There is an old saying that a coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man dies but once. In today's world, however, the media is often responsible for bringing on a thousand fears of death by sensationalizing any slight possibility of risk. If you pay attention to all the fears broadcast in the news, you will find you cannot do anything ...

Perhaps many of you are already aware of a medication called DES and its effects on women in regards to breast cancer. So maybe I should be a little embarrassed about not knowing about this medication after working in the field for so long, but I am going to assume if I haven't heard about it before, maybe there are more of you out there like ...

As soon as I could walk and hold a racket, I played tennis. It's the ultimate in competition--a true battle of skill, endurance, hustle, acuity and last but certainly not least, mental toughness. An intense one-on-one fight, you leave it all out on the court, or you lose and go home. My favorite player, the ultimate fighter both on and off the ...

We all know that babies don't come with guarantees or with instruction manuals. But a woman has conceived Britain's first baby to be guaranteed not to get hereditary breast cancer.  The young woman decided to have her embryos screened because her husband had tested positive for the BRCA-1 gene. The husband's mother, grandmother, ...

I read a very sad statistic the other day.  The article that I was reading estimated that about 45 million Americans were without health insurance at some point last year. With the upcoming presidential election, healthcare coverage is already proving to be a hot topic. Regardless of what solution you may think will work, the hard ...

After you call your patient from the waiting room to the mammography suite and the door shuts behind you both, something that they never prepare you for throughout all those classes you've taken to get you to this point quite often occurs.  What I am referring to is the number of patients who use this time to really open ...

There have been many studies published recently regarding the benefits of breast ultrasound, even as a screening tool. Breast ultrasound is a common exam for patients experiencing some type of breast symptom throughout our healthcare system. But who is performing this test? Mammographers can now perform breast ultrasound after ...

Last week, Larry King hosted three prominent neurosurgeons on his show who stressed the importance of keeping cell phones as far from the brain as possible. Whether or not cellular phones are hazardous to one's health--linking increased usage with increased brain tumor incidence--has been an ongoing debate. Recently, the news of Sen. Kennedy's ...

Lymphedema is a painful and often debilitating side effect of breast cancer treatment. If not diagnosed and managed early in the development stage, lymphedema can increase a patient's risk of infection and other shoulder complications. Swelling can be very disfiguring and make it difficult for a patient to find clothing that fits ...

When I was growing up in the (gulp) ‘70s, it was hard to escape the phrase “You are what you eat.” It seemed as popular as the ever-caustic “Burnt You” or, a few years later, “Gag me with a spoon.” (Funny how food infiltrates every kernel of our lives, vernacular included.) As a kid, the phrase was sometimes taken literally, prompting an ...