20 Questions - Sleep Medicine

by Sarah M. Lawrence
SDN Staff Writer

Michael Rack, MD grew up in Southern California. He graduated from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 1997. He completed combined residencies in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at West Virginia University-Morgantown in 2002. He completed a Sleep Disorders Medicine fellowship at the University of Mississippi in 2003. He stayed on at the University of Mississippi as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine until 2005, when he left to start Somnus Sleep Clinic in Flowood, MS. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (Psychiatry), and the American Board of Sleep Medicine. He is a member of the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.  Read more »

Forum Remix: Trauma Care in the Prehospital Setting

by Alison Hayward, M.D.
SDN Staff Writer

Mark J. Seamon , M.D. is the director of trauma research at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. He has a keen interest in pre-hospital care and how pre-hospital interventions affect trauma patients, and recently published an article in the Journal of Trauma titled “Prehospital Procedures Before Emergency Department Thoracotomy: ‘Scoop and Run’ Saves Lives” which was hotly debated in SDN’s Pre-Hospital Forum. Read more »

Sell, Sell, Sell! Investing for Healthcare Providers

by Ivan Edwards, D.O.
SDN Contributor

“Never buy a plane or horses just out of residency!” said my soft-spoken attending, staring at me intently. “I did, and I learned my lesson well.”

Indeed, he did. He was newly married, had no money in his account . . . and salivated when his first sizzling $13,000 monthly paycheck was deposited. A year later, he had a $1 million home with land and horses, a Jag, and a Cessna. He was living life in the fast lane! Needless to say, the cost of managing his horses ate into his finances, the Cessna broke, and he and his family were left financially devastated. They had minimal savings, high consumer debt, and no money invested in anything.

Sadly, these experiences are common. Read more »

Evaluating Medical Resources: Ten Things to Know

Reprinted with Permission

The number of Web sites offering health-related resources grows every day. Many sites provide valuable information, while others may have information that is unreliable or misleading. This short guide contains important questions you should consider as you look for health information online. Answering these questions when you visit a new site will help you evaluate the information you find.

1. Who runs this site?

Any good health-related Web site should make it easy for you to learn who is responsible for the site and its information. On the NCCAM Web site, for example, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is clearly marked on every major page of the site, along with a link to the NCCAM homepage. Read more »

Forum Flashback: “Should I become an EMT?”

by Michael Barnum, M.D. and Michael O’Brien, M.A., NREMT-P
SDN Staff Writers

Often in the Pre-Hospital and Pre-Allopathic forums, we encounter questions that interest many users. Many such inquiries come from users wanting to know if getting involved in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) — as either an Emergency Medical Technician or Paramedic — will help their applications for medical school.

Yes, it will.

But…

Read more »

Beg, Borrow, or Steal: A Search for Affordable Prescription Drugs

by Emily Forest
SDN Staff Writer

Seroquel, with its connotations of well-being and peace, sounds like the name of a bird or a midlevel car. It doesn’t sound like something that causes weight gain or blurred vision while treating psychosis, nor does it sound like something associated with financial strife. The pills, tiny, white and innocuous, don’t LOOK expensive. But at nearly $600 for a month’s supply, the cost easily exceeds rent for many people.

When I started the drug, I dutifully paid the $30 co-pay and let my insurance company handle the bulk of the cost. What I didn’t realize was that each month, behind this co-pay, the insurance company received a bill for $595.00, whittled down to a “negotiated rate” of $498. While I took for granted that my insurance company shouldered the burden of my monthly costs, both for Seroquel and several other psychotropic drugs, I didn’t realize that the benefit had an annual cap of $2,500. Read more »

Student Loan Crunch: Time for Action!

by Megan Hansell Henderson
SDN Contributor

On September 7, 2007, the House and Senate approved the Conference Report (100-317) for H.R. 2669, also known as the “College Cost Reduction and Access Act”. This Act was signed into law by the President of the United States on September 27, 2007 with an effective date of October 1, 2007.

Why should you care? The Act, while providing additional benefits to undergraduate students, eliminated the economic hardship deferment qualification known as “20/220”, used by many health profession students to delay loan repayment while in residency or fellowship. Read more »

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