More articles from From the Editor
- The angiotensin story continues: ARBs in heart failure
Considering the gravity of the problem of heart failure, it makes sense to have as many alternative pathways to success as we can find.
- Hot flashes: Statistics and common sense
In evidence-based medicine, after weighing the data, we still have to apply common sense—and include the patient in the decision-making process.
- Polymyalgia rheumatica: Not well understood, but important to consider
Its cause and pathogenesis remain unknown, but it may be accompanied by giant cell arteritis, which must be recognized and treated as a medical emergency.
- Fantastic voyage: The peeping pill
In the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage, Raquel Welch and her colleagues were shrunk and injected in a miniature submarine into the circulatory system of a comatose scientist. Now we have a disposable miniaturized television camera that can be swallowed.
- Birds, viruses, and history: The current ‘genuine adventure’
When I went to medical school, we were taught that viruses couldn’t jump from animals to humans. It looks like you can forget that rule.
- Fish oil is no snake oil
That cod-liver oil I took as a child, though foul tasting, may have been good for my heart.
- In urologic surgery, the legendary becomes routine
To the internist, knowing how laparoscopic surgery is done is less important than knowing that it can be done, and when it is appropriate.
- Insurance, risk, and genomics
Genomics is an area where knowledge of what we can do has preceded a clear understanding of what we should do.
- Up pops the devil
The COMET trial is important for the treatment of heart failure, but the devil is in the details.
- Richard G. Farmer, MD: To Russia, with CME
Dr. Farmer, former chairman of The Cleveland Clinic’s Division of Medicine, has always been ahead of his time. Now he is working to improve the health of people in the former Soviet Union.