Results for: screening
In which Dr. Gorski is taken to task by an eminent radiologist for his posts on mammography
Introduction: An unexpected e-mail arrives One of the consequences of the growing traffic and prominence of this blog over the last few years is that people who would otherwise have probably ignored what I or my partners in blogging write now sometimes actually take notice. Nearly a decade ago, long before I joined this blog as a founding blogger, if I wrote...
Separating Fact from Fiction in Pediatric Medicine: Infant Gastroesophageal Reflux
By now, regular SBM readers should be aware of the Choosing Wisely initiative. Just in case, Choosing Wisely is a campaign developed by the ABIM Foundation to bring together experts from a variety of medical specialties in order to identify common practices that should be questioned by patients and providers, if not outright discontinued. Their ultimate goal was not to establish treatment...
Precision Medicine: The Coolest Part of Medicine
One size rarely fits all. Most medical knowledge is derived from studying groups of subjects, subjects who may be different in some way from the individual who walks into the doctor’s office. Basing medicine only on randomized controlled studies can lead to over-simplified “cookbook” medicine. A good clinician interprets study results and puts them into context, considering the whole patient and using...
Separating Fact from Fiction in the Not-So-Normal Newborn Nursery: Newborn Jaundice
By far the most common medical problem in newborn infants is jaundice, typically appreciated as a yellowish discoloration of the skin caused by increased blood levels of a pigment called bilirubin. In my role as a newborn hospitalist, I manage jaundice every day. If I am not treating jaundice, in every single baby I see I am at least determining the risk...
The false dilemma of David Katz: Abandon patients or abandon science
Dr. David L. Katz is apparently unhappy with me. You remember Dr. Katz, don’t you? If you don’t, I’ll remind you momentarily. If you do, you won’t be surprised. Let me explain a bit first how Dr. Katz recently became aware of me again. Last week, I posted a short (for me) piece about something that disturbed both Steve Novella and myself,...
How “they” view “us”
We skeptics like to view ourselves as the heroes, as the ones beating back the tide of pseudoscience and protecting the gullible from quacks. Unfortunately, the very victims whom we seek to save don't see it that way. To them, we are the villains, and they hate us. To all too many of them, almost any means are justifiable to combat us....
Traditional Chinese herbalism at the Cleveland Clinic? What happened to science-based medicine?
Quackademic medicine has taken a bold step forward at The Cleveland Clinic, which has opened a traditional Chinese medicine herbal practice.
Curing Hepatitis C: A Success Story and a Price Tag
Previously incurable, hepatitis C now has a treatment. A very, very expensive treatment. But there is hope for acutely and chronically infected people.
Gluten-free skin and beauty products: Extracting cash from the gullible
Gluten-free doesn't make sense for a lot of diets. Except for lip balm and toothpaste, it makes an order of magnitude less sense for beauty products.
Mammography and the acute discomfort of change
As I write this, I am attending the 2014 meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR, Twitter hashtag #AACR14) in San Diego. Basically, it’s one of the largest meetings of basic and translational cancer researchers in the world. I try to go every year, and pretty much have succeeded since around 1998 or 1999. As an “old-timer” who’s attended at...