Sunday, 18 October 2015

How to avoid doctor dependency

How to avoid doctor dependency:

Buy stuff over the counter
Take advice from grandma
Use self-made remedies, e.g. lemon and honey or sensible complementary therapies
Team up with people with the same condition for mutual support
Augment your own mental health and resilience
Rest or exercise
Eat a sensible diet

These are excerpts from the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine:



Reply to comment below:

Yes, the OHCM is great. It's probably one of the most valuable medical textbooks I have ever encountered, It pays off to re-read it from time, at least with every new edition. I have recommended it to residents and students here in the US but Pocket Medicine and other handbooks are more popular here.

Saturday, 17 October 2015

"Don't go so fast: we're in a hurry!"

"Don't go so fast: we're in a hurry!" -- Talleyrand to his coachman. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) was a French bishop, politician and diplomat. Due to a lame leg, he was not able to pursue the military career that had originally been foreseen for him by his family. Instead he studied theology. Unique in his own age and a phenomenon in any, Charles-Maurice, Prince de Talleyrand, was a statesman of outstanding ability and extraordinary contradictions. He was a world-class rogue who held high office in five successive regimes.

---

From OHCM: "We aim to encourage the doctor to enjoy his patients: in doing so we believe he will prosper in the practice of medicine."

Aim to:

- reassure
- treat
- refer
- palliate

These are excerpts from the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine:



References:

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://buff.ly/1LfmuUV
Amazon.com: Talleyrand (9780802137678): Duff Cooper: Books http://buff.ly/1Lfmvs5

Monday, 5 October 2015

AA: 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine goes to discoverers of antimicrobials Artemisinin and Avermectin

From DW:

Youyou Tu, the chief professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, began her work with traditional herbal remedies in the 1960s.

Focussing on plant Artemisia annua, Tu extracted the active Artemisin ingredient found in plants, then purified it. Tests conducted by the now 84-year-old showed her trials had “unprecedented potency” in treating Malaria, which infects close to 200 million people every year. The infection leaves more than 450,000 people dead globally annually, with most of the victims being children.

The other 2015 Nobel prize was for another antimicrobial therapy with an "A", Avermectin.

Nobel Medicine Prize 2015 - Announcement And Explanation:



Read more here:
http://buff.ly/1VALadf
Nobel Prize for anti-parasite drug discoveries - BBC News http://buff.ly/1M6DTkL

Full video is below (42 minutes):

Thursday, 1 October 2015

70,000 Ways to Get Sick or Die - the switch to ICD-10 in US

From the WSJ: Under a new system, the number of diagnostic codes doctors must use to get paid is expanding from 14,000 to 70,000, including codes for ailments such as "underdosing of caffeine" (video):



Here are some of the new codes:

- Z63.1: “Problems in relationship with in-laws”
- V91.07XA: “Burn due to water skis on fire.”

At the end of the day, this code probably applies to the majority of healthcare administrators in the US today:

F43.22: “Adjustment disorder with anxiety.”

References:

There Are Now Officially 70,000 Ways to Get Sick or Die. Bloomberg, 2015.
http://goo.gl/NMJsab