Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Diabetes, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 13.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Megan B. Cole, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor | Dept. of Health Law, Policy, & Management Co-Director | BU Medicaid Policy Lab Boston University School of Public Health Boston, MA 02118 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Under the Affordable Care Act, states were given the option to expand Medicaid eligibility to nonelderly adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, where in January 2014, 25 states plus Washington, DC expanded eligibility, with 13 additional states expanding thereafter. State Medicaid expansion decisions were particularly consequential for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), which serve nearly 30 million low-income, disproportionately uninsured patients across the US. We know from earlier work that in the shorter-term, Medicaid expansion was associated with improvements in quality of care process measures and FQHC service capacity. However, we conducted the first known nationally representative study to examine how Medicaid expansion impacted key chronic disease outcome measures at FQHCs over the longer-term by looking at changes five years after implementation, including changes by race/ethnicity.  (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Dermatology, Frailty, JAMA / 08.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Marieke van Winden MD MSc PhD candidate Dermatology Radboud Institute for Health Sciences Department of Dermatology Radboud University Medical Center Nijmegen, the Netherlands MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What underlying conditions would factor in a decision for Watchful Waiting?  Response: Basal cell carcinomas are frequently treated because of the risk for progression, which can cause a significant morbidity due to local tissue invasion and destruction. However, most BCCs are characterized by a relatively indolent nature, growing slowly and frequently asymptomatically. Because patients with a limited life expectancy might not live long enough to develop symptoms from basal cell carcinoma progression, they might not live long enough to benefit from treatment. Underlying conditions that determine life expectancy should therefore be considered when weighing BCC management options. When life expectancy is expected to be relatively short, and the consequences of  watchful waiting (WW) are relatively low risk (low tumor burden expected within the remaining lifespan), WW should be considered. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Surgical Research / 07.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andrew P. Loehrer, MD, MPH Assistant Professor Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology Dartmouth-Hitchcock MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Patient cost sharing represents the portion of costs covered by insurance that individuals pay out of pocket, including deductibles, co-payment, and co-insurance. Cost sharing is increasingly common and also increasingly expensive for patients with commercial health insurance across the United States. While designed to increase patient responsibility for health care spending, prior work has shown that higher cost sharing is also associated with decreased use of health care overall, both needed and discretionary. However, little work has been done as to how high cost sharing may affect common and costly conditions like acute appendicitis and acute diverticulitis.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, HPV, JAMA, Vaccine Studies / 07.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Yuehan (Jenny) Zhang, ScM PhD Candidate in Cancer Epidemiology Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infectious virus worldwide. Oral HPV infection has resulted in a continual increase in the incidence of oropharynx cancer over the past two decades in the US. New HPV infections are preventable with vaccines, which first entered use in the US in 2006. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Heart Disease, JAMA / 07.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Amanda Paluch, PhD Assistant Professor University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Kinesiology Institute for Applied Life Sciences Life Science Laboratories Amherst, MA 01003 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We wanted to understand the association of total steps per day with premature mortality among middle-aged, Black and White women and men.  This study included 2110 adults; age 38-50 years old at the start of this study.  These adults wore a step counting device for one week and then followed for death from any cause over the next 10 years. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cannabis, JAMA / 07.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Mark Anderson, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics Montana State University, IZA, and NBER  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In a previous study that was published in JAMA Pediatrics, we used Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data and found that the adoption of recreational marijuana laws (RMLs) was associated with an 8% decrease in the odds of marijuana use among high school students.  This earlier study, however, had pre-legalization and post-legalization data from only 7 states and pre- and post-recreational sales data from only 3 states, calling into question the generalizability of our findings. (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA, Vaccine Studies / 03.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jeffrey M. Wilson MD Assistant Professor of Medicine Allergy and Immunology University of Virginia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: To date there have been few head-to-head studies evaluating the immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines. Here we measured IgG antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 spike-RBD in adults who received full vaccination with either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. Our study is distinguished from many others because we developed a quantitative test with a read-out in standardized units (expressed as micrograms/mL). We found that antibody levels to the SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor-binding domain were lower in recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech than Moderna vaccine. The difference in the antibody levels between vaccines was most evident in relatively older subjects. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA / 01.09.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Chien-Wen Tseng M.D., M.P.H., M.S.E.E. Professor,  Associate Research Director Department of Family Medicine and Community Health University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine Hawaii Medical Service Association Endowed Chair MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main recommendations? Response: Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and raises a person’s risk for heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, and even blindness and limb amputation. The Task Force recommends screening for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes in adults who are 35 to 70 years old and have overweight or obesity, which is one of the leading risk factors for diabetes. By screening, we can detect prediabetes and type 2 diabetes early and prevent these conditions from getting worse and leading to serious health problems. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, JAMA, OBGYNE, Pediatrics, Weight Research / 28.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Emily Oken MD MPH Professor, Harvard Medical School Professor in the Department of Population Medicine Associate Director and Advisor, Oliver Wendell Holmes Society. Professor, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: In this study of over 11,000 mothers and children, we found that a mothers with higher weight in late pregnancy had children with poorer performance on tests of cognition and behavior in childhood and adolescence. The findings are consistent with results from studies in other populations around the world, as well as animal experiments.  This research suggests that maternal nutrition is important for child health over the long-term, and specifically provides support for mothers to try to achieve healthy weight and nutritional status during pregnancy. (more…)
Author Interviews, Biomarkers, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA / 28.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Laura Holberger, PhD Vice President, Strategic Partnerships Biolabs MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Dr. Laura Holberger is the lead author of a JNO article published today describing the results of a research study done on behalf of BioLabs, a global network of coworking laboratory spaces, and the Cambridge Consortium for Rapid COVID Tests (CCRCT). BioLabs co-sponsored the study which helped validate a high-frequency testing protocol using an antigen test for COVID-19 under development by E25Bio Inc., a biotechnology company that develops rapid tests for infectious diseases.  The study involved twice-weekly testing of members and affiliates working in person at coworking laboratories in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts from September 2020 through March 2021. (more…)
Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, JAMA, Prostate Cancer / 24.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kerry S. Courneya, PhD Professor and Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Cancer Director, Behavioral Medicine Laboratory and Fitness Center Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation | College of Health Sciences University of Alberta | Edmonton, Alberta | CANADA  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: An increasing number of men with low risk prostate cancer (PCa) do not receive any immediate medical treatments for their PCa. This practice is called active surveillance (AS). It can be very stressful for men because about one-third of them will eventually experience disease progression and require medical treatments. Right now, there is nothing these men can really do for themselves other than to attend all of their follow-up medical visits. Some research has shown that exercise may slow the progression of prostate tumours and metastasis in animal models and improve quality of life in men during and after PCa treatments. Very little research, however, has been conducted in the AS setting. We wanted to see if a high intensity interval training exercise program could improve fitness and prevent or delay biochemical progression of PCa in the AS setting. (more…)
Author Interviews, Diabetes, JAMA, USPSTF / 24.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Chien-Wen Tseng. M.D., M.P.H., M.S.E.E. Professor,  Associate Research Director Department of Family Medicine and Community Health University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine Hawaii Medical Service Association Endowed Chair MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Gestational diabetes is becoming more common and can cause serious health problems for pregnant people and their babies. Fortunately, the Task Force found that screening at or after 24 weeks of pregnancy is safe and effective and can keep pregnant people and their babies healthy. Currently, there is not enough evidence on screening earlier in pregnancy, so the Task Force is calling for more research. (more…)
Anesthesiology, Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA / 18.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ambar La Forgia, PhD Assistant Professor of Health Policy & Management Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the past few years, there has been mounting pressure to protect consumers from surprise medical bills, which occur when a patient unknowingly receives care from an out-of-network practitioner at an in-network facility. In 2018, only six states had passed comprehensive surprise billing legislation, and by 2020, 17 states had passed legislation. In addition to protecting patients from financial liability for surprise medical bills, states adopted different methods for determining payments made by a patient’s insurer to the out-of-network practitioner. For example, some states, such as California and Florida, developed a payment standard that tied provider payments to median in-network rates, Medicare rates, or the usual and customary provider charges. Other states, such as New York, developed an independent dispute resolution process, which uses a third-party arbiter to resolve payment disputes between insurers and practitioners. However, little is known about how state laws influence the prices paid to out-of-network practitioners and whether spillovers existed to in-network prices. In this study, my co-authors and I study the association between the passage of surprise billing legislation in California, Florida, and New York, and prices paid to anesthesiologists in hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery centers using commercial claims data from 2012-2017. We focused on anesthesiology because it is one of the specialties with the highest proportion of potential surprise bills since patients do not usually choose their anesthesiologist. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 16.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Joerg Albrecht, MD, PhD Dermatologist, Internist, Clinical Pharmacologist Division of Dermatology, Department of Medicine Attending Dermatologist, Chair Division of Dermatology Chair system-wide Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee Cook County Health Chicago, IL  60612 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The study was stimulated by data that suggested that an unusually large proportion of inpatient with Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) were African American. HS is an underdiagnosed disease and the total numbers of inpatients with HS in the year we looked at initially seemed small. So we wanted to test whether this finding held up when the period of observation was extended. Point estimates can be unreliable and we had followed another finding in the data that did not hold up when we looked at other years, so we felt one year was not enough to confirm a trend (more…)
Author Interviews, Duke, JAMA, Nursing, Sexual Health, STD / 12.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, PhD MPH, LCSW, RN, ANP-BC, PMHNP-BC, AAHIVS, FAAN Vincent Guilamo-Ramos is dean and professor at the Duke University School of Nursing, vice chancellor for nursing affairs, Duke University, and director of the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health (CLAFH) at Duke. Dr. Guilamo-Ramos served as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) Committee on Prevention and Control of STIs in the U.S. that wrote the recent consensus study report. He also serves as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) and the HHS Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents. MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) recently released a consensus study report on prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the United States. The report entitled “Sexually Transmitted Infections: Adopting a Sexual Health Paradigm” includes a strong emphasis on adolescents and young adults as an important priority population for the response to record-level STI rates that have reached an all-time high for the sixth year in a row in 2019. The report also highlights the well-supported and crucial role of parents in addressing STIs and promoting sexual health among adolescents and young adults. In this new Viewpoint article, my co-authors and I, who contributed to the National Academies report as committee members or consultants, discuss the practical implications for health care professionals of engaging parents in adolescent sexual health services. (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Exercise - Fitness, Heart Disease, JAMA / 05.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Fernando Ribeiro PhD School of Health Sciences Institute of Biomedicine - iBiMED University of Aveiro Aveiro, Portugal MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Resistant hypertension is a puzzling problem without a clear solution. The available treatment options to lower blood pressure, namely medication and renal denervation, have had limited success, making nonpharmacological strategies good candidates to optimize the treatment of this condition. Exercise training is consistently recommended as adjuvant therapy for patients with hypertension, yet, it is with a great delay that the efficacy of exercise training is being tested in patients with resistant hypertension. Having that in mind, the EnRicH trial was designed to address whether the benefits of an exercise intervention with proven results in hypertensive individuals are extended to patients with resistant hypertension, a clinical population with low responsiveness to drug therapy. Exercise training was safe and associated with a significant and clinically relevant reduction in 24-hour, daytime ambulatory, and office blood pressure compared with control (usual care). (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Smoking, Tobacco, Tobacco Research, UC Davis / 05.08.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Pierce, PhD Professor Emeritus Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Moores Cancer Center Director for Population Sciences Co-leader of the Cancer Prevention program UC San Diego MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Graphic Warning Labels are to be implemented in the US in July 2022, depending on litigation. This will be about 10 years after they were first proposed.  Meanwhile, 120 other countries have implemented them already. The FDA states that their purpose for the warnings is to provide a constant reminder to smokers about the health consequences of smoking, not to force them to quit. In our study, 3 months of having cigarettes repackaged into graphic warning packs was associated with smokers thinking more about quitting and not getting as much pleasure out of their cigarettes.  However, thinking about quitting is only the first step to conquering a nicotine addiction. (more…)
Author Interviews, Columbia, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Telemedicine / 29.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Steffie Woolhandler MD MPH, FACP Professor of Public health and Health Policy CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College Co-founder and board member Physicians for a National Health Program MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response:   We analzyed a national database of healthcare utilization. We found racial disparities exist in use of specialist MD services by Black- and Native-Americans relative to White-Americans, despite their greater needs.  Hispanic- and Asian-Americans also receive specialist care at low rates.   (more…)
Allergies, Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA, Vaccine Studies, Vanderbilt / 27.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kimberly G. Blumenthal, MD, MSc Massachusetts General Hospital The Mongan Institute Boston, MA 02114 Matthew S. Krantz, MD Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: During the initial COVID-19 vaccine campaign with healthcare workers in December 2020, there was an unexpected higher than anticipated rate of immediate allergic reactions after Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines.  This prompted both patient and provider concerns, particularly in those with underlying allergic histories, on the associated risks for immediate allergic reactions with the mRNA vaccines. Because of the significantly improved effectiveness of two doses of an mRNA vaccine compared to one dose, it was important to determine if those who experienced immediate allergic reaction symptoms after their first dose could go on to tolerate a second dose safely.    (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Mental Health Research / 23.07.2021

This story explores suicide and conditions leading to despair. If you are at risk, please stop here and contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for support. 800-273-8255 MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daniel George, MSc, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Humanities Associate Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences Penn State MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the common diseases of despair?  Response: Last decade, two Princeton economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, noted a precipitous rise in self-harming deaths (suicide, alcoholism, accidental poisonings, i.e., overdose) especially among poor whites in midlife with low educational attainment since the 1990s. These deaths were intimately linked with economic changes over the past several decades that have created more despairing conditions for the working class, made people more susceptible to seeking escape, numbness, and relief from physical, mental, and emotional pain. In recent years, the crisis has broadened, and we've seen rising excess mortality in other groups of working-class Americans as overall life expectancy has consistently fallen. Our team at Penn State College of Medicine and Highmark Inc. has previously examined “diseases of despair”, these being patients who are experiencing suicidal ideation or substance use issues and seeking out clinical care before they convert to "deaths of despair". We published a study in BMJ in 2020 showing a marked rise in these clinical diseases of despair across a sample of 12 million insurance carriers in Appalachia and the Rust Belt, again spanning across demographic boundaries. For this study, we honed in on high prevalence census blocks we had identified in our hospital's service area in central Pennsylvania and organized 4 focus groups in both rural and urban areas. We wanted to learn more about what people felt was driving despair in their communities, and what solutions might look like  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA, Prostate Cancer, Race/Ethnic Diversity / 23.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andres F. Correa, MD Assistant Professor Department of Surgical Oncology, and Adrien Bernstein, MD Second Year Urologic Oncology Fellow Fox Chase Cancer Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Unfortunately, it has been well-established that historically Black Americans experience increased cancer specific mortality compared to white patients. In prostate cancer specifically studies have shown that when access to care is equitable this gap resolves. This suggests that biological factors are not driving these differences but rather the result of the complex interplay of social determinants and systemic inequities in our healthcare system. Early in the pandemic, multiple studies demonstrated that minority communities disproportionately shouldered poor COVID-19 outcomes.  On March 13th 2020, the American College of Surgeons recommended against elective procedures; however, the definition of an elective oncologic case was left to the discretion of the provider. As prostate cancer treatment can be safely deferred up to a year follow diagnosis, management of prostate cancer during the initial lockdown period of the COVID-19 Pandemic provided a useful analysis of the differential restrictions placed on non-emergent health care during the Pandemic. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA / 20.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Arman Shahriar Medical Student University of Minnesota Medical School Research Consultant HealthPartners Institute MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? & What should readers take away from your report? Response: Financing medical school is an opaque and important topic because the cost of attendance of medical school has risen much faster than inflation for decades. Over the same time period, the racial wealth gap has widened. We found significant differences in how students of different socioeconomic and racial/ethnic backgrounds are planning to pay for medical school at the time of matriculation. Family or personal financing is far more common for high-income students. Among Black students, family or personal financing was markedly lower than other racial/ethnic groups, which could be a reflection of the wealth gap - which is rooted in structural racism.  This may create educational disparities as the field becomes increasingly racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse; there are many costs outside of tuition and living that may be considered "variable" or "non-essential" but necessary for high-quality education, including expensive board prep materials and transportation during clinical rotations. Furthermore, the stark deficit in family financing may be one reason why Black students currently report the highest debt burden of all racial/ethnic groups.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, Gender Differences, JAMA / 17.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anjali Sergeant McMaster Medicine Class of 2022 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This collaborative study from the University of Toronto and McMaster University found that inpatients in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) cared for by female physicians had lower mortality rates compared to those cared for by male physicians. Specifically, a 0.47% difference in patient deaths was reported, which is significant in the context of thousands of deaths in Ontario hospitals each year. This supports similar findings from an American study (Tsugawa et. al) published in 2017. Our study also examined gender-based differences in medical practice, including lab and imaging tests ordered, and medications prescribed. Female doctors ordered significantly more imaging tests for their patients but this factor did not explain their lower patient death rates. The mortality difference shrank when accounting for the number of years that doctors were in practice. This suggests that patients of female doctors may have better outcomes partially because more women make up newer medical grads in Canada, who may be more up-to-date on clinical guidelines. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA, Kidney Disease, Race/Ethnic Diversity, UCSF / 17.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chi-yuan Hsu, MD, MSc (he/him/his) Professor and Division Chief Division of Nephrology University of California, San Francisco San Francisco, CA 94143-0532 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There has been a great deal of controversy recently about how race should be considered in medicine, including its use in estimating kidney function (e.g. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2769035).  A recent paper published in JAMA Network Open by Zelnick et al suggested that removing the race coefficient improves the accuracy of estimating kidney function (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2775076) in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort, a NIH-funded study (www.cristudy.org). We are core investigators of the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort Study and were not involved in the Zelnick’s study that was based on a public use dataset.  Because we were surprised by the methodological approach they took and the conclusion they came to, we implemented our own analysis of the data. (more…)
Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA / 15.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael Ohl, MD, MSPH Associate Professor of Internal Medicine-Infectious Diseases Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine University of Iowa MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The background is that remdesivir was approved for treatment in 2020 largely based on the results of the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial 1 (ACTT-1), which found that remdesivir treatment was associated with more rapid recovery from illness among people hospitalized with COVID-19. The intention was that - even if remdesivir did not lead to substantial improvements in survival-  it could help people to recover more quickly and be discharged from hospital sooner, potentially opening scare hospital pends to treat more patients during the pandemic.   (more…)
Author Interviews, Gender Differences, JAMA, University of Pennsylvania / 12.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Nosheen Reza, MD, FACC, FHFSA Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine Penn Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease Section of Advanced Heart Failure, Transplantation, and Mechanical Support Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania & the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: In academic internal medicine in the United States, gender disparities in salary and promotion have been researched and documented for over 20 years. Despite this, in recent years, the number of women pursuing careers in medicine has increased, and now, more women than men are enrolled in U.S. medical schools. We wanted to take a contemporary look at the composition of the U.S. academic internal medicine physician workforce and evaluate the relationships between the representation of women in each internal medicine specialty with their salaries and academic rank. We hypothesized that even though there may be more women physicians practicing in these specialties compared with prior years, the disparities in academic rank and salary, as compared with men, would still exist. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Electronic Records, JAMA, Pediatrics, Primary Care / 09.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lisa Rotenstein, MD, MBA Assistant Medical Director Population Health and Faculty Wellbeing Department of Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Our previous work in JAMA Internal Medicine demonstrated significant differences in time spent on the electronic health record (EHR) by specialty, and specifically showed that primary care clinicians spent significantly more total and after-hours time on the EHR than surgical and medical specialty counterparts. Primary care clinicians spent twice as long as surgical colleagues on notes, and received more than twice as many messages from team-mates, five times as many patient messages, and fifteen times as many prescription messages each day. Given these findings, the heavy administrative burden placed on primary care clinicians, and previous data about burnout among primary care clinicians, we wanted to better understand differences in time spent on the EHR among the different types of primary care clinicians. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, COVID -19 Coronavirus, Heart Disease, JAMA, UCSD / 01.07.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Margaret Ryan MD MPH Medical Director of Defense Health Agency Immunization Healthcare Division Pacific Region Office, San Diego CA Clinical Professor at the University of California San Diego MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Military clinicians, especially those in the Defense Health Agency Immunization Healthcare Division, first became aware of a few cases of myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination in early Feb 2021.  These cases included young men who presented with chest pain a few days after 2nd dose of mRNA (Pfizer or Moderna) vaccine.  As more young people became eligible for 2nd doses of vaccine, more cases were identified.  By late April, the military had identified 23 cases of myocarditis, with remarkably similar presentations, after COVID-19 vaccination.  This case series is described in the current issue of JAMA Cardiology. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA / 18.06.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ali Seifi, MD, FACP, FNCS, FCCM Associate Professor Director of Neuro Critical Care, Fellowship Director, CAST Neurosurgery Critical Care Department of Neurosurgery, Neurology, Anesthesiology and Medicine The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Stop HiccupsResponse: People get hiccups for several various reasons, most of the time is unknown etiology however the most known cause is when something is triggering the phrenic nerve which is a nerve that goes to the diaphragm and controls our breathing; as example any spicy food, alcoholic beverages, carbonated soda as well as eating fast can trigger this nerve. So far, there has been no tool for treatment of hiccups instantly and this could be since the  exact etiology of hiccups is still unknown and is multifactorial. Our aim was to make a feasible and easy for the public to use, a simple tool that anybody can use at home to get rid of hiccups . We patented and made the FISST, which  is a tool that can stop hiccups instantly by distracting the nerves and muscles which are involved in causing hiccups. Hiccups is a vicious cycle between  Phrenic nerve which contracts Diaphragm and Vagus nerve which contracts the Glottis and Epiglottis. Using FISST, requires intense activity of these two nerves and muscles for a few seconds, and thus it distracts the two nerve and muscles from the vicious cycle of triggers. We think because the FISST use the science behind all other remedies, but in union and under a pre-calculated required pressure and enough  intensity, that can stops hiccups. All other home remedies work only on one of the mentioned 2 nerves or they cannot “Naturally “ generate the required enough intensity to stop the vicious cycle between the 2 nerves.  (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA, Pediatrics / 11.06.2021

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Angela P. Campbell, MD, MPH Medical Officer Epidemiology and Prevention Branch in the Influenza Division MIS-C Incidence Authorship Group CDC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
  • Response: Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a serious condition associated with COVID-19 where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, and gastrointestinal organs. Children with MIS-C may have a fever and various symptoms, including abdominal (gut) pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, or feeling extra tired. Not all children with MIS-C have the same symptoms.
  • It is still not known exactly how MIS-C may be linked to prior COVID-19 infection. However, 99% of cases in the CDC national surveillance system tested positive for COVID-19. The remaining 1% were around someone with COVID-19.
  • MIS-C incidence might vary by certain patient characteristics, such as such as race, ethnicity, age, sex and geographic location.
  • In this study we estimated the rate of MIS-C cases overall in the general population as well as the rate of MIS-C cases among those with COVID-19.
(more…)