Do you know what is becoming the most important work done in the hospital? Many would believe medicine, but many hospitals are finding that paperwork takes up the most time. Paperwork takes up as much as a third of a physicians workday, which often leads to a deteriorating professional morale. Discussed by Dr. Pauline Chen from the New York Times, administrative responsibilities are keeping doctors from their primary role of treating patients.
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Peter (not his real name) developed a red spot on the tip of his nose 2 years ago. He is now 16 years old. Last week the spots became more red and formed 2 blisters. His mother took him to a board certified plastic surgeon. The surgeon told the mother he didn’t know what the lesion was but that he could cut it out. He advised them Peter would be left with a permanent scar on his nose.
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For those who suffer from heartburn but like to eat spicy foods, medications such as Nexium and Prilosec may make those spicy meals go down easier, but taking them may come with a price. Reuters reports that according to a new series of studies, common heartburn drugs, called proton pump inhibitors or PPIs, “can cause serious side effects and should be used with caution.”
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According to Reuters, a new study suggests that heart attack patients may benefit from drinking a couple cups of coffee a day, provided they have normal blood pressure. By drinking coffee daily it may help some patients who have had a heart attack or another acute coronary event avoid further serious problems.
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According to Reuters, a new study revealed that “the cost of imaging used on Medicare cancer patients is growing at twice the rate of overall cancer treatment costs as doctors order more scans and recommend more advanced tests.” This study is the first to examine the growing cost and use of scans performed on cancer patients.
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The term “eating disorder” is normally associated with an extreme amount of weight loss, often a fatal amount, but in actuality not everyone who suffers from an eating disorder loses a dangerous amount of weight; they might even gain weight. However, many patients “aren’t getting the treatment they need,” reports Elizabeth Landau from CNN. The reason for the lack of treatment is because some insurance companies won’t cover treatment for eating disorders unless the patient “meets all the criteria outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a guidebook for diagnosing mental illnesses,” says Landau.
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According to CNN, millions of Americans suffer from allergies, and unfortunately trees and plants are shedding pollen early this year making it hard for allergy sufferers to breathe, and also causing them to suffer from many other annoying and unpleasant symptoms. If you are a Knoxville, Tennessee resident, you, unfortunately, have it the worst according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Knoxville tops the charts as having one of the highest pollen scores, a high amount of allergy medicine being used per patient, and a low number of board-certified allergists per patient.
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We all know that smoking can cause cancer, but now there actually might be a way to predict which smokers will eventually develop lung cancer. According to Reuters, “Researchers have identified a group of genes that are especially active in lung cancer patients– even in healthy tissue… The main gene is called PI3K and it affects a pathway of other genes.” Also, this gene is in the windpipes of smokers, which means that patients do not need any more dangerous and uncomfortable lung tests.
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