Primary Care Today

The Baby Boomer generation is fast-approaching a critical period in health care decision-making, the choices of which may dictate continued health or rapid decline. What are the care priorities that clinicians should keep in mind with this special population?

Joining Dr. Brian McDonough is Marcia Feldt, author of The Oys & Joys, a novel that crystalizes many of the challenges facing Baby Boomers through the eyes of four women. Ms. Feldt describes the personal journeys of her characters, drawn from several years of advocacy for patients in this generation, and she shares tips that clinicians can consider to help these patients address priority health needs.

Guidelines in testing intervals and recommended methods for cervical cancer screening have been changing rapidly. What's the bottom line on helping primary care clinicians best protect their patients from this disease development? Joining Dr. Brian McDonough on the floors of Omnia Education's Women's Health Annual Visit in New York to discuss updated strategies drive down cervical cancer risk is Dr. Edward Mayeaux, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Dr. Brian McDonough welcomes John Roman, CEO of Defend Your Head, a sports safety company based in Chester County, PA. Mr. Roman is a former offensive lineman in the NFL with the New York Jets (1976-1983) before launching a 30-year successful career on Wall Street. He joins Primary Care Today to discuss technological advances in helmet design and construction for football players of all ages. His company has recently developed ProTech, a football helmet product using a soft outer-shell technology designed to improve energy and force dissipation and reduction.

Kidney stones are on the rise, particularly among adolescents, females, and African-Americans in the U.S. This marks a striking change from the historic pattern in which middle-aged white men were at highest risk for the painful condition. While the overall increase in kidney stones in children and adolescents has been known, a recent study published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology provided greater clarity on the specific groups of patients at greatest risk by analyzing age, race and sex characteristics among children and adults in South Carolina over a 16-year period, from 1997 to 2012.

Lead author Dr. Gregory Tasian, Assistant Professor of Urology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and an attending pediatric urologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, joins Dr. Brian McDonough to discuss this startling trend, the factors that may be driving it, and appropriate preventive and treatment strategies for kidney stones.

Sedentary behaviors are rapidly on the rise as technological advances streamline public capabilities to work and conduct regular tasks at the click of a button. Yet while some health impacts of increased sedentary lifestyles are now generally understood and accepted, the question of whether sporadic or even regular exercise habits can compensate for sedentary time is not well known. But an advancing arm of research is addressing this knowledge gap, and the initial findings are startling.

Joining Primary Care Today to share new insights is Dr. Wendy King, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburg Graduate School of Public Health. Dr. King and colleagues authored a report published in Preventive Medicine focusing on sedentary behaviors and how they affect health outcomes in the presence and absence of exercise.

Respiratory complications of GERD are surprisingly common, particularly in patients experiencing silent, asymptomatic reflux for long periods of time. Yet the frequently subclinical nature of this disease progression is especially difficult to detect. How can clinicians better identify this rising issue, and are current treatment paradigms in primary care enough?

Joining Dr. Brian McDonough is Dr. Jamie Koufman, Professor of Otolaryngology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Voice Institute of New York. Dr. Koufman discusses the top considerations for helping prevent and treat reflux disease to help curb respiratory and other complications.

Primary care practices are environments with deeply emotional caregiving relationships, but communicative barriers between clinicians and patients make some important conversations difficult to approach on both ends. The patient advocate is an emerging role to help bridge these communicative divides in general practice. How can these care navigators facilitate better health outcomes, and what do clinicians need to know to support this cause?

Dr. Brian McDonough welcomes Pamela Wilson, leading expert in the caregiving industry and author of The Caregiving Trap: Solutions for Life’s Unexpected Changes, to discuss the benefits of patient advocacy in primary care.

On the subject of smoking, health risks differ from one form of smoking product to another. Yet these differences aren't always well understood by health professionals. Is there such a thing as a "safe" tobacco alternative, or is smoking cessation the only viable choice for risk reduction?Joining Dr. Brian McDonough to discuss the literature on tobacco harm reduction, as well as review the broadening spectrum of smoking formulations, from cigarettes to smokeless tobacco products to e-cigarette devices, is Dr. Brad Rodu, Endowed Chair in Tobacco Harm Reduction Research from the University of Louisville School of Medicine.

Dr. Brian McDonough welcomes Dr. Tina Thethi, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the section of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Tulane University Health Sciences Center. The two discuss pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatment options for obesity, with an eye on longer term management strategies to curtail the development of diabetes after lifestyle modifications fall short of target goals.

Dr. Brian McDonough welcomes Dr Ken Yeager, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Ohio State University School of Medicine. Dr. Yeager examines how physicians can help their patients handle the stress of a "24-hour news world" with depictions and images of disasters coming into their homes every day.