Healthcare Archive

Marketing terms like "cure" and "miracle" can alert you to bogus treatments.

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We all want a magic pill to make aches and pains go away. But that longing sometimes makes us vulnerable to health scams. These come in the form of untested remedies promising to treat or cure everything from arthritis to aging. "From my experience, some older adults fall for the scams that focus on issues where there really is no good medical treatment or cure, such as Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, or cancer. The vulnerability comes in because people are looking for hope," says Dr. Anthony Zizza, a geriatrician at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Warning signs

The first tip-off to a health scam is often the way a product is described. Be wary of words used in marketing claims, such as quick fix, miracle, secret, cure, and breakthrough—and anything that promises to relieve your medical problems. "You might see something that says 'Take this pill and you'll reverse memory loss,' but don't believe it," says Dr. Zizza. Other clues include the terms no-risk, money-back guarantee, free gift included, or limited supply.

Protect yourself to ensure a speedy recovery and avoid infections and readmission.

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Whether you go in for surgery, testing, or an outpatient procedure, your hospital stay can pose further health risks if you are not careful.

"Your potential risks depend in part on why you have to go into the hospital and the facility itself, but there are steps you can take to minimize your risk, especially when it comes to developing hospital-acquired infections that can lead to a longer hospital stay or readmission," says Dr. Erica Shenoy, an infectious diseases specialist and associate chief of infection control at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

By Hope Ricciotti, M.D., Editor in Chief

If you've come to expect a pelvic exam as a routine part of your annual well-woman physical, you may be surprised to learn that health experts disagree over whether it is necessary. The exam — in which the clinician inserts gloved fingers into the vagina to examine the cervix, uterus, and ovaries — has been routine for decades, but recently its benefits have been called into question.

In 2014 the American College of Physicians — an influential group of internal medicine specialists — issued a recommendation against routine pelvic examinations for women who aren't pregnant and have no unusual risk for or symptoms of pelvic diseases. However, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has stood by its longstanding policy recommendation — annual pelvic exams for women ages 21 and older — based on expert opinion. In March 2017, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — the pre-eminent medical guidelines organization — ruled that there is insufficient evidence to recommend either for or against annual screenings.

The FDA announced in December 2016 that it would no longer enforce the requirement that adults receive a medical evaluation or sign a waiver prior to purchasing most hearing aids.

As medical knowledge has become greater, doctors have formed various specialties. In addition, other health professional fields have been created. Here is some information about physician specialists, and other specialists, and what they do.

Physician Specialists

Physicians that choose to train for a specialty complete additional training. After (typically) 4 years of medical school, they go on to internship and residency, which can take anywhere from 1-5 years (depending on the kind of residency training). Then, they go on for still more training in a specialty, which adds several more years.