I’m grateful to all the readers of my weekly posts for all the stories you’ve pointed me to and all your valuable feedback. Thanks for reading.
I’m grateful to my partners Dr. Rubencio Quintana and Dr. Dorothy Lowe for making our office a happy and intellectually stimulating place to work.
I’m grateful to Jaymes, Nancy and Jill for helping us take great care of our patients. I couldn’t dream of a better support staff.
I’m grateful to my parents for bringing me to the US, where we are judged...
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New Mammogram Recommendations Betray Women, Doctors and Science
This week the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) revised their recommendations for screening mammograms. Their recommendations have ignited much controversy and have weakened the credibility of a formerly objective scientific body.
This post is longer than usual. It deals with an important subject in some detail. For the readers who like to delve into the details and see the data, set this aside for when you can give it some time, follow the links, and check out the articles yourself...
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H1N1 Flu Update
My last post, “Should You Have a Pap Smear?”, generated an avalanche of wisecracks from my male readers, mostly declining. Thanks for that!
I want to write another post about H1N1 flu about as much as I’d like to pour lemon juice on my paper cuts. But there’s absolutely no other medical news to report and many of you are still much attuned to this developing story.
Today’s Wall Street Journal summarized the most recent data well (link below). Since the virus first spread to humans in April,...
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Should You Have a Pap Smear?
Last week I lamented that we can prevent so few cancers. Cervical cancer screening is one of the success stories of prevention. Regular pap smears can drastically decrease the risk of cervical cancer and makes death from cervical cancer virtually unheard of.
Cervical cancer is a sexually transmitted disease, caused by human pappilomavirus (HPV). Pap smears check for telltale changes in the cervix that happen after HPV infection. Over many years these changes lead to cervical cancer.
But w...
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