By Charmaine Emelife, MD
Hypertensive kidney disease (HKD) is believed to be a cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in a significant number of patients living in America. Hypertensive nephrosclerosis or HKD is a vague diagnosis used especially when a patient does not have diabetes, is non-nephrotic, has no renal biopsy and is noted to have irreversible advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) ... Continue Reading
By Helen K. Kelley
With the advent of COVID-19 and the need for social distancing, constant sanitizing and mask-wearing, many Americans have experienced increased feelings of isolation, anxiety and depression. We spoke to two Atlanta practitioners who shared their insights about treating mental health issues that have been brought on or exacerbated during the pandemic. “Probably everyone ... Continue Reading
By Dawn Laney, MS, CGC
Let’s face it, patients carrying giant stacks of printouts from their own internet research into their medical issues is a big trigger for most healthcare providers. Despite a few exceptions, it seems that patients without medical training can easily be drawn into a web-based rabbit hole filled with misinformation and misdiagnosis. With limited time for each appointment, the ... Continue Reading
By Stephanie Keller, MD; Angela Wittenauer, MSN, FNPC, RN; and Rachel Logan MMSc, CGC
How do you connect a dried blood spot from the heel of a newborn to a life-changing treatment in under a month? The answer to this question is collaboration and expertise. The Georgia Department of Public Health tests every baby in the state for 35 conditions that if treated in the first year of life greatly improves their quality of life and health. Recent additions to the ... Continue Reading
By Marissa Shams, MD, and Dawn Laney, MS, CGC
Repeated episodes of excruciating abdominal pain and swelling that occurs suddenly without warning and results in a disfiguring swelling of the face, lips and tongue that persists for several days. Life-threatening laryngeal edema often requiring repeated intubation given the concern for asphyxiation that is unresponsive to allergy medications including anti-histamines, ... Continue Reading
By Helen K. Kelley
As we go to press this month, more than 200 vaccines for COVID-19 are under development around the world. In the U.S., multiple companies are working to create a vaccine, with hopes for a safe and effective solution by the end of the year. We spoke with Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, MD, MACP, an internal medicine physician, adjunct associate professor of medicine at Emory ... Continue Reading
By Tina-Ann Thompson, MD, LeShea Turner and Ted Johnson, MD, MPH
Telehealth innovation and transitions and the effect of COVID-19 on primary care practices On March 11, 2020, the Atlanta Hawks lost in overtime to the visiting New York Knicks. While disappointed, the 10,000+ individuals in the State Farm Arena crowd had won a free chicken sandwich (a Knicks player had missed two 4th quarter foul/“fowl” shots). Yet as the arena began ... Continue Reading
By Nicole M. Franks, MD, FACEP, and Monique A. Smith, MD
The quest for Health Equity in America has been a long journey, and it has taken the COVID-19 pandemic to further expose a long history of racial injustice and healthcare disparities. In addition to the COVID-19 forced pause on how we live, technology and the availability of information continues to provide additional lenses for all to view how people are born, grow, live, ... Continue Reading
By Jada Bussey-Jones, MD and Frank K. Jones, MD
It was a sunny, spring day in Atlanta. The streets were empty because of a recently executed shelter-in-place order by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. We were still in the infancy of the COVID pandemic, naïve to the tumultuous road that lay ahead. In his role as President of the Atlanta Medical Association and with a goal of facilitating COVID-19 testing in the African-American ... Continue Reading
By Bryce Gartland, MD, SFHM; John A. Brennan, MD, FACEP, MHA; Jim Fortenberry, MD; Dan Salinas, MD; Charles L. Brown III, MD, FACC; Robert Jansen, MD, FACP, MBA; and Ira R Horowitz, MD, FACOG, FACS
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the importance of health system collaboration while we attend to this public health emergency. In many ways, it afforded us an opportunity to gain insight into our ethos as a collective healthcare community. We are proud to share we have not lost our core principle of why we chose to work in healthcare – to serve our fellow human beings by ... Continue Reading
By James P. Steinberg, MD, and Jesse T. Jacob, MD
A hospital epidemiology perspective on what we’ve discovered from the infection prevention response to COVID-19 Looking at some of the lessons learned from the response to the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of the hospital epidemiologist, we can improve preparedness for future events by understanding how our hospitals used contemporary knowledge and ... Continue Reading
By Helen K. Kelley
The field of hospital medicine in the United States has grown rapidly in the past 20 years, from less than 1,000 practicing physicians to more than 44,000 today. As in-hospital programs continue to develop, there is increasing demand for hospitalists who are eager to practice medicine in a complex and rapidly changing environment. Here, two Atlanta physicians share some of ... Continue Reading
By N. Spencer Welch, MD
Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a major health problem hiding in plain sight. I say this because we see patients with osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures every day in our clinics, but only a small percentage of these patients are properly evaluated and started on therapy. There are 10 million patients diagnosed with osteoporosis in this country, and 80% of them are women. ... Continue Reading
By Aliza S. Kumpinsky, MD
This is one of the most exciting times in headache medicine, with many new migraine-specific biologics available for both acute and preventive treatment. Migraine is a central nervous system disease that is both prevalent and disabling. In individuals age 15-49, it is the second leading cause of years lived with disability.1 The prevalence is 12% in the general population.2 ... Continue Reading
By Jamie D. Weisman, MD
New treatments, personalized care are just some of the exciting advancements to come To understand the future of dermatologic therapies, we need to understand where we have been. The biologic revolution in the treatment of dermatologic disease began in January 2002, when the tumor necrosis factor receptor blocker etanercept (Enbrel) was approved for the treatment of ... Continue Reading
