Hot MedFax

Well, I'll be.  Researchers have found a link between how you parent -- and how you behave in the workplace. Now, I don't think that means, since you give your kids a time-out when they're misbehaving, that you make your employees sit in a corner and think about what they've done, when they don't do the job you want. But a new study finds that the boss-employee relationship is similar to parent-child relationships, according to newswise.com. And if you're an employee having trouble with our boss, there’s a chance that your parents might share some of the blame, claims Dr. Peter Harms, a University of Alabama researcher. “It seems cliché, but, once again, we end up blaming mom for everything in life,” says Harms while laughing. “It really is about both parents, but because mothers are typically the primary caregivers of the children, they usually have more influence on their children.” In studying manager-employee relationships in the workplace,...

How many of us have been told it's all in our heads when it comes to chronic pain?  Now a new study ays that's exactly where it is.  And where it can be cured. According to newswise.com, psychologists play a primary role in chronic pain treatment. When it comes to chronic pain, psychological interventions often provide more relief than prescription drugs or surgery without the risk of side effects, but are used much less frequently than traditional medical treatments, the Web site reports. "Chronic pain affects 116 million American adults, making it more prevalent than heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, and traditional medical approaches are inadequate," newswise quotes Mark P. Jensen, PhD, of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington, and lead author.  That's why it's so important to get the treatment -- and get it right -- as soon as possible.   Successful treatment approaches for chronic pain include cogn...

Here's a horrifying fact.  We're giving ourselves cancer .  Or so says a New York Times op-ed. Rita F. Redberg and Rebecca Smith-Bindman write that all the CT scans and MRI's and PET scans and full-body imaging we get for just about anything medical are assaulting our bodies with radiation, which, as we all know, can cause cancer.  (I had 6 1/2 weeks of radiation for breast cancer and I think about that all the time.) " The use of medical imaging with high-dose radiation — CT scans in particular — has soared in the last 20 years," according to the writers. "Our resulting exposure to medical radiation has increased more than sixfold between the 1980s and 2006. . . The radiation doses of CT  scans. . . are 100 to 1,000 times higher than conventional X-rays." They give credit to the technologies for early diagnosis (which, I suppose, I certainly should be grateful for), but note " there is distressingly little evidence of better health outcomes ...

Did you know you have a better chance of dying from a heart attack if you have it at night or on the weekend? A new study has found that "6,000 extra deaths a year" are a result of factors that occur after patients arrive at the hospital after regular business hours, according to Medical News Today.  It may be because emergency treatment is slower after business hours or that there are less medical professionals on hand, or a host of many other reasons, but the odds are relatively good that, if you have a heart attack in the evening or outside business hours, you might well die. In fact, if you arrive "after hours," your mortality risk is 5% higher than those who are treated during regular hours.   The study also found that patients arriving with  ST elevation myocardial infarction had a 15-minute wait before treatment for a stent to re-open their arteries, increasing their risk of death by 10-15%.   Heart attacks are the number-one killer of both men and...

Recently I learned that I did not have breast cancer – after going through radiation and a bilateral mastectomy, as if I did.  What I had was stage 0 cancer, or ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).  Which, I just found out, means abnormal cells in the milk duct that have not spread.  Not cancer. So for eight years I have been telling people I am a breast cancer survivor – erroneously, as it turns out.  I’m a victim – survivor? – of the scary conscientiousness – or the over-prescribing of treatment  – that women are being subjected to. Call it fear of malpractice (what if it turns into cancer?), or what we’re now learning, that DCIS becomes invasive cancer 25 to 50% of the time, if not treated, but more and more women are undergoing drastic medical treatment even before they have the illness.  Am I sorry?  No way.  At the time I was diagnosed, I had a three-year-old.  When it was found again in my breast, he was five.  I wanted to live....

Think about this.  A three-week-old needs flexible tube through a tiny artery in her leg that winds its way to her heart to try to treat narrowed veins and arteries, the result of a congenital condition. So what do they use for this? An adult-sized catheter.  Sound insane?  That's right.  Medical devices for children are not being developed because -- are you ready? There's no money in this. The development of surgical tools and medical devices designed for children falls far behind device development for adults, The New York Times' Laurie Tarkan reports. "The lag, say experts, can be blamed largely on economics. The pediatric market is far smaller than the market for adults, making it difficult for companies to recoup research and development expenses for smaller devices," she writes. This child was subjected to a procedure that took longer, and was more likely to "injure her already abnormal blood vessels," her cardiologist cardiologist, Dr. Alex...

Thumbing through The New York Times this afternoon, I came across a story about how hair salons are becoming the new "seats of power." Hair stylists have known for years the intricate, intimate facts of their clients' lives.  What else are you gonna do, sitting in that chair for an hour? I've heard that that's how many women finally wind up telling about domestic violence in their lives. It made me think of my husband, a dentist, who also finds himself hearing stories about divorce, estranged children, fatal diseases, run-amok kids, and truly tragic stories, almost every day. I'll admit, it's hard to talk with those tools in your mouth, but somehow people still confide the most amazing things to him. One of his toughest patients, a burly, brusque NYC transit worker, told him how his heart was breaking because his girlfriend's 5-year-old grandson was moving with his mom and dad to Florida and he would never get to see him. Another, one he's ha...

There's hope for those who would be violent.  Thomas Insel, the U.S. mental health chief, said yesterday that the risk of violent behavior "drops 15-fold for people who receive treatment for psychosis," compared to those who do not, according to a story at Healthwatch, THE HILL'S healthcare blog. How do we get them into treatment before they commit a crime, though?  Those with mental illness are notoriously resistant to treatment and even Adam Lanza, who massacred 20 beautiful children in Newtown last month, was reportedly angry that his mother was about to commit him, and that's why he went on his murderous rampage. No one will ever know for sure, and Insel is not saying treatment would have helped Lanza, or prevented the tragedy, but, according to the story, the risk of potential violence multiplies the longer psychosis goes untreated. The scary truth is that one in five people in this country suffer from mental illness.  Not all of it is psychosis, of co...

Scorpions and tumors. They are working together to fight cancer. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/tumor-paint-scorpion-toxin-highlights-brain-tumors/9083?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660