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
Treating the LGBT Patient Population
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
Opioids in America: A National Epidemic – And a Local Problem
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
Arrive Alive
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
HPV Vaccination: Cancer Protection in a Syringe
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
The Importance of Language Nutrition
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
Zika Virus: A Practical Primer for Physicians
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
Canary in the Coal Mine
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
Global Health in Our Own Backyard
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
To “D” or Not to “D”
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
A Video Backup Makes it Easier to Discuss End-of-Life Wishes With Loved Ones
By Dirk E. Huttenbach My mother, Berte Huttenbach, died on June 6, 1992, at home, in her own bed. She had a massive stroke. She was 82 years of age. I was her healthcare agent, appointed by her, many years before. She died in Springfield, Penn, outside Philadelphia. I live in Sandy Springs, Ga. My sister lives in Germany. My mother had been in failing health following a ... Continue Reading
Is a Cure for HIV in Sight?
By Vincent C. Marconi, M.D., and Mirko Paiardini, Ph.D. For the first time in almost three decades of AIDS research, the international scientific community has undertaken a large-scale, concerted effort to discover a cure for HIV. Several anecdotal reports and small clinical studies have provided some optimistic insights into the feasibility of HIV eradication. In 2009, ... Continue Reading
Rising up to the Challenges of Adolescent HIV-Infection in Atlanta
By Andres F. Camacho-Gonzalez, M.D., and Sophia A. Hussen, M.D. At a time when HIV rates are stabilizing in most population sub-groups, the prevalence of HIV in youth is steadily increasing in the United States. This trend is explained in part by increased survival of perinatally infected youth, but it is primarily attributable to increases in incident infections during ... Continue Reading
A New Shade of Obesity Research
by Hyacinth Empinado, for Georgia Health News Not all fat cells are created equal. White cells store globs of fat and make bellies jiggle. Brown cells burn fat and keep mice slim. In between is a type of fat called “beige,” which may be a key to fighting the bulge. This prospect is so trendy that a beige-fat expert was featured in November during the nation’s largest ... Continue Reading
Morehouse Hosts Fourth White House Conference on HIV/AIDS
Morehouse School of Medicine, in partnership with The White House Office of Public Engagement & Office of National AIDS Policy, recently hosted the fourth White House Conference on HIV/AIDS at Morehouse School of Medicine’s Louis W. Sullivan National Center for Primary Care. The White House Conference on HIV/AIDS offers advocates, community leaders and members of the ... Continue Reading
