By: Aviva Regev
Mr. S is a 68-year old man with longstanding COPD and a 40-pack-year smoking history. He presents to clinic with three days of increasing shortness of breath, and complains that he has been coughing …
Category: Class Act
Clinical Correlations
Does Medical School Erode Student Empathy?
August 10, 2011
By Nandini Govil
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Empathy is an elusive concept, espoused by many as an integral component of effective doctoring. In the medical literature, empathy is defined as a physician’s ability to recognize and validate a patient’s experiences and perspectives, …
More Pills, More Problems: The Polypill Revisited
August 3, 2011
By Jonathan Leventhal
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Polypharmacy has become an integral part of daily life for millions of chronically ill patients worldwide, and rightfully so. Evidence-based studies have repeatedly demonstrated that multiple drugs are required for optimal therapeutic management in chronic …
Mental Health Considerations for Gay and Lesbian Patients
July 27, 2011
By Benjamin Cox
Faculty Peer Reviewed
Gay men and lesbian women are members of a stigmatized minority group and evidence suggests that they may disproportionately utilize mental health services.[1] This increased use of mental health services may be related to …
Tales of Survival: Physical Exam
July 15, 2011
By John Hwang
General
Patient is a demented, chronically ill elderly male lying in bed attached to a ventilator, appearing anything but his stated age. Contracted in a fetal position, huddled under the bed sheet with only his …
Understanding the Zoster Vaccine
July 13, 2011
By Michael Cohen
Faculty Peer Reviewed
The varicella-zoster virus (VZV) is well known to the majority of the population. In children, it strikes as varicella (chickenpox), characterized by pruritic, vesicular lesions in different stages of development dispersed over the body. …
ANCA and Small-Vessel Vasculitis
July 7, 2011
By Eugene Friedman, Class of 2012
Faculty Peer Reviewed
The discovery of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) was a serendipitous finding. In 1982, Davies and colleagues published a report detailing their discovery of antibodies that specifically localized to the cytoplasm of …
Red Yeast Rice: Nature’s Statin?
June 30, 2011
By Joshua Farhadian
Faculty Peer Reviewed
M. K. is a 61-year-old female with hypercholesterolemia who presents to clinic complaining of muscle pain and weakness. She reports that one month after beginning statin therapy she developed myalgias and immediately stopped taking her …