Sometimes — but not all the time — patients can be advised to stop a course of antibiotics if they feel better. Traditionally, the advice has been to complete the entire course, regardless. Why? Because it was thought that stopping early might lead to more antibiotic resistance. That’s changing now, as the WHO and the […]

Dr. Jerome P. Kassirer served as editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine from 1991 to 1999. Almost 20 years later, Kassirer looks back on his life and his time as editor in a new autobiography, titled “Unanticipated Outcomes” — and in a conversation with us. Links: Kassirer editorial on managed care. Kassirer on the digital transformation […]

The senior author of a paper examining the role of systemic antibiotics after incision-and-drainage in treating small skin abscesses says the results should prompt a rewriting of current guidelines. Henry Chambers of UCSF found a 15-percentage-point advantage in short-term cure rates for antibiotics over placebo. The guidelines don’t encourage systemic antibiotics in these circumstances, but Chambers’ […]

Dr. David Ansell, a professor of medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, discusses his new book, “The Death Gap: How inequality kills.” What’s the death gap? Look at it this way: you’re getting on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line at “The Loop” in downtown, where the average life expectancy is 85 yrs. Go […]

All previous editions are available at podcasts.jwatch.org. I overheard this week’s guest, Zain Kassam, discussing his work at OpenBiome a few weeks ago. All those microbes in our intestines seem destined to play an important role in the future of medical care. Right now, fecal transplants are used against Clostridium difficile infection. Dr. Kassam kindly agreed to […]

All previous editions are available at podcasts.jwatch.org. Have you prepared a dinner party recently and not heard the word “gluten” come up? Using food-frequency questionnaires, researchers followed the dietary habits of two very large cohorts of clinicians for over 25 years. Their results, just published in The BMJ suggest that, unless you have celiac disease or […]

Danielle Ofri has written a new book, “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear,” that’s full of advice on how best to listen to your patients. She also recounts her own adventures (and misadventures) in patient communication. The book is published by Beacon Press, which offers a free first chapter available for immediate electronic reading. Details are […]

[Note: a transcript of this interview will be added in a few days’ time.] Our guest has strong indirect evidence that medical marijuana has been replacing “standard” drugs in states where it is legal. In doing so, the substitution is saving the Medicare system modest amounts of money. Their evidence, published in Health Affairs, comes from an […]

Download the TRANSCRIPTION_JWPodcast203 We talk with Dr. Margaret McCartney of Glasgow about her essay in The BMJ. She and her three co-authors titled it “Making Evidence-Based Medicine Work for Individual Patients.” Note: We’re going to start including transcripts, and may even add transcripts to earlier podcasts. Let me know your reactions at [email protected]. BMJ essay Transcript of Podcast 203 Guest: […]

Drs. Kristi Koenig and Carl Schultz have just published a second edition of their textbook Disaster Medicine: Comprehensive principles and practices. And they do mean comprehensive. The book runs some 750 pages, covering everything from ethics (not so different from “normal” ethics, it turns out) to managing mass gatherings (a nice guide is provided), tornadoes, volcanoes, […]