Did you know that the macrolide group of antibiotics (erythromycin and all its cousins) could kill you? Drop dead – sudden death. Well there is a growing body of literature saying just that.

You rarely hear of problems with the old standby, TMP-SMZ, but there is a growing body of literature suggesting that physicians need to be wary of the drug’s potentially serious side effects.

The cost of running a high-quality CME event has gone up, but physicians aren’t willing to cover the tab. That tension has put the squeeze on medical education, bringing into focus the role of industry in the future of CME.

Emergency physicians need to lead the charge on halting unnecessary urinary catheterizations, for the sake of patient safety and the bottom line.

The trend of voluminous, exhaustive discharge instructions puts the pressure on patients to understand and identify complex risk factors, like infection. According to the research, this is probably a bad idea.

One of the trickiest diagnoses in emergency medicine is pulmonary embolism. The problem is not a lack of information; the amount of literature on this topic is truly staggering. The problem with making the PE diagnosis is that ordering the definitive test, a CT pulmonary angiogram, is a big deal.

It gets a little tiring, and certainly frustrating, to be on the receiving end of recurring mandates from “the experts” regarding the care provide by physicians and nurses. It seems that CMS and its watch dog, the Joint Commission (JC), relish adding more and more requirements onto healthcare staff because, obviously, we just don’t seem to understand the importance of initiating these behaviors on our own.

I’m a believer that if an adult patient presents to the ED with chest pain, unless you are very, very positive the diagnosis is not cardiac, you owe it to the patient to pursue a cardiac work-up. Sounds pretty straight forward to me – but many would disagree.

The United States is a capitalist country in which entrepreneurs who see opportunities and are willing to take some risks can generally do well.  Finding the opportunities is the hardest part of the equation. One wide open market that would seem to be a slam-dunk opportunity is that of health clinics in retail stores.