Medical apps for the Apple iPhone

The other day, I was thinking about the Apple iPhone.

Medical apps for the iPhone - how far have we come?

It's amazing how far we've come in 1 year.

A remedy for health-care costs?

BusinessWeek has a very interesting article titled, "The family doctor: a remedy for health-care costs?" Will it ease the healthcare burden if we make primary-care physicians the center of America's health system? Perhaps the next question is, "what does it mean to make the PCP the center of the health system?"

This article starts with the line: "The primary-care doctor is gaining new respect in Washington." So many medical students have no interest in primary care. Are they not getting the right type of exposure to the world of primary care? Perhaps they are disillusioned and they don't fail to see the benefits of being a primary care provider (PCP).

Lately, there has been much talk about healthcare reform, electronic health records (EHRs), and the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). Can the medical home model actually save $67 billion a year? That reflects a 5.6% savings on healthcare costs. IBM's Director of Health-Care Transformation Dr. Paul H. Grundy led IBM to start the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. I think many people are curious to see how the medical home model will impact healthcare costs in these large corporations. If only 27% of physician practices qualify as a medical home, then what type of impact are we expecting to see?

My lunchtime ice cream experiment has backfired

Earlier this week, I asked the question, "Is it better to eat ice cream after lunch or dinner?" Many people answered, "yes!" I'm an ice cream lover too! I had been eating ice cream after dinner, but this week I wanted to try something a bit different. I was going to eat ice cream after lunch. My little clinical study backfired when I couldn't control myself from eating ice cream after dinner every night! So, I've decided that I should limit my ice cream consumption to once/day (otherwise, my BMI will go through the roof). However, now that I've gotten used to eating ice cream after lunch, I'm having a difficult time breaking that habit.

Steve Jobs and his Tennessee liver transplant

With all this talk about Michael Jackson, I decided that it was time to blog about another celebrity: Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple). We know that a few months ago, Jobs underwent a liver transplant in Tennessee. He's been battling pancreatic cancer and he's been on medical leave for some time. He lives in California, so you may be wondering: why did he have liver surgery in Tennessee?

Let me introduce you to something called the MELD (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) score. The MELD system was implemented February 27, 2002 to prioritize patients waiting for a liver transplant. MELD is a numerical scale used for adult liver transplant candidates. The range is from 6 (less ill) to 40 (gravely ill). The MELD score is calculated based on these 3 blood tests:

• INR (international normalized ratio)
  
• Bilirubin
• Creatinine (Cr)
  

Here's how the MELD score is calculated = (0.957 * ln(Serum Cr) + 0.378 * ln(Serum Bilirubin) + 1.120 * ln(INR) + 0.643 ) * 10

You'll see that common liver enzymes such as AST and ALT are not a part of this equation. We also don't look at GGT or Alk Phos. The INR is reflective of the liver's ability to produce the proper clotting factors, so it's shows how the liver is functioning. You may be wondering why creatinine (a marker of kidney function) is used in the MELD score. The reason is because kidney dysfunction is often associated with liver failure. You may have heard of hepatorenal syndrome (HRS), which is kidney failure in the setting of cirrhosis or liver failure. Anyway, let's return to MELD. The four MELD levels are:

1. greater than or equal to 25
2. 24-19
3. 18-11
4. less than or equal to 10

Now let's talk about United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). UNOS uses a computerized point system to distribute organs in a fair manner. Recipients are supposed to be chosen primarily on the basis of medical urgency. Is there a way to beat the system?

So the big question is: did Steve Jobs use his money to somehow "cut the line" and get a liver transplant ahead of others? Can money buy you better health care? I think we all know the answers, but we may not wish to admit them. USA Today writes, "Jobs' liver transplant shows money can make a difference." If you have a high MELD score, that means you're really sick and you probably can't afford to travel very far. Most patients awaiting liver transplants can't afford to get on many waiting lists. If you have a ton of money, then you may have the luxury to get on multiple waiting lists.

New cancer drug has few side effects

There's an interesting article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that talks about a novel new cancer agent called olaparib. In a phase 1 study, this drug was found to have few adverse effects (compared to conventional chemo) and displays antitumor activity in certain tumors. Here's the brief conclusion: Olaparib has few of the adverse effects of conventional chemotherapy, inhibits PARP, and has antitumor activity in cancer associated with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation.

Technology Review has a nice article on this titled, "New Drug Kills Cancer with Few Side Effects." Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Compare that to the NEJM title: "Inhibition of Poly(ADP-Ribose) Polymerase in Tumors from BRCA Mutation Carriers." Did you catch all that? What's PARP?

Did you learn about PARP in medical school? The inhibition of poly(adenosine diphosphate [ADP]–ribose) polymerase (PARP) is a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cancers with specific DNA-repair defects, including those arising in carriers of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. Olaparib (AZD2281) is an orally acting PARP inhibitor.

As cancer therapy becomes more tailored in our evolving world of personalized medicine, it's exciting to see all this research that combines molecular biology, genomics, and targeted therapies. Advances in medical technology and drug development are leading to innovative treatments in the world of oncology.

Olaparib (AZD2281), previously known as KU-0059436, began to be manufactured by AstraZeneca after the company acquired KuDOS Pharmaceuticals.

CNN's Sanjay Gupta talks about Michael Jackson's death

The evolution of my blogs

When I started blogging several years ago, I had a single Blogspot URL. I was writing about medicine, technology, gadgets, computers, and non-clinical opportunities for healthcare professionals. I also threw in some blog posts about completely random topics like the ubiquitous nature of a name like Joe Kim or Joseph Kim.

Earlier this year, I decided that my blog was getting too convoluted. In March/April 2009, I made a decision to secure a few novel URLs. I also decided to get serious about using Twitter.

Now I have four separate and distinct blogs. Perhaps someday if I become a professional blogger, I'll set up a few other URLs. In the meanwhile, I'll do my best to maintain these four sites:

Jackson's health and mental problems

We know that Michael Jackson had many health problems (and many rumored health conditions). We don't know the details about his mental health or about the care he received for his addictions and other mental health conditions. CNN reports that we know Jackson had the following problems:

• He was addicted to pain killers
• He had numerous plastic surgery
• He had vitiligo
  
• He's been accused of child molestation
• Rumors about alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency
• Rumors about the need for a lung transplant
  
• Rumors about skin cancer

Celebrities never get any privacy, do they? Would you like the entire world to know about the list of your health and mental conditions?

Epic MyChart

Epic Systems Corporation is probably the 700 pound gorilla when it comes to electronic health record (EHR) companies. They provide inpatient and outpatient EHR applications to many large hospitals in the U.S. This company makes the daily work of those who attended medical billing and coding schools a lot easier. They also provide a personal health record (PHR) service for patients through something called "MyChart." You'll see this at the Cleveland Clinic, UT Southwestern, Medical College of Wisconsin, University of Texas Medical Branch, University of Chicago, Metro Health, Dreyer Medical Clinic, Buffalo Medical Group, and many other places.

Want to see MyChart in action? Then let me refer you to a story in the Buffalo News. The Buffalo Medical Group is the largest physician group practice in the area and they have been using MyChart to provide patients with an integrated PHR service. Here are a few snippets from this interesting article: "Using MyChart, patients can see their medical records over the Internet, immediately get lab results, seek prescription refills, make appointments and quickly get questions answered... It cost the Buffalo Medical Group about $50,000 to digitize records for each physician, and providing the MyChart feature on top of that costs 20 cents per patient per month, said Dr. John C. Notaro, the group’s associate medical director...There’s a gain in efficiency, doctors said, because patients can do more with less phone contact with the office and with less time spent waiting for help...Patients who use MyChart say they had little trouble processing lab results and other records, and doctors responded quickly to inquiries."

So, does it sound too good to be true? If more people are becoming tech savvy, then solutions like MyChart and other integrated PHRs may become very popular. If you'd like to read the full article at the Buffalo news, click here.

U.S. swine flu - 1 million?

According to Time.com, the U.S. may have hit 1 million swine flu cases. Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made the 1 million estimate in a presentation to a vaccine panel in Atlanta. The number is based on mathematical modeling that uses data from surveys by health officials.

The United States has roughly half the world's swine flu cases, with nearly 28,000 reported to the CDC so far. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths. Here are some interesting stats: The average age of swine flu patients is 12, the average age for hospitalized patients is 20, and for people who died, it was 37. It seems to be deadliest to people 65 and older, with deaths in more than 2 percent of elderly people infected.

So, do you think more people will be getting the flu vaccine this year? I'm willing to bet that people who normally don't get the flu vaccine will definitely want to get it this year. It's possible that the swine flu vaccine may be given in two separate doses, 21 days apart. To read the full story at Time.com, click here.

Michael Jackson's death

We've all heard the news. The King of Pop died at the age of 50 at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. According to CNN, he suffered a cardiac arrest. I don't think we know any details beyond that at this point. So, were you a fan of Michael Jackson? I remember being a fan when I was a very young child. Everyone I knew was a fan, so I figured that I'd be a fan too. I remeber him as the pop star who always wore sunglasses.

ER (Emergency Room) advice from CNN

If you follow CNN, you'll probably see this article titled, "How to get help in a hurry in the ER." Did you know that the average total waiting time in a U.S. emergency room in 2008 was four hours and three minutes, a 27-minute increase in nationwide average wait times since 2002?

What would you do if your spouse had a life-threatening emergency and you needed to grab someone's attention in the emergency room? Get the perspective from 4 different ER docs:

• Dr. Assaad Sayah, chief of emergency medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance, Massachusetts
• Dr. Jesse Pines, assistant professor of emergency medicine, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
• Dr. Joseph Guarisco, chief of emergency services at Ochsner Health System, Louisiana
• Dr. David Beiser, assistant professor of medicine, University of Chicago

Click here to read this CNN article.

Green Tea Blocks the Anticancer Effects of Bortezomib

I really enjoy drinking green tea. Fortunately, I'm not receiving any chemotherapy right now. I hope I never have to receive chemotherapy. A recent study found that the polyphenols in green tea may block the anticancer effects in bortezomib (Velcade) by Millennium Pharmaceuticals, now part of Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Bortezomib (Velcade) is a proteasome inhibitor that is used to treat multiple myeloma, certain lymphomas (such as mantle cell lymphoma), and other cancers. Should the consumption of green tea be a contraindication when you're being treated with Velcade? Cancer patients are often taking multiple herbs, vitamins, and other types of alternative therapies. Let's hope that the word gets around about how green tea may interact with Velcade.

Reporting abnormal test results to patients

There's an article in the Archives of Internal Medicine titled, "Frequency of Failure to Inform Patients of Clinically Significant Outpatient Test Results." Lead author Lawrence P. Casalino, MD, PhD is from the Department of Public Health, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. In this study, failures to inform patients of clinically significant abnormal test results or to document that they have been informed appear to be relatively common, occurring in 1 of every 14 tests.

Here's what was most interesting to me: Use of a "partial electronic medical record" (paper-based progress notes and electronic test results or vice versa) was associated with higher failure rates compared with not having an electronic medical record (odds ratio, 1.92; P = .03) or with having an electronic medical record that included both progress notes and test results (odds ratio, 2.37; P = .007).

Was this study flawed? After all, they used medical students to perform chart reviews. Did the researchers make a mistake when they collected or analyzed the data? Is it possible that physicians have become too dependent on the use of electronic health record (EHR)?

You can view the entire article here.

Toxic Air in 600 U.S. Neighborhoods According to the EPA

Wow, can you believe that the air quality is toxic in 600 U.S. neighborhoods? According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), millions of people are breathing pollutants that may increase their risk of developing cancer. Here's a snippet from Time: "The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories, and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution..."
Wish to read the Time article? Click here.

What happens if you eat magnets?

This image is from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Here, you see x-rays of two different individuals who have ingested magnets. Want to know what happened to these people? Click here to go to the NEJM.

High Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP)

What do you know about hsCRP (high sensitivity C-Reactive protein, also abbreviated as hs-CRP)? Don't get confused now. hsCRP is not the same as standard CRP. Perhaps you're familiar with the JUPITER study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The conclusion from that study reads: "In this trial of apparently healthy persons without hyperlipidemia but with elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels, rosuvastatin significantly reduced the incidence of major cardiovascular events."

Here are some interesting facts from the makers of the hsCRP assay:

C-reactive protein (CRP) is an acute phase protein that appears in circulation in response to inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-6, and serves as a biomarker for systemic inflammation. Following a systematic review of the association between inflammatory markers and coronary heart disease and stroke, the American Heart Association (AHA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a scientific statement that recommends hsCRP as a more sensitive assay for the prediction of vascular disease, compared to traditional assays for circulating C-reactive protein levels.

The AHA/CDC Scientific Statement Summary

• hsCRP is a global indicator of future vascular events in adults without any previous history of cardiovascular disease (CVD), with acceptable precision levels down to or below 0.3 mg/L
• hsCRP enhances risk assessment and therapeutic outcomes in primary CVD prevention
• hsCRP is particularly advantageous for assessing the risk in patients with
  • Framingham 10-year risk scores of 10%-20% and/or
  • LDL levels of <160>
• hsCRP acts as an independent marker for evaluating the possibility of recurrent cardiac events, such as myocardial infarction or restenosis, after percutaneous coronary intervention

AHA/CDC risk assessment guidelines

Low risk	<1>
Average risk	1-3 mg/L
High risk	>3 mg/L

Do you feel like you're an expert now? Click here to view the abstract for the JUPITER trial in the NEJM.

Advances in HIV/AIDS treatment

It's quite amazing when we look back at advances in HIV and AIDS treatment. CNN has a story titled, "A generation born with HIV/AIDS defies the odds." I hope this title or story doesn't give people the wrong idea. Some people out there may think that HIV and AIDS are not serious conditions. They may think that the majority of patients with HIV and AIDS live for a very long time when they read something like, "With advances in medicine, the babies born with what was once thought of as a sure-fatal virus have danced at their high school proms, walked on stage to receive their diplomas and even experienced the birth of their children."

The reality is that HIV and AIDS are still killing many people each day. In this picture, teenagers born with HIV/AIDS are paying respect to their deceased friends at the memorial tree. Perhaps the important message is that HIV patients need support and community. The CNN story talks about a group of HIV-positive teens called the Kool Kids. Patients with HIV can support each other as they take their antiviral medications and endure various side effects. They can encourage each other when their HIV friends pass away from AIDS-related complications. It's great to see that advances in HIV/AIDS treatment have resulted in fewer pills and better ways of measuring and evaluating drug resistance. I still wonder if we'll ever develop an effective HIV vaccine. Because the virus mutates so frequently, it may never happen. Perhaps advances in medical technology will prove me wrong.

To read the story on CNN, click here. Image source: CNN

e-prescribing in Massachusetts

Boston has several different medical schools and affiliated hospitals. Can you name all of them? You have Harvard, Boston University, and Tufts (the UMass medical school is in Amherst). Is it any surprise that Massachusetts has been named the top e-prescribing state for the second year in a row by Surescripts? According to Surescripts, prescribers in Massachusetts sent more than 6.7 million prescriptions electronically in 2008, representing 20.5 percent of all eligible prescriptions in the state. That number is only going to increase because of ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Here's some more interesting info from Healthcare IT News:

Top 10 e-prescribing states

1. Massachusetts
2. Rhode Island
3. Michigan
4. Nevada
5. Delaware
6. North Carolina
7. Pennsylvania
8. Connecticut
9. Maine
10. Arizona

The top five most improved states:

1. Vermont
2. Tennessee
3. Kansas
4. Illinois
5. Missouri

Is your state on any of these lists? It's going to be very interesting to see all the changes that occur as President Obama channels money to improve the utilization of e-prescribing.

PhRMA to find $80 billion in discounts

Our country needs healthcare reform. What's the pharmaceutical companies doing about it? How are they contributing?

PhRMA members are pledging to find $80 billion in discounts. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies. This may include reducing drug prices by 50% to seniors in the Medicare Part D “donut hole” coverage gap. The complete details of this plan are still in process and it won't be finalized until the plan is scored by the Congressional Budget Office.

At at a press conference with AARP officials, President Obama made the following statement: “The agreement by pharmaceutical companies to contribute to the health reform effort comes on the heels of the landmark pledge many health industry leaders made to me last month, when they offered to do their part to reduce health spending $2 trillion over the next decade... We are at a turning point in America's journey toward health care reform. Key sectors of the health care industry acknowledge what American families and businesses already know - that the status quo is no longer sustainable. The agreement reached today to lower prescription drug costs for seniors will be an important part of the legislation I expect to sign into law in October. And to do that we're going to have to work together to root out waste and inefficiencies that may pad the bottom line of the insurance industry, but add nothing to the health of our nation. To that end, the pharmaceutical industry has committed to reduce its draw on the health care system by $80 billion over the next 10 years as part of overall health care reform."

Advice for physicians interested in a health IT career

Many physicians have asked me for advice regarding careers in health IT (information technology), so I decided to compile a short article titled, 10 tips for physicians interested in a health IT career

Is it better to eat ice cream after lunch or dinner?

In the U.S., people have a tendency to eat a lighter lunch and then a heavier dinner. This is one of the main reasons why salads are so popular during lunch. Well, I love ice cream and I tend to eat ice cream after dinner. Fortunately, I have a healthy BMI (body mass index) and I exercise regularly, so my ice cream eating habit hasn't made a big impact on my weight yet. However, I think about my health whenever I eat ice cream. For the last few days, I've been thinking about switching my routine ice cream eating routine. Instead of eating ice cream after dinner, I think I'm going to eat it after lunch. After all, I tend to eat less for lunch (I've succumbed to the American way of things) and this way, I get to burn those ice cream calories during the day.

So is it better to eat ice cream after lunch or dinner? I don't think you'll find many clinical studies answering that question. Allow me to conduct this little study on myself and I'll report my findings. Consider this a case report: ice cream after lunch vs. after dinner.

New Analgesic: Nucynta (tapentadol)

When's the last time you saw a new pain pill? NUCYNTA™ (tapentadol) is a single molecule with a different approach to pain relief. It is the first new molecule in analgesia in over 25 years for the relief of moderate to severe acute pain in adults.

According to a a Phase 3 clinical study published in the June 2009 issue of Current Medical Research and Opinion, tapentadol immediate release (IR) tablets provided patients with equivalent efficacy in pain relief following orthopedic surgery and significant reduction in nausea and/or vomiting compared to oxycodone IR.

NUCYNTA™ combines opioid and nonopioid activity in one centrally acting oral analgesic.

Mu-Opioid Agonist (Ascending Pathways)

• Work primarily on ascending pathways to inhibit transmission of pain impulses through binding to mu-opioid receptors
  

Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor (Descending Pathways)

• Norepinephrine reuptake inhibition works primarily on the descending pathways to enhance the inhibition of pain signaling
  

However, the exact mechanism of action of NUCYNTA™ is unknown. Isn't it interesting that we use so many medications that have an unknown mechanism of action? People may ask, "how does it work?" Answer: I don't know, but I know it works. To stay consistent with the "pain theme," let's talk about Lyrica (or pregabalin). This snippet is straight from the product insert: "LYRICA (pregabalin) binds with high affinity to the alpha2-delta site (an auxiliary subunit of voltage-gated calcium channels) in central nervous system tissues. Although the mechanism of action of pregabalin is unknown, results with genetically modified mice and with compounds structurally related to pregabalin (such as gabapentin) suggest that binding to the alpha2-delta subunit may be involved in pregabalin's antinociceptive and antiseizure effects in animal models." Lyrica is made by Pfizer.

There's simply so much we don't understand about pain. It's interesting to see research being done on drugs that have mysterious and unknown mechanisms of actions. We can postulate and theorize, but we can't prove how they work yet.

If you wish to learn more about Nucynta, visit: http://www.nucynta.com
Nucynta is marketed by Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Percutaneous Hepatic Perfusion

People often get confused when they talk about liver cancer. So many primary cancer spread to the liver and patients often think that they have "liver cancer." It's important to differentiate between primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and liver metastases (when other tumors spread to the liver). CNN has an interesting story that talks about the latter and appropriately titles the story, "Cancer spread to liver responds to experimental treatment." The title doesn't mislead one to think that we're talking about primary liver cancer. The experimental procedure is called percutaneous hepatic perfusion, or PHP. It targets tumors with a dose of chemotherapy that is up to 10 times stronger than patients could otherwise tolerate. Consider it a form of locally delivered chemotherapy. Seems like "targeted therapy" may need to be redefined when we're out of the molecular world. Another form of local therapy is called tumor ablation or embolization. I won't get into that right now. To read the CNN story on percutaneous hepatic perfusion, click here.

FDA Alert: Salmonella in pistachios

I love nuts. However, the FDA has alerted consumers that California Prime Produce and Orange County Orchards Brands of Pistachios may be contaminated with salmonella.

The FDA visited Orca as part of its audit checks to follow up on Setton Pistachio’s recall. The FDA found that products subject to Setton Pistachio's recall had been repacked and distributed by Orca under the California Prime Produce and Orange County Orchards brands. Orca has not made a public announcement regarding these products. Therefore, the FDA is issuing this press release to alert consumers so that they can take appropriate action.

Read the full FDA alert here.

Alternative Cancer Care in Mexico

According to CNN, there are many cancer patients escaping to oasis-type of cancer centers in Mexico to receive alternative care for their illness. To many, the idea of receiving alternative medicine for cancer may sound absurd. It may be OK to take some herbs and vitamins for benign conditions such as headaches and arthritis. But for cancer? Can alternative therapies like herbs, vitamins, meditation, and relaxation cure malignant tumors? If they do, are we simply seeing cases of spontaneous regression where the body destroys cancer by sensing that something is wrong?

The idea of complementary medicine for cancer has been a really controversial topic lately because of the story of Danny Hauser, a 13-yr-old cancer patient who is receiving chemotherapy because of a court order. He's also receiving alternative medicine, including acupuncture, vitamins, and minerals (among others). Does he have the right to choose what type of cancer care he wants? This gets into the ethics of autonomy, but it gets complicated because Danny is not an adult. Hence, in the world of medical ethics, he doesn't have the same type of autonomy as an adult. It may not sound fair, but the world of ethics doesn't always revolve around fairness (depending on your point of view).

So, if an adult chooses to forego Western medicine for cancer and decides to receive alternative care in Mexico, that's OK (from an ethics standpoint). However, if a child chooses to forego Western medicine for life-threatening cancer, that's when we have some serious ethical issues. That's where the ethics committees get involved and pulls in the judicial system when needed. How do we really know what the child wants? What if the child is only 2 or 3 years old? Do parents have the right to determine what is best for the child? At what age should a child have autonomy over medical treatment decisions?

Maybe you don't like to think about any of these complex ethical issues. If you're an oncologist looking for some lucrative opportunities in a resort-like (think all-year vacation) setting, then take a look at the Oasis of Hope Hospital in Tijuana.

To read the CNN piece about alternative cancer care in Mexico, click here. Image source: CNN

Link between autism and anorexia?

Is there a link between autism and anorexia? Autism has been a really hot topic over the past several years as celebrities and other high-profile individuals have argued about a link between pediatric vaccination and autism. An article on Time suggests that there may be a genetic link. If anorexia is largely caused by a genetic component, then it could also be linked to autism.

Consider these points from the Time article:

• Both anorexic and autistic patients have a tendency to behave obsessively and suffer from rigid ways of thinking...
• In both conditions, patients have difficulty with "set-shifting," or changing course mentally
• "Both autism-spectrum conditions and anorexia share a narrow focus of attention, a resistance to change and excellent attention to detail," says Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University...
• Past research suggests that about 15% to 20% of patients with anorexia may also have Asperger's syndrome, an autism-spectrum disorder...
• There is evidence that the "repetitive thoughts and behaviors, rigid routines and rituals and perfectionism" that characterize both autism and anorexia may be traced to the same regions in the brain...
  

So what does all this mean? What if autism and anorexia are somehow genetically similar? From a diagnostic perspective, perhaps this will help guide clinicians to identify patients who may be at risk for developing related symptoms. Eventually, this type of research could impact the way clinicians treat patients who have either condition. To read the article on Time, click here.

Random quarantine if you travel to China?

CNN reports that travelers to China who exhibit signs of flu-like illness may encounter random quarantine. Why? Because of swine flu (H1N1)! So, if you have allergies when you land in China, you should be prepared for an interesting little adventure. According to this story, some children have been separated from their parents. I'm curious to see how summer travel plans get affected as swine flu continues to spread throughout the world. We're waiting for vaccines to appear on the market (many are being developed) and we're all hoping that these vaccines are effective and that they get distributed before the upcoming flu season.

Read the CNN story here. Image source: CNN

Good luck to all the new interns!

Traditionally, internship/residency starts on July 1. However, there are some programs that start 1 week before July 1. Call it "orientation." Some programs give interns a one week break between the completion of internship and the start of residency. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Would you rather start one week early to get that one week break? Good luck to all the new interns!

Medicine and Technology: Top posts for last week

Here are the most popular posts for last week:

1. Are ADHD Meds Causing Unexplained Deaths?

2. Jobs for Physicians with No Residency Experience

3. Q&A on Healthcare Reform

4. Healthcare Costs are Choking Small Businesses

5. Searching for a Free EMR or EHR?

6. Non-Clinical Careers and Opportunities for Physicians

7. A free EMR Solution?

8. Medical Software for the BlackBerry Storm

9. Support CaringBridge

10. Kids at summer camp getting swine flu

Confusing IT terms

I was reading through an e-newsletter sent by HP (yes, I do read these) and I was amused by an article about baffling IT (information technology) terms. If you work in health IT, then you're probably very familiar with these terms. However, if you're not very "tech savvy," then you might get enlightened here. Let me highlight a few of these confusing IT terms:

• VoIP: A T-Mobile survey found that one in ten respondents thought VoIP can improve visibility for the visually impaired! It actually stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and literally refers to the ability to transmit the voice over the Internet.
• ASP: This one is particularly tricky because it’s an acronym with two meanings. An Active Server Page is an HTML page that includes one or more scripts (small embedded programs) that are processed on a Microsoft® Web server before the page is sent to the user. An Application Service Provider is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network.
• Petaflop: This is a word you’ll probably see in conjunction with discussions of supercomputing. A petaflop can be expressed as a thousand trillion floating point operations per second; it is a measure of performance for the fastest computers in the world.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! To all the fathers out there, remember that you are a very important role model for your children. Without a doubt, being a father is a tremendous privilege, opportunity, blessing, and responsibility.