If the Medical Intensive Care Unit has a scoreboard, I don't want to see it. Some days it feels like the home team always loses. Patients that look like they are about to recover take a nosedive. The real fighters eventually give up. The most hopeful clinicians must face the grim inevitable. But sometimes you just need one, good ...

I had a student ask me recently if I had a dermatoscope and if I could show her how to use it. The answer was simple enough. No, I don't need one. This of course led to the logical question...Why? This blog post was inspired by this exchange. The simplest answer to this question is that if I see something that looks abnormal, I biopsy it. ...

Her only enemy was time. There was too much of it. As my patient lay in her bed and slowly suffocated, each tick of the clock brought a desperate battle to stave off panic. Ms. M had dealt with her difficult lungs for years. Without explanation, the delicate tissues and air sacs had hardened and scarred; they stiffened and refused to ...

You don't have to break the law to fail a pre-employment drug test. In fact, you could lose your job just by using countless products hanging on the wall of your local gas station. That's because at my hospital, when an employee's urine drops into that little plastic device during a pre-employment drug screen, it is checked for ...

Above, a 75-year-old patient with stage 4 metastatic melanoma. He came to us after a staged excision and graft. The black dots are new satellite nodal mets. Above, metastatic satellite lesions on the scalp of the same patient. He had the original scalp lesion treated numerous times with LN2. The lesion continued to be treated with LN2 ...

I was going to write a blog about neuro-syphilis because I just recently treated a 29-year-old patient for this condition, however, on reflection it seems more apt to discuss the enormous financial costs associated with her care. That being said, neuro-syphilis is a tricky diagnosis; I advise clinicians to read up on it. Syphilis is commonly ...

Autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the colors of the leaves, cool brisk evenings, baking with pumpkins and Sunday soup making. Fall also just happens to be a favorite season of mine in the office, too. I call it ''catch-up time'' for a number of reasons. First and foremost, this is an excellent opportunity to discuss with patients the ...

I don't know how many of my fellow NPs and PAs have seen and or heard about HBO's four-part documentary on obesity in America, The Weight of the Nation, but I can't recommend it enough: it is an awesome and totally relevant examination of health in the States. So many of the individuals profiled in this series were reminiscent of ...

Neocutis is a Swiss skin care and pharmaceutical line that harnesses the power of PSP (processed skin cell proteins, a proprietary ingredient). These products are used to promote skin rejuvenation, to provide post-procedural skin care and to provide general care for sensitive or irritated skin.  Each product in this line was developed after ...

eMatrix is a new technology that is said to be ''color blind.'' Being capable of treating all skin types, this is certainly a welcome addition to the field of aesthetics. Coined ''sublative rejuvenation,'' eMatrix utilizes fractionated bipolar radio frequency. Its capability to be used on any skin type stems from its ability to produce significant ...