Jul 24, 2015

A while back, I was on call on a Saturday night when we got a notification of an incoming trauma, an intoxicated 40-year-old man who had fallen off a barstool and had a scalp laceration. He had a brie...

Jul 13, 2015

Patients who use multiple pharmacies concurrently and have overlapping opioid prescriptions appear to be at greater risk for opioid overdoses than others, according to a study. Patients who used four ...

Jul 13, 2015

Among patients with a small umbilical or epigastric hernia, mesh repair appears to halve the long-term risk of recurrence when compared with sutured repair. Researchers found recurrence rates of 10% a...

Jun 22, 2015

New research was presented at APS 2015, the American Pain Society’s annual scientific meeting, from May 13 to 16 in Palm Springs, CA. The features below highlight some of the studies that emerged fr...

May 25, 2015

Migraine is one of the most common disorders for which patients seek medical treatment in the ED. Studies show that migraine causes most of the 5 million headache visits to EDs in the United States ea...

May 25, 2015

Management of pain is a critical aspect of postoperative care in pediatric urology. Currently, clinicians who aim to control postoperative pain in children use a combination of both opioids and anti-i...

Apr 27, 2015

Methadone is used for the treatment of opioid addiction and for chronic pain, but safety of the drug has recently been called into question. “Methadone is increasingly being prescribed for pain even...

Apr 22, 2015

New research was presented at AAPM 2015, the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, from March 19 to 22 in National Harbor, MD. The features below highlight some of the studies that ...

Mar 23, 2015

Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a common treatment-related adverse effect that can significantly affect long-term quality of life and interfere with cancer treatments. The pain ca...

Feb 17, 2015

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a federal district court decision and said that Case Western Reserve University could withhold an MD degree from a student...

Feb 09, 2015

Recent reports have shown that the negative consequences of narcotic use are increasing, and diversion of these drugs for non-medical use is growing, with Americans consuming about 80% of the global o...

Jan 23, 2015

The American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons recently joined the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Choosing Wisely campaign with their own list of ...

Jan 12, 2015

The quest for improved outcomes in the treatment of opioid addiction is accelerating on several fronts. Buprenorphine is widely used for the treatment of opioid dependence. Studies have shown that it�...

Dec 29, 2014

According to recent estimates, diabetic neuropathy accounts for about $50 billion in both direct and indirect costs associated with diabetes in the United States. “Diabetic neuropathy is one of the ...

Oct 14, 2014

The Particulars: Previous research found that postoperative pain management did not appear to improve from 1995 to 2002. Since that time, there has been greater attention on pain management in the hos...

Oct 14, 2014

Weight-based dosing of opioids is a commonly used approach for managing patients who present to the ED with more severe pain. “Many patients who present to the ED with pain are obese or morbidly obe...

Oct 13, 2014

Growth in the nursing workforce between 2000 and 2008 to 2010 outpaced the growth of the United States population. ...

Oct 01, 2014

Healthcare is a hot topic in the media these days. Yet, few people are satisfied with the way it is working. Many claim that the American healthcare system is broken. Patients are increasingly frustra...

Sep 22, 2014

A surgeon emailed me the following:. OK, I know this is radical but consider my argument... Medical licensing protects no one and costs physicians hundreds to thousands of dollars each year. If...

Sep 16, 2014

As physicians, we have all been faced with patients inappropriately looking for prescriptions for controlled substances. Some are looking to abuse them and some to divert them for profit. It is often ...