March 25th, 2016
Podcast 200: Sorting out the results of breast biopsy
Most of the time, pathologists agree with each other about breast biopsy results — especially when the biopsy is negative or indicates invasive cancer. However, the biopsies that fall between those two extremes — that is, atypia and ductal carcinoma in situ — make for tough conversations with patients. This week’s guest, Alexander Borowsky, has written […]
July 30th, 2014
Podcast 172: Listening for the Diagnosis, a Conversation with Danielle Ofri
Running time: 15 minutes Dr. Danielle Ofri, author and internist (as well as an aspiring cellist), is writing a book about how patients and clinicians hear each other. Our discussion centers on that, and on her request that you contact her if you can put her in touch with great diagnosticians (and maybe even their patients). If […]
January 20th, 2012
Podcast 142: Really, why are you ordering that test?
The American College of Physicians wants to encourage high-value, cost-conscious care. And so they convened a consensus panel of physicians to list tests that they considered overused or inappropriately used in certain circumstances. One example would be the use of MRI for breast screening in normal-risk patients; another is the use of imaging studies in […]
August 12th, 2011
Podcast 128: Bleeding patients, inadvertently, into anemia happens more often than you might think
An article in Archives of Internal Medicine examines what’s called “diagnostic blood loss” — the loss of blood through phlebotomy and not hemorrhage. The effect is the same, however. According to a study conducted in 57 medical centers among some 18,000 patients with myocardial infarction, one in five became moderately or severely anemic (hemoglobin level under […]
March 25th, 2011
Podcast 116: What do more sensitive troponin measurements mean for diagnosing ACS?
Troponin I levels can now be measured much more accurately and assays have a greater sensitivity. In Edinburgh, the diagnostic level for acute coronary syndrome was lowered from 0.20 ng/mL to 0.05. As a result, when patients presented with suspected ACS they were more likely to be diagnosed — and a year later were more […]
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