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Study on marijuana, male reproductive health spawns misleading conclusion

Dr. Denise A. Valenti Medical & Allied Healthcare

Ever hopeful to report positive aspects related to marijuana use, writers often leave out key points. As an example, a report from a Boston-based publication had the following headline, "Harvard researchers link smoking marijuana with higher sperm concentration.” It further concluded, "Experts say men who smoked marijuana have significantly higher concentrations of sperm than those who have never lit up." The report describes the work with research participants, "…scientists collected 1,143 semen samples from 662 mostly college educated white men." What the media report left out was the description that appeared in the published research, "…This longitudinal study included 662 subfertile men."

What is Safety II? New opportunities for safety leadership

Christina Thielst Healthcare Administration

Researchers in Europe may have defined and given structure to the challenges associated with safety. Their white paper on Safety I vs. Safety II highlights where scientific methods, standardization, root cause analysis and reliability alone fall short. They assert that safety needs to progress beyond a bimodal model to employ multiple approaches for reducing error/failure and achieving fully resilient systems. Safety I, as experienced today, is the push to eliminate all accidents, system failures and injury. Safety II recognizes that medicine and healthcare processes are not an exact science and that there is sometimes an art to caregiving.

How to keep your immune system strong for running

Holly Martin Sports & Fitness

Whether you're a new runner who wants to know how to run properly, an experienced runner who wants to work on breathing techniques for running, or even just someone looking for tips for a 5K, it's tough to train when you're sick. Health and a strong immune system are prerequisites for running training. So how do we keep our immune system strong and ensure that we can achieve our specific training goals no matter the season? In this article, we've got tips on everything from what's in your blood when you’re sick to which foods you can eat to get better. Let's dive in!

How to avoid getting sick on your next vacation

Catherine Iste Medical & Allied Healthcare

Vacation can be that wonderful carrot, dangling out in the future. Blocking the time off on the calendar, making reservations, and other acts of preparation can add little boosts of positivity to dreary days between now and then. For some of us, it inspires cleared inboxes and finished projects, too. Unfortunately, many of us end up sick on our well-deserved breaks. Here are a few reasons we end up under the weather and some ways to get us back out enjoying it instead.

ADA partners with National Institutes of Health for opioids webinar

Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental Healthcare

Prescription opioid abuse remains a dangerous and growing problem in America. Every day, more than 115 Americans die after overdosing on opioids, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The ADA is hosting an opioids webinar on Wednesday, April 3, featuring the National Institutes of Health. Called "NIH Response to the Opioid Crisis from a Research Perspective," the webinar will take place from 3-4 p.m. EST.

Eating healthy for National Nutrition Month

Connie Ulman Food & Beverage

Obviously, every single person is aware of nutrition because food is a staple for survival. However, it can be hard to know what is healthy and what isn't. March is National Nutrition Month, a tradition started by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics with National Nutrition Week in 1973. However, it wasn’t until 1980 that interest peaked, and it went from one week a year to one month a year. Eating healthy is hard and eating poorly is easy. It starts innocently enough — a co-worker brings donuts to work, you work through lunch, so you grab something from the vending machine. It's all downhill from there.

Are your doctors asking patients the right questions?

Lisa Mulcahy Healthcare Administration

In healthcare, you know how crucially important good doctor-patient communication is. So are the doctors in your organization shedding enough light on the key information needed to make an accurate diagnosis every time? It's vital for doctors to utilize the best verbal and nonverbal forms of communication in order to determine what each patient needs. The good news: research has focused on how doctors can perfect their Q&A skills so they get the patient the accurate info they need. Suggest that your organization's physicians put this advice into practice.

Physician-only social network surveys how physicians really feel about…

Tammy Hinojos Medical & Allied Healthcare

Several social media platforms are facing public scrutiny over their role in promoting misleading health information, especially relating to the anti-vaccination movement, which many experts say has contributed to the outbreak of contagious illnesses, like measles, in areas around the country. At a time where it seems everyone (who wants one) has a platform, there is a global need for medically and scientifically accurate information from reliable sources to help inform public health knowledge. SERMO is a leading social network for over 800,000 fully verified and licensed physicians around the world. When it comes to the anti-vaccination movement, SERMO surveyed its community to find out how physicians really feel.

Physician burnout may have peaked, but it remains a healthcare crisis

Scott E. Rupp Medical & Allied Healthcare

From reported record highs in 2014, physician burnout levels have fallen. Despite nearly 45 percent of physicians reporting burnout in 2017, those numbers were highest in 2014 when more than 54 percent of U.S. physicians reported they suffered from the malaise. This is according to a new study published in Mayo Clinical Proceedings and conducted jointly with the American Medical Association. Another recent report — from the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — says doctors struggle with the "unyielding demands of electronic health record systems and ever-growing regulatory burdens."

Professor claims cure for CWD, but others aren’t sure

John McAdams Recreation & Leisure

The United Sportsmen of Pennsylvania (USP) turned a lot of heads in the hunting community during a press conference at the state capitol in Harrisburg in February when they announced that a cure to Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) may be close at hand. The group declared that Dr. Frank Bastian of the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center has made a breakthrough in his research of the disease. USP is partnering with Bastian to help support his continued research. However, many people are understandably skeptical of Dr. Bastian's conclusions.

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