Many of my patients are frequent business travelers. Travel presents its own set of health challenges, from the risk of prolonged immobility in small airline seats, to the risk of acquiring respiratory infections on a plane. One painful consequence of travel that we've all experienced is jet lag. Especially when crossing several time zones, jet lag can make the first day or two at your destination very unproductive. In last Saturday's Los Angeles Times business section, James Gilden has a very ...

An interesting study in the July 6 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine confirms what many physicians and patients have suspected: experience leads to quality. The study looked at over 20,000 patients with respiratory failure (inadequate or stopped breathing) in 37 different hospitals. The patients all required mechanical ventilation, meaning they were connected to a machine (a ventilator) that a...