Recent Posts

August 14th, 2018

Podcast 223: What are the implications of the BP guidelines?

If adopted, last December’s ACC/AHA guidelines on what pressure levels signal hypertension would label almost two thirds of the U.S. population between ages 45 and 75 as having the condition. The number of people who would be candidates for treatment would almost double — from 8 million to about 15 million.

What are the implications of this for clinicians?

Harlan Krumholz, senior author of an analysis in The BMJ, talks about the problems and the opportunities for collaboration with patients.

BMJ article (free)

July 19th, 2018

Podcast 222: Growing prominence of NPs in primary care

This time we talk with Dr. Hilary Barnes, first author of a Health Affairs paper: “Rural and Nonrural Primary Care Physician Practices Increasingly Rely on Nurse Practitioners.”

I thought listeners might want to know more about the dramatic change in the way primary care is acquiring, in Barnes’s words, an “increasing interdisciplinary character.”

Health Affairs abstract

April 10th, 2018

Podcast 221: Pertussis makes a comeback — kids have an outsize role

What’s causing this resurgence, and what’s to be done? Pejman Rohani talks about his Science Translational Medicine study that used “gold standard” historical data to examine possible causes.

He and his colleagues conclude that, as with mumps, slowly waning vaccine protection is at play. However, they identify the “core transmission group” as schoolchildren, who have a greater frequency of contacts. Adults, they find, have “at most a minor role.”

LINKS:

April 4th, 2018

Podcast 220: Mumps outbreaks — blame waning protection, not new viruses or bad vaccines

Mumps outbreaks keep happening, even among vaccinated groups. Why?

Our guest, Joseph Lewnard, and his coauthor, Yonstan Grad, probed studies of mumps vaccine efficacy carried out over five decades. They show that the fault, dear clinician, is not in our vaccines or new viral strains, but in ourselves. Our bodies slowly lose their immune response after vaccination, and about 25 years after the last vaccine dose, it’s gone.

Listen in.

Links:

Science Translational Medicine study

CDC recommends a third dose of MMR vaccine in an outbreak

March 28th, 2018

Podcast 219: Digital rectal exams shouldn’t be routine in primary care

There simply isn’t enough evidence to sustain its continued use in asymptomatic men, argues our guest. Dr. Jason Profetto, senior author on an Annals of Family Medicine meta-analysis.

 

Links:

Annals of Family Medicine abstract

Physician’s First Watch coverage

March 14th, 2018

Podcast 218: Better integration of midwifery associated with better birth outcomes

An analysis of the states’ integration of midwifery into their healthcare systems concludes that better integration led to better outcomes for mothers and babies.

We discuss this with Dr. Saraswathi Vedam, the study’s first author.

Links:

University of British Columbia’s Birth Place Lab

PLoS One article

First Watch coverage of the Lancet series on midwifery

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