As an emergency medicine physician, popular spectator events such as the Super Bowl usually mean little more than a temporary slowing in the rate of patient arrivals, especially among males, a phenomenon described in several countries in addition to the U.S. A recent Upshot post shows that the impact of widely popular spectator events extendsContinue reading “Your Team Made the Super Bowl? Better Get a Flu Shot”
Tag Archives: vaccinate
Personalized preventive medicine
Much research and media attention have focused on personalized medicine. The National Cancer Institute defines personalized medicine as “a form of medicine that uses information about a person’s genes, proteins, and environment to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease.” Although this definition includes prevention, much of the focus of personalized medicine has been on treatments, with aContinue reading “Personalized preventive medicine”
Times Square and Influenza
On this New Year’s Eve, I wanted to share this factoid from the CDC on the benefits of influenza vaccination in the 2014-15 flu season. As you see the nearly one million people counting down to 2016 in Times Square, remember that the flu vaccine prevents that many people from needing medical visits in oneContinue reading “Times Square and Influenza”
Vaccine-preventable illness
As a pediatric emergency medicine provider in a state with a high proportions of vaccine-refusers, I often treat vaccine-preventable infections. This week was no exception, with one of the cases particularly severe. A New York Times piece reminds us that vaccine refusal is most prevalent in white, higher income regions. The lowering of herd immunityContinue reading “Vaccine-preventable illness”
Marion R. Sills, MD, MPH 