Healthcare and Medical News for Atlanta Physicians

Trust and Access in the Medical Community

By Kingsley Njoku, MD, Francisco A. Figueroa, Matthew Liu, Melodie Narain-Blackwel, Latonia Ward, Robert M. Adelman, PhD, Julia Liu, MD

A number of factors contribute to the lack of Black patients’ participation in clinical trials, including the mistrust of healthcare systems, lack of access to medical care, low health literacy and lack of awareness about research opportunities. The enrollment in clinical trials among disadvantaged minority groups in the United States has remained low despite the National ... Continue Reading

Seeking Solutions to Workforce Shortages

By Nancy Wood

The healthcare workforce shortage continues to present critical issues for hospitals and physician practices alike. According to one analysis, approximately 100,000 registered nurses left the field in 2021, and another study estimates that four years from now, 21% of physicians will be eligible to retire. Furthermore, the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts a ... Continue Reading

Clarifying the Conversation

By Jayne Morgan, MD

Is it time for Chief Medical Communication Officers? It certainly seems so. For the past 2 ½ years, I have served as the Executive Director of the COVID Task Force for the Piedmont Healthcare System in the state of Georgia. With more than 30,000 employees and 22 medical campuses across the state, Piedmont is the largest single healthcare provider in ... Continue Reading

The Future of Emergency Medicine

By David Wright, MD, Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine with contributions from Drs. Megan Davis, Kate Heilpern, Arthur Kellermann, Ricardo Martinez, Angela Mills and Monique Smith

The Emergency Department (ED) is where people turn in their time of need. It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The department is the people’s safety net— and it’s a big net. The Emergency Department handles crises ranging from physical, emotional and social problems and helps people no matter their background, status or condition. Emergency Medicine ... Continue Reading

Weathering the Blows

By Michael Zdradzinski, MD, FACEP; Michelle D. Lall, MD, MHS, FACEP; Sheryl Heron, MD, MPH, FACEP; and James O’Shea, MBBS, FACEP

Emergency healthcare worker well-being in Atlanta. The last several years have been a challenging time to be an emergency healthcare worker (EHCW) which includes emergency physicians, associate providers, nurses and staff. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, EHCW burnout rates were already higher than those in other specialties or care environments, with rates ranging from 2% in ... Continue Reading

Meeting Patients’ Needs

By Dr. Shamie Das, Alexis Lynch, Meredith Stauch and Jocelyn Montgomery

Creating the emergency department workforce of the future. Advanced practice providers (APPs), including nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs), have been members of healthcare teams across various specialties for decades. Since the program's beginnings in the 1960s, the role of APPs in clinical practice have continued to evolve, serving the needs of patients ... Continue Reading

Atlanta Telemedicine in the COVID-19 Era

Deborah Millians of Athens was feeling the pinch of social distancing. With her 11-year-old son Charles in need of a follow-up urology appointment regarding complications from an overactive bladder, an in-office visit proved daunting. It would call for an hour-plus trek to Atlanta and pulling her child away from school work, among other logistical challenges. Using the ... Continue Reading

Mindfulness and the Physician

By Jennifer Whaley, M.D.

“Mindfulness” seems to be everywhere in the news today. Books, videos, classes and websites are springing up to help us be more “mindful.” Everyone is talking about it, including your patients. But what is it? And how might it help you in your life and clinical practice? Most of the research into mindfulness has been a direct consequence of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s ... Continue Reading

Burning Out in Georgia

By Faria Khan, M.D. A thirty-eight year old physician friend of mine recently told me, “I’m just going to stick it out another 15 years, but I hate this. I’m trying to find something good to invest in so I can retire early.” She’s not the only one who has told me something along these lines. After all our years of training, are we not enjoying what we do? Is this ... Continue Reading

Prescribing Opioids: A Question of Balance

By P. Tennent Slack, M.D. On considering the implications of a recent MedScape article, “The Opioid Crisis: Anatomy of a Doctor-Driven Epidemic,” it would seem that the attention that is focused on the issue of the prescription opioid overdose problem has finally reached critical mass. As physicians and prescribers, we find ourselves at the epicenter of a controversy ... Continue Reading

Trauma Resuscitation: Principles and Practice

By Mark Walker, M.D. Trauma is a unique illness that presents several challenges in the early period after injury. Time is of the essence as vital functions must be restored quickly to minimize ongoing damage from shock, severe brain injury or multiple fractures across several anatomic compartments. To complicate matters, trauma physicians are often working with an ... Continue Reading

When Does My Patient Need a Medical Geneticist?

By Rossana Sánchez, M.D. Medical Genetics is a vast and rapidly advancing field. With an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 genes in the human genome, mutations in these genes give rise to many disorders. The scope of practice of a geneticist is necessarily broad, encompassing inpatient and outpatient consultations for inherited conditions and congenital malformations, for genetic ... Continue Reading

Glucose Management in the Hospital

By Bruce W. Bode, M.D., FACE From ATLANTA Medicine, Vol. 85, No. 4 Elevated glucose in the hospital is very common, occurring in more than 38 percent of patients. The presence of hyperglycemia has been shown to increase morbidity and mortality as well as total cost of care1,2. Over one third of these patients have newly discovered hyperglycemia and are confirmed upon ... Continue Reading

Patients Should Be Educated About Clinical Trials

By Roland Matthews, M.D. and Nancy M. Paris, MS, FACHE According to a national public opinion poll released last summer, more than two-thirds of Americans say it’s likely they would participate in a clinical trial if recommended by their doctor, but only 22 percent say a doctor or other healthcare professional has ever talked to them about medical research. Commissioned by ... Continue Reading

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