Today's date: June 18, 2013
July 25
July 24
July 23
CMS administrator: Improve way out of health care dilemma
With health care costs unsustainably high and value too low, the nation faces two choices — cut or improve care. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Donald M. Berwick, M.D., made the case at Monday's House of Delegates session for America to improve its way out of the current health care crisis. Read More...
Dr. Bright: ‘Excited’ to serve as NMA president
Cedric Bright, M.D., has served the NMA in many positions over the years, so as he prepares to serve as its president in the coming year he is well positioned to know not only the road it has traveled but the path he sees in front of the association. Read More...
Special session to examine effects of environmental factors on health
The evidence that environmental factors disproportionately affect the health of minorities continues to grow. Two sessions, including a morning-long special session, will address environmental threats and what physicians can do to combat them. Read More...
Opioid management requires clear goals, scheduled dosing
Establishing clear goals with patients and carefully scheduled dosing are key components to managing chronic pain. William L. Doss, M.D., assistant professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, shared these recommendations during his presentation "Opioid Medication Management in Chronic Pain" at Monday's Multidisciplinary Pain Symposium. The symposium addressed "Chronic Pain and its Unequal Burden in Communities of Color: Evidence-Based Use of Opioids and Adjuvant Medications to Improve Clinical Outcomes." Read More...
Discrimination still thrives for minority medical students
Student National Medical Association National President Bryant Cameron Webb has some bad news for the attendees at the NMA's 109th Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly — the more things change, the more they stay the same. Read More...
Project I.M.P.A.C.T. works to include minorities in trials
Minorities have been historically underrepresented in clinical trials, something that Project I.M.P.A.C.T. (Increase Minority Participation and Awareness of Clinical Trials) seeks to fix. A 1999 NMA Consensus Panel concluded that under-representation of minorities in clinical trials helps contribute to health disparities. Read More...
Increase in minority health professionals to reduce disparities
A key factor contributing to health disparities between minority and white populations is the lack of racial and ethnic diversity among the nation's health professionals, said Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., president emeritus, Morehouse School of Medicine, and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (1989-1993). Read More...
School district recruiting good students to become physicians
Walter Milton, Jr., M.S., Ph.D., is putting the mission of the Sullivan Alliance into practice — seeking out bright, young minds and empowering them to become physicians. Read More...
Data show half of COPD patients go undiagnosed
According to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), only half of patients with COPD have received a diagnosis. Although more Americans have received a diagnosis of asthma (17 million Americans vs. 10-12 million with COPD), COPD is a more important public health problem and the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States, it was reported Monday in "Making the Right Diagnosis: The Need for Spirometry." Read More...
Untreated HCV cases greater among African-Americans
More than 3 million people in the U.S. are living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the U.S., and three-quarters of them are unaware of it. Furthermore, one in seven African-American men ages 51-60 could be infected with HCV. Lennox Jeffers, M.D., professor of medicine, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, presented these sobering statistics during an NMA Product Theater presentation Monday. Read More...
Panel discusses protection of ability to practice medicine
"A National Practitioner Databank entry can ruin your entire career — even if it is a false report," said Ernest Bonner, M.D., moderator and co-chair of the President's Task Force on the Survival of African-American Physicians. This year, NMA President Leonard Weather, Jr., R.Ph., M.D., commissioned a task force to investigate the excessive scrutiny levied upon African-American physicians and to develop strategies to protect all doctors — especially minority and female physicians who are targeted with unfair professional attacks more than any other group. Read More...
Diversifying Innovation: Strategies for Success
Several African American Innovators met Monday with William Maisel, M.D., FDA director of science, to discuss how the FDA and others can create more diversity in innovation. Dr. Maisel, spoke of how the FDA has reduced barriers for new innovators and how it is encouraging more diversity of their applicants. Other panelists included: Victor McCray, M.D., surgeon and biodesign fellow at Stanford University; Robert Davis, Ph.D., CEO of SHIRE; and John Peterson, Ph.D., vice president of university relations for Research Triangle International. Read More...
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July 24
Physicians work to stem obesity tide
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) data show that obesity among U.S. adults by race and ethnicity from 2006 to 2008 is more pronounced among African-Americans, and physicians can make the difference to stem this obesity tide. NHLBI Acting Director Susan B. Shurin, M.D., delivered this message to open the Sunday plenary session "We Stand With You: NMA Physicians and Their Patients Combating Obesity." Read More...
Chairman: NMA remains relevant for its members
In an era dominated by a weak economy, the NMA has been challenged by the struggles of its members and supporters in the past year, but it has not lost focus on its primary goal of eliminating health disparities. Read More...
Cobb Institute lecturer examines Cancer Panel action
Demographic and cultural factors have played a significant role in the implications for cancer, a trend that has not escaped recognition of the President's Cancer Panel. LaSalle Leffall, M.D., emeritus professor of surgery, Howard University, reported on action by the President's Cancer Panel in response to these trends when he delivered the 2011 W. Montague Cobb Lecture Sunday. He has served on the President's Cancer Panel since 2002. Read More...
Cobb Symposium takes on colon cancer
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and second leading cause of cancer death in the Western world. Worldwide, this disease causes 655,000 deaths, despite significant effective screening and prevention. Although death rates from colorectal cancer have declined for all ethnic groups, significant disparities remain as this type of cancer still affects 12.3 percent more African-Americans at significantly younger ages than in whites. Sunday's W. Montague Cobb Annual Symposium and Lecture addressed health disparities in colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence and mortality. Read More...
Four honored for advancing role of women in medicine
Bestselling author Iyanla Vanzant, the keynote speaker at Sunday's Annual Muriel Petioni, M.D. Awards Luncheon, paid tribute to those award recipients. Like all physicians, this year's award winners held the lives of their patients in their hands, Vanzant said, Read More...
Commissioner shares FDA efforts on disparities
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., presented the agency's initiatives for promoting good health among minority populations by advancing regulatory science, energizing the new FDA Office of Minority Health and enhancing racial and ethnic diversity among FDA advisory committees. She shared the details on this FDA plan of action during the opening of the NMA House of Delegates late Saturday afternoon. Read More...
Malignant hyperthermia a threat with anesthesia
A patient undergoing oral surgery for a routine dental procedure becomes tachacardic, then his heart rate and carbon dioxide level increase. Finally, his temperature begins to rise in a dangerous scenario that is all too real. Read More...
Researchers examining how the brain reacts to unconscious anesthesia state
National Institutes of Health-funded research by Emery N. Brown, M.D., Ph.D., is uncovering a big mystery of modern medicine — the mechanisms by which anesthetic drugs induce the state of general anesthesia. Hear the details and implications of these findings in his presentation, "The Dynamics of the Unconscious Brain under General Anesthesia," as part of Current Issues in Anesthesiology — Guardians in the Operating Room and Beyond, from 1 to 4 p.m. Monday in Room 144C. Read More...
Culture, community keys to success with AA diabetics
African-Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes, and a large share of the community is distrustful of the health care system, creating a double whammy when trying to treat diabetes. A presentation in the NMA Product Theater Sunday addressed how the medical community can work to overcome that distrust. Read More...
Lt. Governor vows to eliminate disparities
Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, wowed the NMA's Family Medicine Section by assuring the audience that Maryland would be "No. 1 in implementing health care reform and in eliminating health care disparities." Brown chairs the Maryland Health Care Reform Coordinating Council. Read More...
One Nation Under God?
"Herein lies the tragedy of the age ... Not that men are wicked ... Not that men are ignorant ... Nay, but that men know so little of men." Read More...
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July 23
Dr. Pinn urges fight for equality in health care
During the 23rd Annual Mazique Symposium Saturday, keynote speaker Vivian Pinn, MD, urged NMA members to continue their work for equity in all areas of health care. "Serious inequities in health and health care still exist," Dr. Pinn said. But members of the NMA are uniquely poised "to promote the best that medicine has to offer" to all underserved ethnic groups. Read More...
Dr. Weather looks back on busy year as president
Looking back at his term as NMA president, Leonard Weather, RPh, MD, made an off-hand comment that best describes both his year in office and what the association did during the past year: "We had a mountain of success." Read More...
President Weather: Advocate for patients, despite debt woes
NMA President Leonard Weather, RPh, MD, took the occasion of the Opening Ceremony Saturday to offer words of welcome and to express his "profound gratitude" for the privilege of serving as the 111th NMA president. Read More...
Auxiliary continues tradition of good work in 75th year
In its 75th year, the Auxiliary to the National Medical Association (ANMA) is celebrating decades of good work supporting the African-American community by expanding those efforts. Read More...
Internet changing the business of medicine
Medicine is a business, and for business to thrive, physicians have to market themselves. Read More...
ICD changes coming in 2013
The world of medical coding will go through a major change in a little more than two years, when ICD-9 diagnosis and procedure codes will be replaced by ICD-10 codes, a major conversion that will be discussed during two sessions today and Wednesday. Read More...
Ophthalmologists battle underdiagnosis, effects of diabetes
NMA ophthalmologists are working to stem the tide of the epidemic that is diabetes. Read More...
Multidiscplinary approach aids diabetes management
A predisposition to diabetes can be blamed on genetic factors, but dying from the disease is often the result of inadequate disease management, a lack of education and poor lifestyle choices. Read More...
Choosing a patient payment solution that is HIPAA compliant
In today's health care environment, providers are faced with numerous challenges around patient billing and collecting payments. Patient payments have become one of the fastest growing portions of a physician's revenue stream, yet can be one of the most difficult for a health care provider to collect. The reality is that if you don't empower your front desk to take collections seriously, you put your practice at risk. Read More...
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NMA Convention