurse to inform you that his CMV negative platelets have finally arrived from the blood bank. The nurse notices that the day team has not ordered Benadryl or Tylenol to be given prior to the transfusion, and asks if you could place the order. As you start…
By Nicole Learned
Faculty Peer Reviewed
In an age when patients obtain medical news from the media, and celebrities initiate powerful health trends, clinicians have to be prepared to answer even the most obscure questions about health and nutrition. When Entourage star Jeremy Piven took a leave of absence in 2008 from the Broadway play Speed the Plow due to alleged mercury poisoning from eating sushi twice a day for years, it raised the question: How much fish is too much?
Where Does Mercury Come…
By Vicky Jones, MD
A 40-year-old female presented to her primary care provider with a chief complaint of weight gain over the past year. She wants to be fully evaluated for any kind of medical disorder that could have caused it. She has been seen by multiple specialists but no one can give her a “straight diagnosis”. Their advice is for her to lose weight. She insists she never had problems with her weight in the past and has no known medical disorders. Her physical…
By Anthony Tolisano
Faculty Peer Reviewed
The sunlight forces its way into your eyes, stabbing at your cortex. Suddenly, a wave of nausea and diarrhea grips your stomach, threatening to evacuate its contents. You rush to the bathroom, tripping over the clothes that speckle your apartment. Your heart pounds inside your chest and your hands shake ever so subtly. Your mind is in a fog and the details of last night’s party are a blur. Sound familiar?
Read more »
Please enjoy this post from the Clinical Correlations archives first posted May 20, 2009
By Aditya Mattoo, MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Prompted by personal experience, I thought I would explore the alleged causative role of power lines in hematologic malignancies for the next installment of Myths and Realities. In recent years, two close family friends living at separate locations but in homes adjacent to lots with electrical transformers were diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.…
Please enjoy this post from the Clinical Correlations archives first posted March 19, 2009
Aditya Mattoo MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
For our first post, I wanted to address the age old belief that changes in the weather can affect arthritis pain. Since the time of Hippocrates, who wrote about the effects of hot and cold winds on people’s health, this topic has been debated. Even Osler suggested in 1892 that arthritis sufferers of wealth vacation…
By Carolyn Bevan, MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
It starts with a tickle in your throat. You feel a bit more tired after a day’s work, maybe your forehead feels a little warm. You try to will it away, but over the next few days, it hits you: the congestion, runny nose and annoying cough. Much to your dismay, you have a cold. Determined not to give in without a fight, you drag yourself to the nearest drug store and…
By Manisha Patel
Faculty Peer Reviewed
A woman in her 60s with a history of fibromyalgia presented with productive cough and fevers for one week, and also complained that she had been experiencing diffuse, chronic pain since she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 2 years ago. After assessing her acute symptoms, I began asking routine questions regarding the characteristics of her chronic pain. Upon asking her about alleviating factors, her unexpected response was simply “meditation.” She stated that meditation helps…
By Aditya Mattoo, MD
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Not too long ago, a patient came to my clinic and said (I’m paraphrasing of course), “I never cared for alcohol, doctor, so I haven’t had much to drink since my college days. Maybe champagne or wine on the rare special occasion, but I keep hearing about how wine is good for your heart, so I am thinking I should start drinking regularly.” For years I have been telling patients don’t drink,…
