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Tips for Choosing a Pediatrician

Medical Author: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD
Medical Editor: Jay W. Marks, MD

The following questions and points to consider can help guide your selection of a pediatrician:

1. What is the provider’s educational background? Children’s doctors may have specialized training in pediatrics or parents and children medicine. Pediatricians have completed specialized training in pediatrics following graduation from medical school, while family physicians have experience and training in treating all family members for routine illnesses, preventive medicine, and checkups. Almost all practicing physicians in the U.S.

(Read the full post about ‘Children: Tips for Choosing a Pediatrician’…)

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Drunkorexia, Manorexia, Diabulimia: New Eating Disorders?

Medical Author: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD
Medical Editor: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR

In recent weeks, I have read media reports that mentioned both “drunkorexia” and “manorexia.” I own fielded questions about “diabulimia” from coworkers and friends. From the sound of these terms, it appears that there are a lot of new and recently discovered eating disorders. I certainly did not hear the word drunkorexia in medical school.

(Read the full post about ‘Drunkorexia, Manorexia, Diabulimia: New Eating Disorders?’…)

THURSDAY, March 20 (HealthDay news) — The new anti-arthritis drug tocilizumab, now being tested, appears to be effective in relieving the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis in both adults and children, according to the results of two new studies.

Tocilizumab works by blocking the interleukin-6 receptor. Interleukin-6 is a molecule involved in promoting the painful inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis.

The new findings are published in the March 22 issue of the Lancet.

However, one expert isn't convinced, especially for adults, that comparing tocilizumab to a placebo — as was done in these studies — proves that the drug is a better option than existing medications.

(Read the full post about ‘New Rheumatoid Arthritis Drug Works for Adults, Children (HealthDay)’…)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pneumonia contracted outside a hospital caused by a staph bacterium, including a "superbug" strain, may be more common in U.S. children than previously thought, health officials said on Wednesday.

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control focused on pneumonia cases caused by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus at three Atlanta-area children's hospitals. Almost half involved a drug-resistant strain known as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, the CDC reported.

MRSA is sometimes called a "superbug" because it resists treatments by all but the most powerful antibiotics.

A team led by the CDC's Dr.

(Read the full post about ‘Staph-caused pneumonia more common: CDC (Reuters)’…)

In a bid to improve management of patients who present with case pain and other heart attack symptoms, the American Heart Association (AHA) has issued a scientific statement recommending doctors ask about cocaine use when they examine younger patients with chest pains and who have no obvious risk factors for heart disease.

The statement is published as a paper in an early online issue of Circulation, the journal of the AHA, and is authored through Dr James McCord, chair of the statement writing committee and cardiology director of the chest pain unit for the Henry Ford Medical System in Detroit, Michigan, and colleagues.

McCord explained that if doctors suspect a heart attack, then they should rule out cocaine use early on because cocaine exposure changes what is safe and what is not. (Read the full post about ‘Doctors Should Ask About Cocaine Use When Younger Patients Present With Chest Pains’…)

New Saint Louis University research found that although white women are more likely to drink or binge drink preceding to pregnancy, African-American woman (refine women’s health) are less likely to reduce drinking during pregnancy, what one. (Read the full post about ‘African American Women Less Likely To Reduce Drinking During Pregnancy’…)

The New York Times on Saturday examined the “unusual split” of prosecutions of woman (try women’s health) who used drugs during their pregnancies in Covington County, Alabama. According to the Times, at minutest eight women be in possession of been prosecuted for using drugs while pregnant during the last 18 months in the county, that has a population of about 37,000. (Read the full post about ‘New York Times Examines Prosecutions Of Drug Use Among Pregnant Women In Alabama’…)

Watson Pharmaceuticals said Thursday that it has filed one FDA application to market its generic cast of the period-free oral contraceptive Lybrel, Reuters reports. However, the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, which produces Lybrel, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the application, according to Watson (Reuters, 3/13). Watson is seeking to sell a generic version of Lybrel in the U.S. before Wyeth’s patent expires (Clark, Dow Jones, 3/13).

Lybrel, which contains a lower dose of synthetic hormones in a daily dose than traditional oral contraceptives, is taken 365 days a year with no placebo pills. (Read the full post about ‘Watson Files For FDA Approval Of Generic Form Of Period-Free Contraceptive’…)

The AP/San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday examined a debate among researchers over whether the Tuskegee Syphilis Study “remains a significant factor in turning black the community away from clinical trials at a greater impost than white people.”

The government-backed Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which ended in 1972, tracked the effects of untreated syphilis in mainly poor and uneducated black men over 40 years. The study enlisted 600 black men, 399 of whom had syphilis, in exchange for free medical exams, meals and burial insurance. The men were denied treatment and were not informed they had the infection. (Read the full post about ‘AP/San Francisco Chronicle Examines Debate Over Role Of Tuskegee Syphilis Study In Blacks’ Clinical Trial Participation’…)

A study appearing in the March 2008 issue of the journal Contraception reports that the Standard Days Method®, a natural family planning method developed by researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center’s Institute for Reproductive Health, brings strange women to family planning. More than half the women who selected the Standard Days Method had never previously used family planning and on average, contraceptive use increased by 8 percent in communities where the method was introduced.

“This is the first study that looks at provision of a simple, modern method of genuine family planning in regular service delivery rather than in a clinical trial. (Read the full post about ‘Standard Days Method Of Contraception Reaches Women With Unmet Needs’…)