Clinician's Roundtable

Host: Jim Keany, MD Guest: Retha Newbold, PhD Found in everything from baby bottles to contact lenses, to tooth sealants and soda can linings, bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical used to make plastics more resilient. It is also a recognized hormone disrupter, with recent studies raising concerns about a potential link to cancers, diabetes and obesity. What is our current understanding of the true risk...

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Gary Conkright Trying to reduce medication errors? Gary Conkright, chief executive officer of InformMed, a medication safety company, talks with host Bruce Japsen about how the healthcare industry is borrowing a risk assessment technique from the aviation industry as a way to improve patient safety.

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Gary Conkright Reducing medication errors is a global challenge but the good news is that there are increasingly new and innovative ways companies are looking to find solutions to error reduction. Gary Conkright, chief executive officer of medication safety company InformMed tells host Bruce Japsen about a tool designed by nurses as the latest in the coming wave of potent...

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Wesley Michael, MBA Physicians are inundated with market research, but how does this benefit patients and what does it seek to accomplish? Wesley Michael, executive vice president of research-excellence at market research firm TNS Healthcare, tells host Bruce Japsen how physician participation in market research can benefit their practice, patient care and the larger heal...

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: David Kweskin When direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs came on the scene a decade ago, such ads quickly proliferated the airwaves. But times have changed. David Kweskin, senior vice president and practice area leader of brand and communications at the market research firm TNS Healthcare, tells host Bruce Japsen of the Chicago Tribune how drug and medical...

Host: Shira Johnson, MD Guest: Benjamin Abella, MD There are over 400,000 cardiac arrests per year. Dr Benjamin Abella assistant professor in both the department of emergency medicine and the department of medicine from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discusses why 10-20% are surviving till discharge and beyond. A leading researcher in the area of resuscitation science, Dr. Abell...

Host: Shira Johnson, MD Guest: Benjamin Abella, MD Cardiac arrest management used to mean CPR and efforts that were often futile. Now more patients are surviving until discharge because of new techniques maximizing compressions and administering hypothermia. Join host Dr. Shira Johnson with Dr. Benjamin Abella, assistant professor in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsy...

Host: Leslie P. Lundt, MD Guest: Donald Robinson, MD Many commonly used medications are being implicated in increased risk of osteoporotic fractures, for example proton pump inhibitors. Psychotropics are getting scrutiny as well. Dr. Donald Robinson, professor of pharmacology and medicine at the University of Vermont and the author of more than 175 scientific papers on neuroscience topics, joins h...

Host: Leslie P. Lundt, MD Guest: David Sarwer, PhD Patients that undergo bariatric surgery may expect to lose up to 35 percent of their body weight in the first year. What if that doesn't happen? Host Dr. Leslie Lundt, talks about the problem of post-op suboptimal weight gain with Dr. David Sarwer, director of clinical services at the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pen...

Host: Leslie P. Lundt, MD Guest: David Sarwer, PhD We know that the weight loss outcome following bariatric surgery can be impressive - patients lose as much as 35% of their initial body weight in the first 18 months post-op. Does their psychosocial outcome also improve? Host Dr. Leslie Lundt welcomes Dr. David Sarwer, director of clinical services at the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at...

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Owen J. Dahl, MBA Do you know what it costs you to see a patient? How can you improve the profitability of your practice? Owen Dahl, author of Think Business! Medical Practice Quality, Efficiency, Profits , talks with host Dr. Larry Kaskel about the costs of running a medical practice, and provides real-world advice.

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Owen J. Dahl, MBA Many successful Fortune 500 companies have used 'Six Sigma' for years to systematically increase their revenue and operational efficiencies. Mr. Owen Dahl, president of Owen Dahl Consulting, discusses with host Dr. Larry Kaskel how those same proven principles can be applied to patient scheduling and other medical office operations. Mr. Dahl specific...

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Christopher Ruhm One would think that the health of the nation would suffer during an economic downturn. But strange as it may seem, bad times can be good for the health of entire societies. Forgetting about individual health, Christopher Ruhm, professor of economics, explains the results of his study that showed that during a recession, traffic accidents, obesity, al...

Host: Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP Guest: H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH Physicians need to be knowledgeable about both the potential benefits and possible harms of early screening and detection. What should we do when a healthy patient comes to our office requesting a full-body CT scan, genetic testing for cancer markers, or other screening measures that may not be suitable for their condition? How can we p...

Host: Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP Guest: H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH Preventive medicine in primary care has traditionally focused on health promotion and disease prevention. Due to advances in technology, a typical well visit may now include a series of tests to detect early disease. How is this shift toward preventive medicine affecting patient care, survival outcomes and health care costs? And how can...

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Robin Rudowitz, Ms. With the economy in a downturn, more Americans are turning to Medicaid and related government health insurance programs as they lose private coverage. This may lead to some serious repercussions for medical-care providers and their patients. Robin Rudowitz, principal policy analyst for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured tells the Chica...

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Bianca Dijulio, MHS Healthcare costs for family coverage continue to rise. But what are the trends this year faced by US workers? Bianca DiJulio, senior policy analyst for the Health Care Marketplace Project at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, tells the Chicago Tribune 's Bruce Japsen how cost shifts will impact consumers and patients as they deal with rising deduct...

Host: Mary Leuchars, MD Guest: Christine Ren, MD Surgical weight loss: what are the recent advances in this exploding field, and what can patients expect from today's evolving procedures? Joining host Dr. Mary Leuchars to speak on bariatric surgery's emergence and development in practice is Dr. Christine Ren, founder and director of the NYU Program for Surgical Weight Loss and assistant professor...

Host: Shira Johnson, MD Guest: Scott E. Rudkin, MD, MBA Do you understand the financial impact of the on-call crisis and how it affects the emergency department? Dr. Scott Rudkin, associate professor of emergency medicine in the department of emergency medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine explains his research findings about the on-call crisis as well as solutions ex...

Host: Shira Johnson, MD Guest: Scott E. Rudkin, MD, MBA Who will be there to take call in your emergency department? Dr Scott Rudkin associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, is interviewed by Dr. Shira Johnson to discuss the on-call crises which may be impacting your emergency department. Dr. Rudkin discusses the instrumental causes whic...

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Brian Rank, MD Executive physicals are marketed widely as the ultimate medical checkups for discerning consumers. Dr. Brian Rank, the medical director of HealthPartners Medical Group and Clinics of Minnesota, discusses with host Dr. Larry Kaskel the basis for his belief that the popularity of executive physicals isn't good for medicine or the patients who undergo them...

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Theodore Eisenberg, JD According to the results of a recent study, the use of statins for primary prevention in women is not supported by clinical-trial data. Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell University, discusses the scope of the meta-analyses of the primary prevention clinical statin trial, and the conclusion, which found no statistically significant e...

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Neal Goldstein, JD On October 30, 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the 2009 Physician Fee Schedule, which includes revisions to the Stark regulations that tighten the prohibition on physician referrals and the anti-markup rules for diagnostic testing. Attorney Neal Goldstein explains that the changes made by CMS are an attempt to...

Host: Leslie P. Lundt, MD Guest: Edward Shorter, PhD Recently-trained physicians may consider barbiturates and tricyclic antidepressants footnotes in history. But have they dismissed the most effective therapeutics in psychiatry? Dr. Edward Shorter, professor of psychiatry and the Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine and at the University of Toronto, joins host Dr. Leslie Lundt to talk about th...

Host: Leslie P. Lundt, MD Guest: David R. Spiegel, MD Patients who are not forthcoming about their alcohol history jeopardize our ability to provide the best possible clinical care. Many instruments such as the CAGE rely only on the patient's self-report. Luckily, we have several biomarkers to assist us. How and when to use which test? Dr. David Spiegel, associate professor of clinical psychiatry...