Primary Care
September 10, 2011
Butter Is Delicious: Can We Use It Safely?
Butter is tasty and a reasonable part of a heart-healthy diet when used judiciously. Keeping butter at room temperature makes it easier to use small amounts of butter effectively.
August 28, 2011
All Hail the Tomato
August is harvest. Tomatoes are queen, but heirloom tomatoes are the true royalty.
August 28, 2011
Screening Mammography:How Effective?
Dr. Kanner looks at a Norway study which separated the benefits of screening mammography from breast cancer treatment improvements. Mammography is clearly helpful, but the help may be more modest and come with more adverse effects than recognized before.
April 23, 2011
The Disappearing Family Doctor
A front-page NY Times article about a Maryland doctor, "Family Physician Can't Give Away Solo Practice" on page 1 April 23, 2011, explores the decline of personalized solo practice and acknowledges that "a centuries-old intimacy between doctor and patient" is being lost. Dr. Kanner comments in letter to editor.
March 13, 2011
Health Care Agent and Proxy
We all need a health care agent to speak for us if we are incapacitated while critical decisions must be made about our care, for example, in an ICU. Your doctor discusses some of the many issues surrounding health care agents and provides a standard health care proxy form used to appoint the agent.
March 9, 2011
You Never Want to Be an Interesting Case. Be Medically Boring.
Dr. Kanner loves medical boredom because then the patient is almost always healthy. Interesting cases are intellectually fascinating but may have bad outcomes. Which would you prefer?
February 26, 2010
Health Care 3: The Terror of Being Uninsured
If you are uninsured and need serious medical care, your costs are almost unimaginably higher than you pay as an insured person. Some illustrations to underscore why we must change the insurance rules to get everyone into the system.
January 4, 2010
Ginkgo Biloba Does Not Work. Alas.
Ginkgo biloba was just shown to be ineffective to prevent cognitive decline in a large, randomized and controlled trial of over 3000 older adults followed for over 6 years in an NIH-sponsored multi-center study published in JAMA. Applying critical evaluation to all purported therapies.
November 21, 2009
Women’s Health: Confusing New 2009 Mammogram Guidelines
A preventive medicine task force just suggested that women not have mammograms in their 40's and should only be screened every two years after that. And don't bother with breast self-exam or your doctor's breast exam. And the gynecologists' task force declared that no women should have Pap smears before age 21 and less frequently…
September 5, 2009
The Health Care Reform Conundrum – 1
Why our health care system is so wonderful and so dysfunctional is an immensely complex tale that is of immediate political importance to understand. Introduction to a planned series of reports.
July 4, 2009
FDA Panel Warns on Tylenol Dosage
An FDA advisory panel was widely reported last week to recommend banning Vicodin and Percocet because the committee believes the amount (500 mg) of Tylenol those drugs contain is dangerous and contributes to liver damage and fatalities. What should we do about Tylenol dosage in general?
April 27, 2009
NY Times: Severe Primary Care Physician Shortage
The New York Times lead story today was on the nationwide shortage of primary care physicians, which imperils the ability of the Obama administration to successfully implement health care reform.