Joseph A. Califano, Jr. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The start of a new high school year is always an anxious time. Students are anxious about their school schedule, their classes, meeting new students, participating in school activities…and fitting in. Parents are anxious, too, about what the school year will bring for their children....Read More

Have you ever been drawn into a family medical emergency? Most times the diagnosis is straightforward: The patient is evaluated during an office visit or presents at an emergency room and after reviewing the symptoms and perhaps running a few routine tests a course of treatment is proposed for the patient. Occasionally the diagnosis is...Read More

Have you ever heard of the drug Opana? You might be surprised to learn that Opana is the brand name for oxymorphone which is a semi-synthetic opioid analgesic first developed in Germany in 1914. Yes, 1914! According to a Wikipedia article: “Slang terms for oxymorphone include: blues, biscuits, blue heaven, new blues (although the immediate-release...Read More

Just the other day an email arrived from a friend that said: “I am going on a Women’s Leadership Retreat  so will not have any phone or computer access from Friday night until Tuesday morning.” Suddenly we envisioned the pure delight of looking forward to “unplugging” for four to five days. When was the last...Read More

The Doctor, by Sir Luke Fildes (1891) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Did you ever need to go to a hospital emergency room for yourself or to accompany a loved one? The process of explaining your symptoms to the doctor can be cumbersome. You might be suffering from extreme pain due to illness or injury, or even...Read More

  The National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day just took place with better results than last year. Every year countless amounts of prescription narcotics end up in the wrong hands, often times starting young people down a road towards addiction. Unused medications that turn into fixtures of medicine cabinets are usually a teenager’s first exposure to...Read More

There is no question tobacco is one of the world’s biggest killers, impacting countless families across the globe. Fortunately, this week health officials of 135 nations provisionally agreed to a deal to fight tobacco smuggling. The agreement comes after four years of negotiations, according to a WHO news release. Unfortunately, the United States is not...Read More

Addiction Addiction is perhaps one of the most complex diseases known to mankind. Furthermore, treating addiction with the goal of recovery is even more complex and varies dramatically from one case to another. Are doctors more qualified than counselors for treating serious cases of addiction? Stuart Gitlow, MD, MPH, MBA, is the Executive Director of...Read More

A. Thomas McLellan, PhD, was recently reinstated as the CEO of the Treatment Research Institute after serving as the Senior Scientist and Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The TRI is an independent, nonprofit research and development organization dedicated to developing and providing evidence-based solutions to the devastating problems...Read More

The fight continues to keep young Americans from using tobacco products which can easily be argued is the first drug adolescents and teenagers ever try. The U.S. Surgeon General’s office has now released a report calling for smoking bans and increasing taxes on tobacco products in order to discourage usage. It is almost hard to...Read More