By Dr. Iris Z. Feinberg
The darkness of the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on a silent killer for which vital signs and oxygen saturation measures do not help. It’s called health literacy – the gap between how health messages are communicated and what patients and health consumers can understand to make good health decisions. One in five Americans reads at elementary levels,1 which includes ... Continue Reading
By Rob Schreiner, MD, FACP, FCCP
The safest thing for us to do, as doctors, is disassociate and depersonalize. We tell ourselves the patient’s suffering, from COPD or alcoholic cirrhosis or opioid addiction, is their own doing. Or more importantly, would never happen to us. Or maybe we try to numb our empathy by memorizing the neurochemistry and behavioral science of addiction. But none of that works so ... Continue Reading
By Patricia Rich, MD
The idea that the only people vaping e-cigarettes are current smokers trying to quit is not true, especially in the last several years. According to the American Cancer Society, electronic cigarette use has grown a staggering 900 percent among high school students in recent years. Currently, an alarming one in six high school students admit to using e-cigarettes. Given that ... Continue Reading
By Justine Henao, MD
“It’s cool” “Everyone is doing it” “It smells real good” “My friends say it tastes good and that it’s not bad for you” “All the cool kids do it” “It’s a prerequisite to be popular” “I love sweet flavors like gummy bear” “Mango is the best” “It’s just vapor” “I would like to try it because it smells really good, but I haven’t yet because we have been researching all its ... Continue Reading
By Shireen Haque, MD, MPH, and Annie Cowan, MD
Anesthesiologists in and around Atlanta respond to the opioid epidemic. Sitting across from me in our office at the WellStar East Cobb Surgery Center, patient Ryan Coker shares the story of his son Roger. Ryan and I first met in October 2018 when he came to our center for outpatient surgery. On that day, as he quietly requested a narcotic-free surgery, I sensed the untold ... Continue Reading
By Helen K. Kelley Altitude sickness, also called acute mountain sickness, is caused by climbing or walking to a higher and higher altitude too quickly, not giving the enough time to adapt to the lower air pressure and oxygen level in the higher elevation. To understand more about altitude sickness and how to prevent or treat it, we spoke with three Atlanta area physicians ... Continue Reading
Approach matters of cultural and gender diversity with “cultural humility” to give all your patients the best access to healthcare. By Elizabeth Walton, MD When it comes to providing demographic information about relationships, the choices facing a new patient have long been the same: Married, Single, Widowed, Divorced. I’m a lesbian with a long-term partner. We ... Continue Reading
By Sandra Adamson Fryhofer M.D., MACP, FRCP Member, MAA Board of Directors and MAA Opioid Task Force Each day, more than 90 Americans overdose and die from opioids.1 more than quadrupled from 1999 to 2015.2 And the amount of opioids prescribed tripled since 1999.3 These are deadly, disturbing statistics. Recent stats from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health ... Continue Reading
By Charles Wilmer, M.D. MAA President-elect, and Natalie Wilmer Handheld smartphones – i.e., smartphones that the driver is able to touch while a vehicle is in motion – pose the greatest and most unprecedented form of danger ever seen on the road. And smartphone ownership is growing. In 2011, 52 percent of drivers reported owning a smartphone, and by 2014 that number ... Continue Reading
By Sandra Adams Fryhofer M.D., MACP, FRCP On Feb 1, 2016, President Obama announced “Moonshot,” a new billion-dollar national initiative “to eliminate cancer as we know it.” In his announcement, the President predicted 1.6 million new cancer cases and 600,000 deaths in the United States in 2016. He discussed recent advances in cancer treatment, including using immunotherapy ... Continue Reading
By Brenda Fitzgerald, M.D., Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health There is a profound predictor of health and wellbeing that can be determined by three years of age. That predictor is language. Babies need food to sustain them and help them grow healthy and strong. Similarly, language is nutrition for the brain. The brains of very young ... Continue Reading
By Amanda Feldpausch, MPH; Julie Gabel, DVM, MPH; and Cherie L. Drenzek, DVM, MS The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus primarily transmitted to humans by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, but it can also be transmitted sexually, intrauterine (resulting in congenital infection), intrapartum, via blood transfusion and by laboratory exposure. Zika virus outbreaks ... Continue Reading
Children's asthma rates appear tied to ozone levels By LeRoy M Graham Jr., M.D. “Caution: Code Orange Smog Alert.” We see this too often during summer months in Atlanta, and it means that Atlanta's air quality is unhealthy for sensitive groups, including all children and particularly those with heart and lung disease. When ozone reaches these levels, limiting outdoor ... Continue Reading
Providing Pediatric Care for Newly Resettled Refugee Children and Adolescents in DeKalb County By Susan. S. Reines, M.D. and Tarissa Mitchell, M.D. For the past five years, The Southeast Permanente Medical Group’s (TSPMG) Cares Program and DeKalb County Board of Health (DCBOH) have collaborated to provide pediatric services to newly resettled refugee children in DeKalb ... Continue Reading
By Kenya H. Anders, M.D. From ATLANTA Medicine, Vol. 85, No. 5 The human body requires Vitamin D to function, yet how we obtain the essential vitamin – and what we as physicians can safely recommend to our patients – is constantly up for debate. DISCOVERY Just one hundred years ago, rickets debilitated more than 80 percent of children living in New York City, Boston ... Continue Reading
