Adiposity-Based Chronic Disease (ABCD) - A guide to medical management and updates in obesity medicine. The global prevalence of obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. Obesity, which severely impacts the lives of both children and adults, has now been labeled a pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO)1 estimates that at least 2.8 million people die each year due to ... Continue Reading
Big Moves in Obesity Management
As the coronavirus pandemic comes closer to the 2-year mark, the impact of many chronic conditions continues to become more evident in American society. It is clear that a history of heart disease, diabetes and obesity increases morbidity and mortality with COVID. The southeastern United States continues to lead the nation in rates of those three risk factors.1 It is common ... Continue Reading
Destination Vaccination: A Travel Vaccine Overview
Now that COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions are beginning to ease, our patients are boarding flights and boats in record numbers. Be sure to discuss upcoming travel plans with your patients and discuss the need for routine immunizations (including COVID-19) and any potential travel-related vaccinations at least one month prior to their departure. Advising ... Continue Reading
Vaccines in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients
By Varun K. Phadke, MD, and Stephanie M. Pouch, MD, MS, FAST
In the United States, more than 30,000 organ transplants are performed each year, and more than 100,000 individuals are actively waitlisted for transplantation. Owing to their underlying comorbidities and anti-rejection therapy, which is immunosuppressive, solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients are uniquely vulnerable to severe illness and complications due to a wide range of ... Continue Reading
Dr. Sandra Fryhofer Shares Her Thoughts on How Vaccine Development is Progressing
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
Pivoting Ambulatory Practices During COVID-19
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
COVID-19 Health Disparities: Leveraging a New Lens on Health Equity
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
Getting the Message Right: Community Outreach During COVID
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
Protecting Our Community: Health System Collaboration During COVID-19
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
Lessons Learned
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
Silent Killer: Epidemic of Low Health Literacy Makes COVID-19 Worse
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
When the Addict is Your Sister
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
Clearing the Air: E-Cigarettes, Vaping Raise Public Health Concerns
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
Living in the Vaping Epidemic
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
Opioid-Sparing Outpatient Surgery
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
