Catharine Paddock PhD www.medicalnewstoday.com A study that successfully differentiated patients with pancreatic cancer from those with another pancreatic disease using a new biomarker, could lead to a blood test that detects pancreatic cancer early enough for curative surgery to be feasible. Pancreatic cancer has a very poor survival rate and ranks …
Read More »Latest Tool For Neurosurgeons: Virtual Reality Headsets
www.cbsnews.com Virtual reality headsets are already revolutionizing the way people experience video games: put on a pair of goggles and you can travel anywhere from outerspace to the battlefield. But gamers aren’t the only ones this technology can transport to new worlds, reports CBS News’ Kara Finnstrom, only on “CBS …
Read More »Would Doctors Be Better If They Didn’t Have To Memorize?
JOHN HENNING SCHUMANN www.npr.org Poor old Dr. Krebs. His painstaking Nobel-winning work on cellular metabolism, called the Krebs cycle, has made him the symbol for what’s ailing medical education. “Why do I need to know this stuff?” medical students ask me. “How many times have you used the Krebs Cycle lately?” senior doctors jokingly …
Read More »Doctors Cry Too
Linda Girgis, MD www.physiciansweekly.com Since entering medical school, I wished to be a pediatrician. There was nothing more noble in my mind than curing sick children and babies. That dream changed suddenly one night on my surgery rotation. It was early evening, when a Code-22 rang out over the hospital …
Read More »For The New Doctors We Need, The New MCAT Isn’t Enough
Dan Diamond www.forbes.com Americans want a lot from our doctors. We want caring bedside manner, effective communication, up-to-date knowledge, and finely honed clinical skills. We ideally want more than five minutes to spare in a visit. We want doctors who treat the whole person, not just the illness; doctors who …
Read More »Diversity in Medicine
Emily Hause www.medschoolpulse.com Hello my diverse readers! When I applied to medical school, I had this idea in my mind that there was some sort of perfect pre-med applicant prototype that schools had in mind. All I had to do to be accepted was become or fit into that perfect pre-med mold. …
Read More »Figure 1 App Is Like an ‘Instagram for Doctors’
By LIZ NEPORENT http://abcnews.go.com Call it socialized medicine for the digital age. Figure 1, a new smart phone app lets doctors and other medical professionals from all over the world swap pictures and info about their cases. The app as has been described as “Instagram for doctors,” a phrase its founder and …
Read More »Doctors as Journalists: Conflict of Interest?
www.physiciansweekly.com On Gary Schwitzer’s website healthnewsreview.org, a debate about the role of physicians who work as journalists took place. It was sparked by an NBC News report on the changing of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome to its new name—Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID). The report featured commentary by Dr. Natalie Azar, …
Read More »A Sheriff And A Doctor Team Up To Map Childhood Trauma
LAURA STARECHESKI www.npr.org The University of Florida’s Dr. Nancy Hardt has an unusual double specialty: She’s both a pathologist and an OB-GYN. For the first half of her career, she brought babies into the world. Then she switched — to doing autopsies on people after they die. It makes perfect …
Read More »Schools Reconsidering How Med School Applicants Are Evaluated
www.ama-assn.org The medical education overhaul continues—and not just with undergraduate med ed. Changes being launched now in medical schools are touching graduate medical education and pre-medical education, seeking to better prepare doctors for a health care system that is constantly changing. Academic physicians covered these innovations in an online video panel Tuesday …
Read More »Woman Becomes Obese After Fecal Transplantation From Overweight Donor
Honor Whiteman www.medicalnewstoday.com A new case report published in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases reveals that a woman who was treated for a recurrent Clostridium difficile infection with the gut bacteria of an overweight donor quickly and unexpectedly gained weight herself following the procedure. The authors say the case suggests doctors should avoid …
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