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Category Archives: Medicine

With Western Medicine, Ebola May Have Met Its Match

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By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter Latest Infectious Disease News

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 12, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors in the United States have a near-perfect record of treating Ebola patients, with only one out of nine patients losing their lives while under hospital care in this country.

And the last person under treatment for Ebola in the United States, New York physician Dr. Craig Spencer, was released from Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan Tuesday after being declared free of the virus.

Which begs the question -- is Ebola really as deadly and terrible a virus as many media reports have suggested?

In one sense, it is. Ebola is a virus that ravages the body, attacking all the major organs and causing terrible bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. It can kill a person in any number of ways.

"I wouldn't say the virus is any less lethal," said Dr. Thomas Ksiazek, director of high containment laboratory operations for the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch. "I wouldn't want it, would you?"

But American doctors' success at treating Ebola victims has revealed that the virus can be regularly bested, through a combination of early detection and solid supportive care.

Until now, the Ebola virus has been a devastatingly effective killer because it has spread in developing countries -- primarily in Africa -- with underfunded and often ramshackle medical systems, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, clinical assistant professor of emergency and critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

In the current West African epidemic, Ebola has killed nearly 5,000 people and infected more than 13,200 individuals, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Past outbreaks in East Africa have had death rates as high as 90 percent.

"We've seen Ebola face-to-face with medicine in austere settings," said Adalja, who's also a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "Now we're seeing Ebola face-to-face with medicine in modern settings. It may not be as formidable here as it was there."

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With Western Medicine, Ebola May Have Met Its Match

Is The VA Socialized Medicine?

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Yes, the VA is socialized medicine according to Paul Krugman an it works he wrote, in a column a few years ago. But Sunday evening on 60 Minutes, viewers got a glimpse of what the word works actually means.

VA care means long waits for care, a bureaucracy that treats its clients more like inmates than like customers and all too often a deadly reminder that health care delayed can mean health care denied.

Among the 60 Minutes findings:

Krugman writes:

The most efficient health care systems are integrated systems like the V.H.A.; next best are single-payer systems like Medicare; the more privatized the system, the worse it performs.

Yet here is the reality: many veterans avoid the VA system entirely. Even though the care is free, about 90 percent of the 27 million veterans who could use the VA system choose not to, relying instead on private health insurance and other ways of accessing healthcare.

Moreover, Michael Tanner writes in a Cato Institute study:

it takes an average 160 days simply for a veteran to gain access to his health benefits, and the case processing backlog within the VA currently sits in excess of 344,000 claims. Appealing a VA decision is lengthy as well, requiring an average wait time of 1,598 days.

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Is The VA Socialized Medicine?

Duke Medicine Spreads Men's Health Awareness

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This month, theyre growing out their mustaches for a campaign called Movember, a movement that encourages men to get cancer screenings at an early age.

It was nearly 10 years ago when Lee Byrd heard the words that changed his life.

My story is not unlike a lot of other men in my age bracket. I was going on a semi-regular basis for check ups and everything was fine when I was 50 years old, but then I neglected to go until I was 56 and I was faced with the reality that I had prostate cancer, said Lee Byrd.

Prostate cancer is a reality that doctors say one out of every seven men nationwide are faced with.

I had the operation in 2006. Then I had radiation about 8 months later. Everything was fine for about 3 years and then it resurfaced as it often does, said Byrd.

Byrd is optimistic about his condition. His last two years of treatment at Duke Medicine have been going well.

If I could have caught this two years earlier I would have been better off, Byrd said.

Its that sentiment thats sweeping the nation this month in a movement called Movember. At Duke Medicine, several doctors are growing out their mustaches to change the face of mens health.

We know prostate cancer is a disease of aging and early detection can save lives and can pick up the disease before it leaves the prostate, said Dr. Andrew Armstrong, a Medical Oncologist at Duke Cancer Center.

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Duke Medicine Spreads Men's Health Awareness

Family Medicine Director Alan Douglass, MD | Middlesex Hospital – Video

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Family Medicine Director Alan Douglass, MD | Middlesex Hospital
Dr Alan Douglass feels that one of the wonderful things about being a family doctor is the opportunity he has to build long-term relationships with his patients. Dr Douglass leads the Middlesex...

By: Middlesex Hospital

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Family Medicine Director Alan Douglass, MD | Middlesex Hospital - Video


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