High Stakes for Physicians: The Policy & Practice Podcast

From press conferences, interviews, and more around Washington, D.C.
Physicians have a lot riding on what happens in Congress this year. After months of wrangling over health reform, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) will try to get her version of the health overhaul bill through the chamber. The bill includes a public plan whose rates [...]

Patients With Diabetes Catch a Break

From the annual meeting of the Eastern Vascular Society in Philadelphia:
 It’s not easy for people with diabetes. Among their problems is that just about any other medical condition is worse when it happens against the backdrop of diabetes.
So a report on Sept. 24 that endovascular repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (EVAR) in patients with diabetes is no [...]

Too Good to Be True?

From the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona.
How do you react to smashing success in a drug trial?
That was the dilemma, and seemingly the only problem facing the results from a study with the new antithrombic drug dabigatran, which rang up stunning numbers against its entrenched comparator, warfarin, for preventing stroke or systemic [...]

Under Pressure

From the annual meeting of the Society of Hypertension in Blacks
Rear Admiral Penelope Slade-Sawyer updated attendees on Healthy People 2010, acknowledging straightaway that the health initiative did not meet its two core goals of eliminating health disparities and improving the quality and years of healthy living for Americans.
Strides were made in reducing coronary heart disease death rates [...]

To Go With Your Cafe Au Lait: The Policy and Practice Podcast

From congressional hearings, press briefings and other health reform goings-on, Washington, D.C.
Gooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddddddddddd Morning, Washington!
OK, it’s mid-morning here, but it’s still morning on the Left Coast.  While ya’ll are enjoying your cafe au lait and beignets and Congress is off home to play, the hard-working staff here at the International Medical News Group has produced yet another [...]

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Killer Disease

from the European Congress of Rheumatology, EULAR, in Copenhagen
Medical history was made yesterday with official declaration of a new cardiovascular risk factor: rheumatoid arthritis, along with two other rheumatologic disorders, ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis.
“In our view, rheumatoid arthritis [RA], ankylosing spondylitis [AS], and psoriatic arthritis [PsA] should be seen as new cardiovascular risk factors,” said [...]

Failing Defibrillator Leads: A Convenient Truth?

from the Heart Rhythm Society’s annual scientific sessions in Boston
Ever since Medtronic announced in October 2007 that the Fidelis defribrillator leads they had been making were being pulled off the market because of their tendency to fracture and fail physicians and patients have wondered how much of a risk they poses to the people who already [...]

Emergency Docs Seething Over New Heart Failure Guidelines

from the annual meeting of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine:
The dirty little secret about the recently released ACC/AHA 2009 Focused Update on the Diagnosis and Management of Heart Failure is that even though the guidelines proudly trumpet an all-new section on hospitalized patients with acute heart failure, the writing committee didn’t include any emergency [...]

Where Have All the Doctors Gone?

from the annual meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in Boston
During today’s sessions, a report from a team of thoracic surgeons at Ohio State University documented a dire prediction for the future of U.S. thoracic surgery, and for the American public. Unless there is a dramatic shift in numbers, within the next two [...]

Professional Objectivity

As a medical reporter who has been writing about diabetes for more than 20 years and living with the disease myself since 1973, covering JAMA’s diabetes “theme issue” press briefing on Tuesday was familiar territory.
Four papers were presented. Frans J. Th. Wackers, M.D., Ph.D., of Yale University reported that routine screening for cardiovascular disease in [...]