Practice Management

Peanut butter and a ruler may turn out to be tools that offer an inexpensive, sensitive, and specific olfactory means of screening for Alzheimer disease. Details here.

A significant proportion of patients who visit emergency departments (EDs) with opioid overdoses (ODs) also suffer from comorbid mental health disorders, circulatory diseases, and respiratory diseases, according to the results of a new study presented on October 14, 2013, at the American College of Emergency Physicians annual meeting in Seattle.

Pneumatosis cystoides intestinalisa rare condition, is characterized by gaseous cysts within the submucosal and subserosal spaces of the bowel wal

Here: 5 things (at least) you may not know about human viral hepatitis.

Diet diaries and food frequency questionnaires are both effective tools to capture important patterns between food items and symptoms of IBD.

When it comes to the prostate, most men in this study couldn’t locate it or identify its function. Translation: patients and physicians don’t speak the same language. Clinicians need to be “bilingual” when they’re talking with patients.

Which test should you order if you suspect Clostridium difficile infection-and how often do you check the stool for the C difficile toxin? Here: the answer-and explanation.

Keeping your patients satisfied can help keep you sane-and possibly even happy. Here: strategies for enhancing clinician/patient communications.

Here: a fruitful approach to the evaluation of dizziness that focuses on timing, triggers, and associated symptoms, followed by a complaint-directed physical exam with special attention to specific germane aspects of the neurologic exam and (when indicated) selective testing.

The 5 quiz questions this week are far-ranging and cover conditions as rare as opisthorchiasis and as common as obesity. See how you fare...

The real impact of nutritious menu changes at fast food chains like McDonalds remains to be seen, but these-along with modifying the dosage schedules of patients who appear to be statin-intolerant-may prove to have long-term salubrious effects.

Data from pivotal international phase III clinical trials showed superior efficacy, safety, and convenience for a new wave of direct-acting oral agents. The breakthrough will benefit physicians in all practice settings, including primary care.

Here: strategies for making the exam more comfortable and efficient, and tips for using topical anesthetics, removing earwax, extracting a plantar foreign body, and approaching the Dx of appendicitis.

The “take home” from this presentation: be cautious with inappropriate use of drugs with or without black box warnings, but maintain a healthy skepticism about some of these warnings. Cases in point: droperidol, antidepressants, clindamycin.

A presentation on October 14, 2013, at the American College of Gastroenterology Scientific Session by Joseph A. Murray, MD, FACG  (Mayo Clinic)Murray JA. Implications of gluten intolerance and celiac disease in IBS.  

What accounts for the 129% increase in admissions for constipation over the past decade-and what can be done to avoid these expensive and often unnecessary admissions? Primary care clinicians take note.

Nearly three-quarters of patients who are initially "statin-intolerant" are able to re-start therapy on a graduated-dosing schedule and continue on an intermittent dosing regimen.

An IDWeek 2013 poster presentation quantified clinician fatigue with the finding that Boston-area primary care physicians were more likely to prescribe antibiotics for ARIs at the end of the day than when they were fresh on the job in the morning.