Category Archives: Neurology

Listen to the Doctor: Cleve Francis, cardiologist and country singer.

Dr. Francis, who recently turned 65, is a genteel singer of country and pop songs. He favors vintage ballads.

A man inching up the line in a walker can't believe it. "You want his autograph? I get it on a prescription every three weeks," he says.

References:

The average daily salt intake in America is one and 1/2 teaspoon a day. This is 3,400 milligrams of sodium a day, or 1,100 milligrams more then the recommended maximum.

For people with congestive heart failure, a salty hot dog can trigger a trip to the hospital.

The experts say the new target for sodium intake should be set at 1,500 milligrams daily.

Patients who received a test of two genes connected to warfarin sensitivity were 28 percent less likely to be hospitalized for a bleeding episode or blood clot than those whose safe and effective warfarin dosing was determined by traditional trial and error method.

The genetic tests, which are easily done with a cheek swab or blood sample, need only be performed once ever for each patient and cost somewhere between $200 and $400 - far less than even a brief hospital stay.

Warfarin Sensitivity Genotype Test - Mayo Clinic Video.

References:
Gene test can cut warfarin hospitalizations | Reuters.

The earliest references to journal clubs are in the memoirs and letters of Sir James Paget, a British surgeon, who described a group at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in the mid-1800s as “a kind of club … a small room over a baker’s shop near the Hospital-gate where we could sit and read the journals.”

Sir William Osler established the first formal medical journal club at McGill University in Montreal in 1875. The original purpose of Osler’s journal club was “for the purchase and distribution of periodicals to which he could ill afford to subscribe” (see the excerpts from Google Books below).

A survey of 3,000 faculty members at the top 50 US medical schools has shown that women members earned $13,000 less than their male counterparts with the equivalent career position and professional activity.

There were no obvious reasons for the difference.

One in five heavy smokers over age 40 have findings of COPD, but only one-third have been previously diagnosed with the common lung disease.

10% of people worldwide over the age of 40 are affected by COPD.

Researchers screened 1,003 people aged 40 and over who were current or former heavy smokers. Heavy smoking was defined as a smoking history of 20 pack-years or more.

The results showed that 20.7% of the people screened met the criteria for a diagnosis of COPD but only 32.7% had previously been diagnosed with the disease or were aware of their COPD diagnosis.