Connecting to the Internet allows health care professionals to access medical information at computer sites worldwide, to search databases, communicate with peers, obtain continuing education, retrieve images and software, obtain drug information and access statistical data. Users can access sites with "virtual patients," search library catalogs, locate jobs and post resumes, and explore conference sites and topics. Rural health care professionals can have access to medical information equivalent to their urban peers. Information is usually available over the Internet much more rapidly than through traditional print methods.
1995 marks the centennial year of the discovery of x-rays. The medical profession advanced rapidly following Roentgen's discovery of the x-ray. Every aspect of medicine came to rely on radiology in some way. The x-ray not only revolutionized diagnostic medicine, it transformed therapeutic medicine as well. Only months after its discovery, the x-ray was being used with therapeutic intent, thus began radiation therapy. We can examine the development of radiation oncology in several periods.
There are strong incentives to computerize medical records in the present health care environment, yet medical information is frequently personal and is protected by privacy law and by centuries of a tradition of confidentiality. It is not possible to eliminate all risk of inappropriate disclosure and use of medical information, either in a paper or an electronic system. Computerization of records increases the potential for abuse, but with appropriate attention to security measures, medical data can be made reasonably secure while preserving accessibility for those who truly need the information. Both for technical and legal reasons, paper records are still necessary in 1995, to back up electronic medical databases.
Alabama law related to employee work place drug testing consists of the newly enacted drug free work place program, the workers' compensation law and the unemployment compensation law. These laws contain specific requirements relating to the performance of employee drug testing. Physicians will play a key role in the management, supervision and implementation of employer drug testing programs and should become familiar with state and federal laws and regulations pertaining to the operation of those programs.
Splenic pseudocysts are rare complications of abdominal trauma. Through rare, these lesions have been well-documented in the literature. According to current classification schemes, approximately 30% of all splenic cysts or pseudocysts result from direct abdominal trauma. The case report herein is an example of a splenic pseudocyst with an atypical presentation. The patient was evaluated and treated for progressive hypertension initially. Inability to control hypertension, and the appearance of symptoms suggesting intra-abdominal pathology prompted radiographic evaluation and surgical consultation. Prompt resolution of the hypertension followed operative resection of the splenic pseudocyst.
Dr. Samuel Patton Hand practiced medicine in Demopolis, Alabama, for many years before his death in 1917. During the last seven years of his life he kept detailed diaries. These diaries have been passed down through the family since his death. These papers review the diaries, which present an intimate look at the life of an Alabama small-town doctor during this period. This first paper deals with the doctor's daily personal and social life, and looks at the transportation in Dr. Hand's day and its effect on his medical practice. The next paper will examine purely medical matters. A third paper will look at excerpts from a notebook or "Pearl book" the doctor kept.
The story that follows attempts to chronicle the history of one state's involvement with the Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke Amendments of 1965, subsequently known as Regional Medical Programs. It is a history of an enterprise fraught with problems, but energized by the will, skill and imagination of scores of public officials and citizens who, over the decade of the program's formal existence, bent every effort to insure the realization of its fundamental purpose: putting the best, most advanced medical knowledge within the reach of the greatest number of citizens. The following is a chronicle of the Alabama Regional Medical Program.
