Jones & Bartlett Learning Medicine Blog

Topics: Pharmacopoeia, Tarascon, primary care, Sale, General Medicine, Prescribing, sitewide, Global Health Blog, Hospital Medicine Blog, Infectious Disease, pocketbook, primary care

The interactive version of the 2015 Tarascon Catalog is now available.

Topics: Catalog, mobile medicine, oncology, Pharmacopoeia, Tarascon, primary care, Physician, discount, General Medicine, Pharma, Prescribing, resource, Global Health Blog, Hospital Medicine Blog, Infectious Disease

The Tarascon Pharmacopoeia 2015 Editions continue the tradition as the leading pocket drug reference packed with vital drug information to help clinicians make better decisions at the point of care.

Topics: pharma, physicians, medicine, mobile medicine, oncology, Pharmacopoeia, prescribing, Tarascon, primary care, doctors, dosing, General Medicine, Pharma, Prescribing, Pyschiatry & Mental Health, Cardiology, Global Health Blog, Hospital Medicine Blog, emergency medicine, hospital medicine, Infectious Disease, infectious disease, prescribe

Topics: Stroke, General Medicine, microwave helmet, Global Health Blog, Hospital Medicine Blog

October marks the 14th anniversary of Health Literacy Month, a grassroots initiative founded by award-winning Jones & Bartlett Learning author, Helen Osborne, to raise awareness about the need for more easily understandable health communication. This year’s theme is “Be a Health Literacy Hero.”

Topics: health literacy month, Helen Osborne, patient education, Global Health Blog

Topics: pharma, medicine, patient education, primary care, allergy, Dupilumab, General Medicine, Sanofi, allergies, asthma, Global Health Blog, pharmaceuticals, Regeneron, Sally Wenzel, trial study

February 28th will mark the sixth annual Rare Disease Day which is meant to raise awareness for rare diseases and improve access to treatment and medical representation for patients and their families. The first observance was on February 29th, 2008, and was chosen because it was a "rare day." In 2009, Rare Disease Day went global with participation from patient advocacy organizations in the United States, China, Australia, Taiwan, and Latin America. More than 60 countries and regions worldwide are now involved in planning awareness-raising activities.

Rare Disease Facts

• In the U.S., a rare disease typically affects a patient population estimated at fewer than 200,000
• There are more than 7,000 rare diseases affecting an estimated 30 million people in the U.S., and more than 300 million globally
• Almost 1 in 10 Americans is affected by a rare disease
• Approximately 80% of rare diseases are genetic
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that 50% of the people affected by rare diseases are children
• While individual rare diseases have small patient populations, collectively the rare disease community is larger than the AIDS and Cancer communities combined
• Only 15% of  rare diseases have organizations or foundations providing support or driving research
• An estimated 95% of all rare diseases do not have a single FDA approved drug treatment

The Global Genes Project

The Global Genes Project is a non-profit organization led by Team R.A.R.E and R.A.R.E. Project, and aims to raise awareness for people and families touched by rare and genetic diseases. What began as a grassroots movement has now expanded into 500 organizations worldwide.

Topics: awareness, Global health, patient education, General Medicine, genetic disease, genetic disorder, global genes project, national human genome research institute, National organization of rare disorders, rare disease day, Global Health Blog, medical, NIH, patient education

After months of deliberation, a controversial study from the Netherlands examining how the H5N1 virus - also known as avian influenza or bird flu, could be genetically altered and transmitted by mammals as an airborne pathogen was published last week. The paper was completed in 2011, but because of widespread concerns that bioterrorists could use this information to engineer a weapon, the findings were not published until now.

Avian flu affects several types of birds, including farmed poultry (chickens, geese, turkeys and ducks). Bird flu can also be transmitted from livestock to wild birds and also to pet birds, and vice-versa. The virus spreads through infected birds, via their saliva, nasal secretions, feces, and feed.

The first avian influenza virus to infect humans occurred in Hong Kong in 1997 and was linked to infected chickens.

Human cases of H5N1 have since been reported in Asia, Africa, Europe, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Pacific, and the near East.  Since 2003, nearly 60% of the 606 cases of human infection of H5N1 reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) worldwide, have resulted in death.

Topics: flu, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), H5N1, influenza, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disea, National Institute of Health, Netherlands, pandemic, Science journal, vaccine, virus, Anthony Fauci, avian flu, avian influenza, bird flu, Bruce Alberts, Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Su, Global Health Blog, Infectious Disease, World Health Organization (WHO)

This is the follow-up blog post from Tarascon Publishing Author, Matthew Dasco, MD, MSc.  Click here to read Part 1 of the Botswana and Human Resources for Health post.

Topics: Global health, Africa, Fogarty International Center, health workers, Authors, Matthew Dasco MD, Medical Education Partnership Initiative, MEPI, Ministry of Health, National Institute of Health (NIH), University of Botswana School of Medicine, US Health Resources and Services Organization, Botswana, Global Health Blog

This is the first in a two-part blog series from Tarascon Publishing Author, Matthew Dasco, MD, MSc.

Part 1:

The world’s burden of disease and human resources for health are not well aligned.  While sub-Saharan Africa has 24% of the world’s disease burden, it only has 3% of the world’s healthcare workers.  On the other end, the Americas region has 10% of the world’s disease burden but 37% of its health workers.

The Joint Learning Initiative (JLI) has calculated that the minimum number of health care workers (doctors, nurses, and midwives) in a population to achieve and 80% coverage rate of skilled birth attendance and measles vaccination is 2.5 per 1000 – countries with fewer than this number run a very high risk of not achieving the health-related millennium development goals (JLI, 2004).  57 countries in the world have been designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as in this state of “crisis” with regards to human resources for health, which translates to a global shortage of roughly 2.4 million health workers (WHO, 2006).

(Chart from Kerry, 2011)

My first contact with the disparity between disease burden and human resources for health occurred while I was attending on the internal medicine wards at Princess Marina Hospital (PMH) in Gaborone, Botswana.  PMH is the largest of two public sector tertiary care referral hospitals in the country.  In our department, there were six general medicine teams, an oncology service, and a nephrology service – each was assigned an internal medicine specialist.  The department consisted of two Cubans (a pulmonologist and a nephrologist), a Chinese generalist, an Indian generalist, a German oncologist, an Egyptian cardiologist, and a smattering of Americans working through university partnerships.  I found it odd that there were only two Batswana internal medicine specialists working there – they were among a very small number that had received specialty training abroad and returned to their home country to practice.

Topics: HIV, Tarascon Publishing, UNAIDS, Authors, Joint Learning Initiative (JLI), Princess Marina Hospital (PMH), world's disease burden, Botswana, Global Health Blog, health care workers, Matthew Dacso, World Health Organization (WHO)