Hours after Dr. Conrad Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Michael Jackson’s 2009 death, the embattled physician pleaded not guilty Monday afternoon (February 
during an arraignment hearing at a Los Angeles courthouse, according to The Associated Press.
Murray’s bail was set at $75,000, three times greater than the bail usually set for such crimes. Without being handcuffed, Murray was then taken into custody for booking. He must surrender his passport, allowing him to travel within the United States but not out of the country. Prosecutors had been seeking bail of $300,000, but Superior Court Judge Keith L. Schwartz rejected that amount. The involuntary-manslaughter charge carries a maximum jail sentence of four years.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: dr conrad murray, Michael Jackson
From Seun Adbiyi At The Huffington Post
As a 26 year-old African-American, I don’t know which is more difficult: trying to make history as the first Nigerian delegate in the Winter Olympics, or finding a donor for a bone marrow transplant.
In June 2009, just days after graduating from Yale Law School, I was diagnosed with two rare and aggressive forms of cancer: lymphoblastic lymphoma and stem-cell leukemia. Instead of a grueling Olympic training regimen for the skeleton — an 80 mph headfirst plunge down a mile-long ice chute — I underwent an equally grueling cycle of high dose chemotherapy during a seven-week hospital stay at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black olympian, seun adbiyi
To paraphrase a great old slogan for Guinness beer: Sex isn’t just good, it’s good for you!
Okay, so maybe there’s some wishful thinking going on — the science isn’t exactly iron-clad — but evidence is accumulating that the more sex you have, the better off you are.
There is one caveat, though. “We do not have good data to show a direct connection [to all-around good health]," says Jennifer Bass, the head of information services at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Ind. "We know that healthier people have more sexual activity. But we do not know which comes first. Does the good health make you more willing to have sex, or does the sex have a positive impact?”
And you dirty girrrls and Don Juans should know that the assumed health benefits of sex are generally thought to accrue to people in loving, monogamous relationships or those flying solo. Risky sex with lots of partners will probably do more harm than good.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
A pregnant Brooklyn woman suffering a fatal seizure in a coffee shop in the shadow of FDNY Headquarters was ignored by two callous city medics who continued to buy their breakfast, eyewitnesses told The Post.
"The EMTs just said we had to call 911. They got their bagels and left," said a disgusted worker.
Frantic employees at the Au Bon Pain at 1 Metrotech Center approached the FDNY medics at 9 a.m. on Dec. 9, shortly after colleague Eutisha Revee Rennix, 25, began to complain of shortness of breath and intense stomach pains. Workers immediately dialed 911.
HELAYNE SEIDMAN
NO HELP: Witnesses say that as Eutisha Revee Rennix (above) lay dying at a Brooklyn Au Bon Pain 600 feet from FDNY headquarters, two EMTs on break refused to assist her, leaving son Jahleel, 3, motherless.
"People were calling out saying, ‘She’s turning blue! She’s pregnant!’ " said the witness.
But the EMTs appeared unfazed.
"I remember them saying they couldn’t do anything because they were on their break," another worker said. "We started screaming and cursing at them."
Rennix fell in a heap and began foaming at the nose and mouth in the back room.
That sent a manager rushing to the front to again ask someone in the Metrotech coffee shop to help.
This time, two good Samaritans in blue FDNY sweaters ran to the back office. One called 911 from his cellphone while the other tried to help keep Rennix still.
Read more:http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/emt_duo_on_break_let_preg_mom_die_mrj8Jv8kjmS0Z3FNO4DmiL#ixzz0aKw6WUQm
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: eutisha rennix, pregnant woman
Keisha Jones, 38, a mother of four, is married to Anthony, who has been involved with another woman for the past three years. Monique Hunter, 25, is the other woman and didn’t have a clue that her lover was a married man. Hunter became pregnant with Anthony’s baby, and the plot that ensues unravels like a Lifetime movie.
When Jones found out about Hunter’s pregnancy, she devised a diabolical plan to get rid of the young woman’s baby. She started by calling her husband’s mistress, pretending to be a health care worker from Hunter’s doctor’s office. Jones explained to the young pregnant woman that she needed to take some medication that would prevent her from having a child with Down syndrome. The drug that Jones recommended was Cytotec, which can ripen a woman’s cervix and induce labor.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
WASHINGTON – A bruising debate on health care awaits the Senate after Thanksgiving now that the historic legislation has cleared a key hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.
The bill would extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.
In the final minutes of a daylong session, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of trying to stifle a historic debate the nation needed.
The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural — casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a “massive and unsustainable debt.”
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: healthcare reform
BusinessWeek has broken the story that large employers like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are among the first on the list to receive the H1N1 vaccine.Clusterstock, the business blog, has added the nuance that not only has Goldman Sachs received the same number of vaccinations as Lennox Hill hospital in New York City — the finance giant got its hands on the doses beforemany hospitals.
Goldman Sachs’ PR reps want to make it clear to the public that the CDC distributes vaccines to many types of large employers, such as Time Warner and New York University. The idea is to get the vaccine to people at many points of potential infection, giving the H1N1 vaccine to those who come into contact regularly with high risk groups within large companies. Goldman Sachs has received 200 H1N1 vaccines, Citigroup 1,200.
This "guest list" treatment makes sense for some early recipients of the H1N1 vaccine. Hospital workers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and the New York Presbyterian Healthcare System clearly need early protection — and got some of the first doses along with Goldman.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, h1n1 vaccine, swine flu
This show is an interview between Dr. Elaina George and Dr Emelita Breyer. Dr. Breyer is from the Breyer Foundation, an independent organization dedicated to finding solutions to health care reform that does not add to the deficit, or raise money on the backs of the people through taxation.
She has a thorough understanding of the sanctity of the doctor patient relationship. And has real solutions that will protect the things that make the US healthcare system the best in the world.
Click here to listen!
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: healthcare reform
by Dr. Deborah Stroman
Got Sugar in the Blood? Change Your Lifestyle Today!
Do you remember your elders speaking about “sugar in the blood”? Do you have a friend or family member who suffers from diabetes? The importance of understanding high blood sugar is critical to the management of our often fast-paced, unhealthy, and stressful lives. A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit the “Bodies – The Exhibition” and experienced the most engaging presentation on the anatomy and pathology of the human body. Cadavers, adult and fetus, were on display to showcase the miracle of the body and the importance of good health and exercise. This poignant visit, which highlighted all of our major bodily systems, provides the inspiration to urgently share information regarding sugar – the crack cocaine of the Black of the community!
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american health, black health, diabetes
by Dr. Elaina George
There has been a lot of confusion about what ingredients are in the H1N1 Vaccine. In order to distill the information to make it easier for you to make an informed choice, here is a brief synopsis of the information provided by the manufacturers in their package inserts.
There are 4 manufactures who have been approved to sell H1N1 vaccine in the US. They are: Novartis, CSL, Sanofi/Pasteur and MedImmune
1. Novartis makes an injectable vaccine for ages 4 and above
Ingredients: Thimerosal (Mercury) both in the single dose and the multi dose vials
Antibiotics – polymyxin and neomycin (can be neurotoxic)
Manufactured with phenol (the chemical used on skin in cosmetic face peals to remove wrinkles)
Note: They recommend that children ages 4-9 get 2 injections one month apart. This would increase the risk from a reaction to the mercury (e.g, neurological damage such as Gullain-Barre or possibly Autism)
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, dr elaina george, swine flu
The Senate has formally confirmed Dr. Regina Benjamin to be the U.S. surgeon general, making her only the third African American to hold the position as the nation’s top doctor.
The Senate nod came by a voice vote Thursday night, an expression of unanimous consent of both parties.
The 53-year-old family practice doctor had spent most of her career tending to the needs of poor patients in a Gulf Coast clinic she founded two decades ago in Alabama.
She was the first African-American woman board member of the American Medical Association, and she just served a term as chairwoman of the group’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs.
Benjamin received a bachelor’s degree in 1979 from Xavier University of Louisiana, attended Morehouse School of Medicine from 1980 to 1982, and received a doctor of medicine degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1984.
She completed her residency in family practice at the Medical Center of Central Georgia in 1987.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, dr. regina benjamin
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Dr. Elaina and Michael Baisden break down the hype and misinformation about the Swine flu.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american doctors, black doctors, dr elaina george
President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the "rapid increase in illness" from the H1N1 influenza virus.
"The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities," Obama said in a statement.
"Thus, in recognition of the continuing progression of the pandemic, and in further preparation as a nation, we are taking additional steps to facilitate our response."
The president signed the declaration late Friday and announced it Saturday.
Calling the emergency declaration "an important tool in our kit going forward," one administration official called Obama’s action
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: obama national emergency, swine flu
President Obama has declared a national emergency to deal with the "rapid increase in illness" from the H1N1 influenza virus.
"The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve. The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities," Obama said in a statement.
"Thus, in recognition of the continuing progression of the pandemic, and in further preparation as a nation, we are taking additional steps to facilitate our response."
The president signed the declaration late Friday and announced it Saturday.
Calling the emergency declaration "an important tool in our kit going forward," one administration official called Obama’s action
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: obama national emergency, swine flu
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A woman imprisoned for her role in the 2007 kidnapping and torture of a black woman by seven white men and women said Friday the victim wasn’t telling the truth when she denied this week that the attack occurred.
Frankie Brewster told WCHS-TV in Charleston that multiple crimes were committed against Megan Williams during the attack in West Virginia’s rural Logan County, about 50 miles south of Charleston.
An attorney representing Williams said Wednesday that she is now recanting statements incriminating Brewster, her son Bobby and five others. All seven pleaded guilty and six are serving lengthy prison terms.
Brian Abraham, the Logan County prosecutor in 2007, also has dismissed Williams’ new story, saying the convictions were based on the defendants’ own statements and physical evidence rather than what Williams said.
Williams originally said her captors, including boyfriend Bobby Brewster, beat her, raped her, forced her to drink urine and eat feces, poured hot wax on her and taunted her with racial slurs in a trailer in Logan County. Williams was rescued after a passer-by heard cries from the shed where she was kept and an anonymous caller tipped off sheriff’s deputies.
Brewster is rejecting Williams’ new version of events.
"It did happen," Brewster said during the interview at the Lakin Correctional Center, where she is serving 10 to 25 years. "All of us participated."
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black attorneys, black lawyers, megan williams
by Dr. Deborah Stroman
Do you need a simple rule to begin a smart nutrition routine? Try to make a change in your diet by “avoiding the whites” – those additives that supposedly will make your food taste just right or have the right consistency. To live well and be healthy, we need to make changes that may feel uncomfortable at first and possibly illogical to friends and family.
Salt, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, accounts for nearly 150,000 premature deaths every year primarily due to complications from high blood pressure. We do need ~ 6g of salt per day to live. Sadly, the average intake of salt is between 9g and 10g a day! Salt is a commonly occurring mineral, the technical name of which is sodium chloride. It is the sodium part of salt that is important. Sodium helps to maintain the concentration of body fluids at correct levels. It also plays a central role in the transmission of electrical impulses in the nerves, and helps cells process nutrients.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black health, dr deborah stroman
In this episode of Medicine on Call, Dr. Elaina George speaks with Dr Maiysha Clairborne of Mind, Body, Spirit, Wellness. we spoke about natural approaches to prevent and treat swine flu. Overall natural remedies to reduce stress and promote overall wellness.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american doctors, black doctors, dr elaina george
Health Insurance Companies causing pain for patients: Are insurance companies limiting the options available to your doctor? That may be the case. While our nation is quick to blame physicians for the state of healthcare, the insurance companies may be a more sensible target for our collective frustration.
What is umbrella insurance? – This type of policy protects you from all the things that your standard insurance plan doesn’t cover. Everyone should consider getting umbrella insurance.
How do you keep your insurance if you lose your job? - If you don’t know the answer to this question, you need to learn about the COBRA laws. COBRA allows you to keep your old health insurance if you lose your job, and as part of the stimulus package, the federal government pays 65% of the cost.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: health insurance
"The high cost of each premium and the high deductible a person or family must pay per year is my biggest complaint against health insurers."
"For example, I pay around $300 a month for my wife and me for basic coverage, and pay a deductible of $750 each every year, not to mention a co-pay of $15 to $20 at the window."
"My yearly income is around $32,000 a year. Very little is left for goodies. Meanwhile, a doctor takes in $80 to $120 a visit that lasts 15 to 20 minutes. Imagine how much he makes a day, a week, a month, a year. Plenty of goodies here."
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, health insurance costs, healthcare reform
Health officials said Friday that 76 U.S. children have died of swine flu, including 19 new reports in the past week — more evidence the new virus is unusually dangerous for the young.
The regular flu kills between 46 and 88 children a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That suggests deaths from the new H1N1 virus could dramatically outpace children’s deaths from seasonal flu, if swine flu continues to spread as it has.
CDC officials say 10 more states, a total of 37, now have widespread swine flu. A week ago, reports suggested that cases might be leveling off and even falling in some areas of the country, but that did not turn out to be an enduring national trend.
"We are seeing more illness, more hospitalizations, and more deaths," the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat said at a press conference Friday.
The new virus, first identified in April, is a global epidemic. The CDCdoesn’t have an exact count of all swine flu deaths and hospitalizations, but existing reports suggest more than 600 have died and more than 9,000 have been hospitalized. Health officials believe millions of Americans have caught the virus.
The virus is hitting young people harder. Experts believe older people are suffering from it less, perhaps because they have a bit of immunity from exposure over the years to somewhat similar viruses.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, swine flu
by Dr. Elaina George, Your Black World
I have had several patients ask me whether or not they should get the swine flu (H1N1) vaccine. My response has been the same. I will not be getting the vaccine because I don’t think it is safe.
I am an MD who was trained to practice medicine the old fashioned way. My education was based on understanding and treating disease. As a surgeon, I was taught that in some cases surgical correction is the most efficient and expedient way to fix a problem or cure a disease. In short, I have a healthy respect for the standard medical care that is practiced in this country.
However, over the past 10 years since I have been in practice, I have seen a disturbing trend that has become increasingly more common. Although we have the most advanced medical system in the world, the best trained physicians, and access to new and ever evolving medications, we as a nation and particularly the minority population are getting sicker at a younger age, and our quality of life is suffering. There are more people suffering from depression, anxiety, and learning disabilities than at any time in our history. Unfortunately, we have learned to manage diseases by taking a pill everyday instead of doing what it takes to prevent the illness in the first place. It is past time to look to good nutrition and prevention as a means of preventing and curing chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity and some cancers which have risen to epidemic levels.
When I made the personal decision to ask questions about the Swine flu vaccine, the answers that I discovered contradicted the mantra that has been championed by the media, government officials, and the vaccine manufacturers. What we are being told simply does not make any sense. The most important question that I have learned to ask (from the politics of healthcare to every other facet of our society that affects us as individuals) is – who stands to gain?
I will not be getting the swine flu vaccine because:
- The vaccine makers have been given immunity from being sued for any bad outcome
After the deaths and injuries associated with the Swine flu vaccination campaign in 1976, the vaccine manufacturers lost billions of dollars in civil suits. That cannot happen this time around. Congress has since passed two bills that shield vaccine makers from civil suits. The first in 1986 protects vaccine makers from civil suits filed by people who have been injured by a vaccine due to ‘unavoidable side effects’. In 2006 another iteration of the shield law (The Epidemic Preparedness Act) was passed as part of the Patriot Act and extends the shield to include protection if the drug maker has ‘no willful knowledge’ that a vaccine may cause injury. In short, a maker of the Swine flu vaccine simply has to say they didn’t know the vaccine was going to cause harm then they cannot be sued. This won’t be hard to do since they have not fully tested the vaccine.
- There are many ingredients in vaccines called adjuvants that are put in to stimulate the immune response
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, dr elaina george, swine flu
By
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Howard University
According to 2008 US Census Bureau data, approximately 47 million, or 15.8 percent of the US population, were without health insurance during 2006 – a 4.9 percent increase. In 2005, census figures showed that 44.8 million people, or about 15.3 percent of the population, lacked health insurance coverage. According to a report released by the Institute on Medicine, the average cost of family health care coverage more than doubled from 1999 to 2008, from $1,543 to $3,354.
Based upon these realities, presidential candidate Obama made health care reform a central theme of his campaign. He promised to achieve universal health care in his first term and to cut the average family’s health care health care costs by $2,500. In the on-going health care reform debate, it is very important to remember that as a result of this and other campaign promises, President Obama won the 2008 presidential election with 53 percent of the popular vote to Senator McCain’s 46 percent and 68 percent of the Electoral College vote to McCain’s 36 percent.
According to a New York Times/CBS News poll taken in June, 85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt. According to a June poll conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 83 percent of respondents favored and only 14 percent opposed "creating a new public health insurance plan that anyone can purchase." These numbers indicate that health care reform is very important to the American people.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: dr wilmer leon, healthcare reform
Parents who bring their kids to Dr. G. Andrew McIntosh for the chicken pox vaccine are out of luck.
The family physician, who has a solo practice in Uniontown, Ohio, doesn’t offer that shot because he can’t afford it. Most insurers won’t sufficiently cover the cost.
"It doesn’t do me any good. I am losing money on [them]," he said. The chicken pox vaccine runs about $115, but insurers only cover between $68 to $83 of that.
McIntosh has also cut back on a handful of other critical childhood vaccines for the same reason — including the measles, mumps and rubella, known as the MMR vaccine.
It costs him about $58 to buy an MMR shot, he said, while insurers pay about about $40.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, swine flu, vaccines
by Dr. Elaina George, MD
According to a recent CNN report 7% of college students admit to using Adderall without a prescription. It is an amphetamine-like stimulant used to treat attention deficit disorders (ADD) and attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This drug, come to known as ‘vitamin A’, is taken by students to improve their grades. It is believed to help them study more efficiently by increasing the ability to stay awake and concentrate longer. It is more potent than caffeine or the old standbys No-Doze and Mountain Dew.
When prescribed by a physician for an individual with ADD or ADHD, Adderall is an effective and safe drug. Unfortunately, like many other prescription drugs such as Xanax, Valium, and Oxycontin, which have become easy to get on the Internet and on the black market, its ubiquitous use has taken away the fear factor. There is little regard for the potential side effects such as heart problems, stroke, tremors, and addiction.
In fact both prescription drugs and over the counter drugs have been reduced to quick fixes that are used to ‘make a problem go away’. There is a pervasive feeling that if it is a prescription drug or if it is sold over the counter, then it must be safe. This has been encouraged by the aggressive direct to patient marketing by the pharmaceutical industry.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american doctors, black doctors, black health, dr elaina george
What makes a woman want to have sex? Is it physical attraction? Love? Loneliness? Jealousy? Boredom? Painful menstrual cramps?
Many women interviewed were having sex purely because they wanted the experience.
It turns out that woman have sex for all of these reasons and more, and that their choices are not arbitrary; there may be evolutionary explanations at work.
Psychologists Cindy Meston and David Buss, both professors at the University of Texas at Austin, decided that the topic of "why women have sex" deserved a book of its own. They’ve woven scientific research together with a slew of women’s voices in their new collaborative work, "Why Women Have Sex," published September 29 by Times Books.
"We do bring in men occasionally by way of contrast, but we wanted to focus exclusively on women so that the complexity of women’s sexualpsychology was not given the short shrift, so to speak," said Buss, a leading evolutionary psychologist.
The authors conducted a study from June 2006 to April 2009 that asked women whether they had ever had sex for one of 237 reasons, all of which had emerged in a previous study. About 1,000 women contributed their perspectives. 
Watch women answer The Question »
It turns out that women’s reasons for having sex range from love to pure pleasure to a sense of duty to curiosity to curing a headache. Some women just want to please their partners, and others want an ego boost.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, black sexuality
Liberal Democrats failed Tuesday to inject a government-run insurance option into sweeping health care legislation taking shape in the Senate Finance Committee, despite widespread accusations that private insurers routinely deny coverage in pursuit of higher profits.
The 15-8 rejection marked a victory for Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee chairman, who is hoping to push his middle-of-the-road measure through the panel by week’s end. It also kept alive the possibility that at least one Republican may yet swing behind the bill, a key goal of both Baucus and the White House.
"My job is to put together a bill that gets to 60 votes" in the full Senate, the Montana Democratsaid shortly before he joined a majority on the committee in opposing the provision. "No one shows me how to get to 60 votes with a public option," the term used to describe a new government role in health care. It takes 60 votes to overcome delaying actions thatRepublicans may attempt on the Senate floor.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, black politics, public option
Chaos and death on the streets of Mogadishu: unfortunately, it’s nothing new in the Somali capital.
Government forces are fighting against insurgents on this day in September in a bloody battle that leaves 30 dead. Dozens of wounded Somalis are taken out of the danger zone, some of them in the back of insurgents’ pick-up trucks.
One of the trucks races through the streets, zig-zagging to the echoing booms of the ongoing shelling. The truck comes to an abrupt halt, stopping at a rare sight in the Somali capital — an ambulance, waiting at the heart of the chaos to ferry the dead and the injured to the hospital.
The wounded are transferred onto the ambulance. People shout and run as the mortar attacks continue. One woman screams over and over for her son.
The ambulance is one of seven medical vehicles paid for with donated funds from local and expatriate Somalis. Residents can simply call for the ambulances without charge, and the vehicles will be dispatched to the scene.
"It is amazing," said Rufai Salad, one of the founders of the ambulance service in the Somali capital. "We have this toll-free number, 777, that you dial. Someone is giving you a free call and then coming and giving you free help.
"People here find it hard to believe it is real."
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american doctors, black doctors
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You see it all over television, celebrities endorsing "syrup," which is a combination of cough syrup with codeine and soda, two ingredients that can make for a lethal recipe.
Stores in Southeast Texas are now carrying the products that bear the names "drank" and "syrup", but with a different twist.
Drank and Sippin Syrup are two examples of a new anti-energy drink that is supposed to provide "extreme relaxation." There is nothing harmful in these products, in fact one of the main ingredients is Melatonin, a natural substance that helps you sleep.
18-year-old Jackie Robinson says he just started drinking this anti-energy drink because of the slogan, "sippin syrup."
"I ain’t gonna lie it really do," said Robinson Wednesday afternoon as he sipped his drink outside a Beaumont convenient store. "It probably attracts a lot of people from the name too."
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: hip hop, sippin syrup
President BarackObama on Saturday resumed his push to overhaul the health care system, telling a Congressional Black Caucus conference that there comes a time when "the cup of endurance runs over."
"We have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. We’ve been waiting since the days of Harry Truman," he said in remarks at the caucus foundation’s annual dinner. "We’ve been waiting since Johnson and Nixon and Clinton."
"We cannot wait any longer," Obama said.
Obama spent the past week largely focused on global and economic issues in meetings with world leaders in New York and Pittsburgh.
At the G-20 economic summit that wrapped up Friday in Pennsylvania, Obama told a story about an unnamed foreign leader who privately told the president he didn’t understand the at-times contentious debate over changing the health care system.
"He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you. That doesn’t make sense to me,’" Obama said, quoting the world leader he declined to identify.
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Your Black World
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
by Dr. Elaina George, Your Black World
Reports estimate that 50-60% of doctors will be sued during the course of their career. However, only 10-20% of those cases actually go to trial. Of those that go to trial, doctors are found innocent of malpractice 80% of the time. This demonstrates the fact that although the perception exists that there may be a lot of bad doctors practicing bad medicine this is actually not the case.
Unfortunately, this perception has led to an explosion in the costs of practicing medicine. Over the last 5-10 years medical malpractice premiums have gone through the roof from primary care to neurosurgery. In Florida, for example, malpractice premiums for OB-GYNs have risen to as high as 250,000 per year. This staggering statistic highlights the unintended consequence of limiting access to medical care for women who live in those states. Florida is not alone, it is happening all over the country. Physicians have either moved out of state, retired early, or they have restricted the type of medicine they practice because they cannot afford the cost of doing business.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
A legally insane killer was on the loose in the state of Washington on Saturday, two days after he escaped during a field trip to a county fair, authorities said.
Phillip Paul was able to elude a massive manhunt in Spokane County, Washington, after escaping on Thursday, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department said.
Though Paul had been confined in a mental institution because of a murder confession, he was allowed to be part of a trip to a county fair Thursday.
Paul, 47, escaped from the fair around noon, which launched the massive manhunt and brought criticism from many, including state government officials. Sheriff’s officials told CNN affiliate KREM-TV that Paul also escaped briefly in 1991 and assaulted a law enforcement officer.
A review has been launched on the incident along with the policy that allows patients to take trips, said Susan Dreyfus, secretary of the state’s Department of Social and Health Services.
Dreyfus said she was concerned about Paul’s escape and another recent brief escape by a patient at a different local mental facility.
"These incidents, separate and coincidental, have raised serious questions about the security readiness of our two state psychiatric hospitals," Dreyfus said.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: mental health
President Barack Obama said Friday that angry criticisms about his health care agenda are driven by an intense debate over the proper role of government — and not by racism.
"Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I’m sure there are," Obama told CNN. "That’s not the overriding issue here."
The nation’s first black president spoke about the issue of race during a battery of interviews on Friday. In a media blitz aimed at pounding home his health care message, he taped interviews with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Univision to be shown during the networks’ Sunday morning talk shows.
Some excerpts aired during Friday night broadcasts.
Time and again, Obama was asked about whether the tenor of thehealth care debate turned nasty because of undercurrents in racism.Former President Jimmy Carter raised the point prominently this week when he said the vitriol was racially motivated.
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Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: healthcare reform, obama, race
Doctors in Miami announced Wednesday that they had performed a vision-restoring surgery that used the 60-year-old patient’s tooth.
The surgery, the first in the USA, was performed Labor Day weekend at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Afterward, patient Sharron Thornton was able to see for the first time in nine years. "Sharron was able to see 20/60 this morning. She was seeing only shadows a couple of weeks ago," says ophthalmologist and surgeon Victor Perez.
Thornton was blinded in 2000 by a reaction to a drug she was taking, which damaged her cornea. Perez likened Thornton’s cornea to a dirty car windshield. He says her eye surface was too dry for a corneal implant, a standard treatment.
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american doctors, black doctors
For Mary McCurnin and husband Ron Bednar, money trouble has followed health trouble. In 2003, the couple declared bankruptcy after their insurance covered only 10 percent of treatment costs for her breast cancer and his intestinal bleeding. In 2004, McCurnin’s breast cancer returned, and Bednar underwent open heart surgery.
Now, after repeatedly refinancing their house to pay medical bills and living expenses, they’re broke. To improve their chances of growing old together, they’ve filed for divorce.
"It occurred to me that I could get my first husband’s Social Security," said McCurnin. Her first husband, to whom she’d been married 20 years, died in 1989. When she turns 60 in November, McCurnin said she will be eligible for $1,200 in monthly survivor’s benefits from the previous marriage. As the Social Security Administration told her, she can’t have the survivor benefit if she’s married to someone else.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/16/loving-couple-divorces-to_n_287094.html
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: healthcare reform
Although many Americans have seen and heard the insane debate over healthcare, almost no one understands what’s going on. This is doubly true for the African American community, who is affected greatly by this debate and its outcomes. Most black bloggers aren’t talking about it and black doctors are too busy to inform the community.
Michael Baisden got with Dr. Elaina George, a prominent black physician in the Atlanta area, to break down the public option, healthcare and all related issues in the interview below.During the interview, Dr. George and Baisden answer some important questions:
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: dr elaina george, michael baisden
In this episode of Medicine on Call, Dr. Elaina George interviews Jason Rosenbaum from The Seminal, a healthcare publication. What is wrong with healthcare? What is the state of healthcare reform? What are the goals for healthcare?
Click here to listen!
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: dr elaina george, healthcare reform, jason rosenbaum
President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week didn’t provide much of a boost to his job approval rating, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday shows. The nationwide survey pegs his approval at 54%, precisely where it was in two USA TODAY polls in August.
(A separate, daily poll by Gallup showed Obama’s approval dipping as low as 50% last month.)
USA TODAY’s Susan Page reports that 43% disapprove of the job he’s doing, a tick up from the August polls and a new high in the 14 surveys we’ve taken since the inauguration in January.
That’s not to say Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who heckled the president during his speech, fares well. Two-thirds of those polled, 68%, say they oppose what the congressman did, and about one in four (23%) say they’re "outraged" by it. (That group included 41% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans.)
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
U.S. Capitol Police have arrested a Virginia man they say tried to drive into a secure area near the Capitol with a shotgun and rifle in his car as the president gave his health care address to Congress.
Joshua Bowman, 28, of Falls Church, Va., was arrested around 8 p.m. Wednesday and charged with two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition. Each carries a possible one-year jail sentence and $1,000 fine.
Bowman’s intentions were unclear, said police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington decided against prosecuting him on more serious charges, said spokesman Benjamin Friedman.
Schneider said Bowman approached a security checkpoint near the Cannon House Office Building in a four-door Honda Civic and told officers he wanted to park.
click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
The rumble of a train on the tracks, the purr of a hairdryer, the rhythmic drone of a photo-copier are all enough to make her go oh oh oh, ahhhhh.
She had FIVE orgasms during our 40-minute interview. But I can’t take the credit-it was just talking about her sex life that set her off.
Sarah, 24, suffers from Permanent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), which increases blood flow to the sex organs.
She said: "Sometimes I have so much sex to try to calm myself down I get bored of it. And men I sleep with don’t seem to make as much effort because I climax so easily."
As she chatted, Sarah became increasingly flustered.
"Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me for a minute. I’ll be with you in a sec," she mumbled before letting out a long sigh.
Sarah, from London, developed PSAS after being prescribed anti-depressants at 19.
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tens of thousands of fiscal conservatives packed streets in the nation’s capital Saturday to protest what they consider the federal government’s out-of-control spending.
Demonstrators filled Freedom Plaza and Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington. They waved U.S. flags and held signs reading "Go Green Recycle Congress," "I’m Not Your ATM" and "Obamacare makes me sick."
Some men were dressed in colonial costumes with tri-colored hats.
The protesters were marching to the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol.
FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, organized several groups from across the country for what they’re calling a "March on Washington."
The Washington march took place on the same day President Obama was headed to Minneapolis to rally support for his heath care reform plan. The plan, which also was the topic of his weekly raido and Internet message, has come under fire from fiscal conservatives who consider it too costly.
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: barack obama, healthcare reform
Although she liked her bacon crispy and her chicken fried, she never drank, smoked or fooled around, Gertrude Baines once said, describing a life that lasted an astonishing 115 years and earned her the title of oldest person on the planet.
It was a title Baines quietly relinquished Friday when she died in her sleep at Western Convalescent Hospital, her home since she gave up living alone at age 107 after breaking a hip.
She likely suffered a heart attack, said her longtime physician, Dr. Charles Witt, although an autopsy was scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.
"I saw her two days ago, and she was just doing fine," Witt told The Associated Press on Friday. "She was in excellent shape. She was mentally alert. She smiled frequently."
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
The world of athletics is reeling today after a claim that South African champion runner Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite with no womb or ovaries.
A Sydney newspaper claims it has a world exclusive in revealing the very private information about the sex of the 18-year-old runner.
Quoting a source closely involved with the IAAF, the Sydney Daily Telegraph said Semenya had internal testes – male sexual organs which produce testosterone and which in turn produces muscle bulk, body hair and a deep voice.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black celebrity gossip, black gossip
by Dr. Elaina George, YourBlackWorld.com
The suspense is over. For weeks we have been holding our collective breath to see if there would be real insurance reform. Now we know. President Obama’s speech this evening incorporated a lot of different ideas, but what was most striking was his statement that the public option was just one of the avenues that could be travelled to achieve an expansion of insurance coverage. Besides the demotion of the public option as an important tool to reign in the all powerful insurance companies, I noticed that there was no mention of universal health care. Wasn’t that the point of this whole exercise?
To be fair there are some good things. Under the President’s proposal there will be:
§ Coverage for pre-existing conditions
§ A cap on out-of-pocket expenses
§ People can no longer be dropped from insurance companies when they get sick
§ No further cap on what insurance companies will pay out
It is a good start, but it doesn’t go far enough.
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american doctors, black doctors, obama speech to congress
Obama administration officials, alarmed at doctor shortages, are looking for ways to increase the supply of physicians to meet the needs of an aging population and millions of uninsured people who would gain coverage under legislation championed by the president.
The officials said they were particularly concerned about shortages of primary care providers who are the main source of health care for most Americans.
One proposal — to increase Medicarepayments to general practitioners, at the expense of high-paid specialists — has touched off a lobbying fight.
Family doctors and internists are pressing Congress for an increase in their Medicare payments. But medical specialists are lobbying against any change that would cut their reimbursements. Congress, the specialists say, should find additional money to pay for primary care and should not redistribute dollars among doctors — a difficult argument at a time of huge budget deficits.
Some of the proposed solutions, while advancing one of President Obama’s goals, could frustrate others. Increasing the supply of doctors, for example, would increase access to care but could make it more difficult to rein in costs.
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, doctor shortage
by Dr Elaina George, Your Black World
The government has predicted that there will be a large proportion of the US population that will be infected with the H1N1 virus also known as the swine flu virus. However, according to the CDC each year over 200,000 people are hospitalized and 36,000 people die each year from seasonal flu complications.
Flu-like symptoms include:
■ fever (usually high)
■ headache
■ extreme tiredness
■ dry cough
■ runny or stuffy nose
■ muscle aches
■ sore throat
■ vomiting
■ sometimes diarrhea
These are the things you need to know to stay healthy in order to avoid both swine flu and common strains that cause flu
1. Stay Home
If you have a fever and/or are feeling ill you should stay home or keep your child home to avoid spreading the virus to others.
2. Get plenty of rest
When you fail to get enough sleep your immune system is less able to fight off viral and bacterial infections. If you have a fever or are feeling fatigue, take a break from the gym
Click to Read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: black doctors, swine flu
The parasitic life is all about finding niches in the ecosystem and exploiting them for all they’re worth. And after billions of years mucking their way through blood vessels and intestines, you better believe they’ve gotten rather good at it. Untold billions are clamoring for a chance to get inside you — and it just so happens that the best way to do that is to stow away in your next meal.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at a few menu items with a high probability for parasites. By no means does this mean you’re guaranteed a belly full of worms with each one! It’s essential to stress that proper food storage, fresh ingredients and sanitary food preparation conditions vastly decrease the chances for food contamination.
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: african american health, black health
by Dr. Elaina George
There is a major misconception about the reasons for the rise in the cost of healthcare. Procedures and the practice of defensive medicine have been described as the main reasons for the exponential rise. However, the reality could not be farther from what is portrayed on TV series like Nip/Tuck. The medical insurance industry has fueled the campaign of misinformation to enhance their divide and conquer strategy. As long as people spend their energy on blaming doctors, they have less energy to pay attention to rising deductibles, premiums and co-insurance. In short, the insurance companies benefit by keeping doctors and patients at odds. In reality when a doctor charges for a procedure or performs a surgery what is paid is no where near the amount that was charged. In short, the increase in patient premiums, deductibles etc… have gone to pay administrative costs and CEO salaries.
These are 6 things you need to know so you can understand the barriers your doctor has to navigate to take good care of you:
- Insurance companies change what they will pay for
Through the pre-certification process, insurance companies will change what services they will reimburse. This list can change yearly. It is driven by insurance company costs and not by medical necessity as determined by the doctor and the patient.
2. Insurance companies have gatekeepers that look for reasons to deny recommended services
Insurance companies have physicians and/or nurses on staff that can deny services. The person that reviews the procedure may not even be someone familiar with the medical procedure (for example, a psychiatrist reviewing the records of a surgeon).
3. Insurance gatekeepers get bonus compensation when they save the company money
This is pretty self explanatory – it pays to deny care.
4. Insurance companies discount payments for surgery and other procedures.
This is a process called bundling. If the procedure has a left and right side like knee surgery or has several steps. like sinus surgery, the surgeon will be paid a steeply discounted rate that can be as high as an 80% discount. For example, a surgeon will be paid the discounted insurance allowed amount for the 1st side and 50% for the second side. If it is a multi-step procedure, the surgeon will be paid the allowed amount for the 1st step, 50% for the second step and 25% for 3-5th step then nothing for anything beyond the 5th step.
5. Insurance companies make a bigger profit by delaying payment to doctors
A study showed that an insurance company can make as much as $84,000 in bank interest rates each day they pay
a claim late. By law an average clean claim (with no errors) should be paid from 14-30 days after it is submitted
by a doctor’s office. The average claim is paid anywhere from 30-45 days. Some claims, after multiple appeals,
can take up to a year to be paid after the service was given.
6. Insurance companies can ask the doctor for reimbursement of paid claims indefinitely.
A doctor has 120 days to submit a claim, after that time he/she may not submit a charge or charge the patient. However, an insurance company can ask for reimbursement with no time limit.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: healthcare reform, insurance companies
AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Pool Photographer
Hmmm…maybe that’s why Dr. Conrad Murray is being so cooperative with the Los Angeles Police Department. And the Las Vegas Police Department. And the Clark County Sheriff’s Department. And the Drug Enforcement Administration.
It seems it’s not the good doctor’s first time at the rodeo.
A check of Michael Jackson’s physician’s legal past has revealed everything from domestic violence charges (of which he was acquitted) to financial woes (which at one point included a bankruptcy filing) to his latest headache (you know, other than that whole target-of-a-manslaughter-investigation thing), the possibility that his Las Vegas home could soon be foreclosed upon.
Let’s hope the feds treaded lightly during yesterday’s search. Depreciation can be a real bitch.
Documents filed July 23 with the Clark County Recorder reveal that Murray could face foreclosure on his gated country club estate as soon as November. Though the timing on the filing may seem a bit like kicking Murray when he’s down, Jackson’s doctor reportedly fell more than $100,000 into debt on the home, with his last payment, of $15,000, being made in January of this year. (Which may be why Murray was so keen to stay in Jackson’s good graces and keep the $150,000-a-month salary that came with it.)
As for Murray’s less current troubles, here’s a rundown of his legal lowlights:
Click to read.
Categories: african american doctors · black doctors
Tagged: dr conrad murray, Michael Jackson
by Dr. Elaina George MD, Medical Correspondent, YourBlackWorld.com
When I read that the president had met with CEOs and other top representatives of the largest health insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies before healthcare reform was crafted by Congress, I had my doubts about the direction of health care reform confirmed.
I already had reservations about whether we would get true reform when the very members of Congress who were tasked to lead the crafting of the bill had received hundreds of thousand of dollars from the very entities that were the major cause of the problem – the health insurance industry, big PhRMA, and for profit hospitals.
No wonder we have been seeing commercials sponsored by big PhRMA in support of the current health reform bill. It appears it is quid pro quo for the administration’s deal to cap their concessions at 80 billion dollars over 10 years. NY Times Article
Click to read more.
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