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How best to manage ulcerative colitis? Here: highlights from guidelines from the American College of Gastroenterology on assessment, treatment, indications for surgery, and cancer surveillance.

In my customized Google news, I have a category for cosmetic surgery. Most items that turn up are self-serving PR announcements, but recently there was lengthy coverage of the death during cosmetic surgery of aspiring Chinese pop star Wang Bei.

The essential feature of private insurance induced stress disorder (PIISD) is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an insurance-induced traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience of an event or witnessing an event that threatens another person. Traumatic events include, but are not limited to, recission of health insurance after developing a costly illness, denial of health insurance due to a pre-existing condition such as being female and fertile or delay of needed treatment or medication due to requirements for pre-authorization. In the case of physicians, traumatic events include witnessing the deterioration of patients due to financial ruin resulting from uncovered costs of care. Similar to some forms of PTSD, this disorder is prone to be severe because the stressor is of human/corporate design. Note: this diagnosis is not currently reimbursed by health insurance carriers.

Bill for It All

Too many physicians forget to billfor supplies and imaging services.

Fresh Eyes Find Time

Ask a colleague to visit your practiceand point out ways to improve efficiency.

If a child seems frightened or cries during the physical examination in a way that limits your ability to do a proper assessment, try this trick.

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At Consultant, our goal is to provide the practical, authoritative information you need to best serve your patients. That is why we "pre-test" article ideas (before we invite articles on those topics) to be sure they are of real interest to you and your colleagues. It is also why we take great care in checking facts, creating useful tables and figures, and choosing illustrations and photographs to enhance teaching messages.

Ulcerative colitis affects about 500,000 persons in the United States and accounts for more than 30,000 hospitalizations and 1 million workdays lost each year. The exacerbations and remissions that characterize the clinical course of the disease can make its management particularly challenging. What is the optimal approach to treatment? And which agents are most effective for maintenance therapy?

AIBD 2010

The editors of ConsultantLive bring you updates from the 2010 Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases conference on the state of the art in the management of patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.-Julie Bowen    Editor, ConsultantLive

In the third podcast in this 3-part series, Dr Lieberman describes the options for treatment of an acute flare and for long-term urate-lowering therapy. The first step is lifestyle modification, and he discusses the challenges of motivating patients to institute and adhere to dietary changes.