As we start a new decade, let us see what “2020 vision” may have in store for us, according to a landmark issue in the Journal of the American Medical Association: “As a result of rigorous scientific investigation, several therapeutic and preventive modalities currently deemed element

Hopefully you have already seen the movie “Invictus”. I cannot do justice to the many messages it had for all of us. Suffice it to say that the poem “invictus” sustained me in my youth. As I got older, I came to see it as a bit arrogant but a necessary part of development; after being

Dermatologists feel reform is a rash decisionGastroenterologists are getting heartburn over itInternists feel it is a bitter pill to swallowGynecologists feel it is a bloody issueObstetricians expect changes to be deliveredPlastic surgeons want a new face on itSurgeons wash their hand

You may have seen the recent study saying that the “increased food energy supply is more than sufficient to explain the US epidemic of obesity” (Am J Clin Nutr 2009 90: 145). If it is frustrating to me, not being overweight, I can imagine how frustrating it must be to all those poor p

Several patients, hoping to have found the magic bullet that will cure their chronic fatigue, have brought to my office an article they feel shows that a retrovirus causes fatigue.[1] First of all, the article merely “links” the virus to fatigue; it does not prove a cause and effect r

November books Unaccustomed EarthBy Jhumpa Lahiri She is a great story teller; very touching short stories of family and love relationships. The first one got to me the most, as I become “the old man” to my 2 grown daughters. Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize with her superb writing (“The

Not surprisingly, the recent statement by the US Preventive Services Task Force that women may not benefit form mammograms until age 50, and then recommending that they be done every other year, has been politicized. This is unfortunate; women are left confused and fearful. I agree wi

Modern technology has made our lives much easier in many respects. All fields of human endeavor have dramatically benefited from modern scientific miracles. Medicine is no different. Looking back on history one may be tempted to assume that former lifestyles and technologies where “ba