Women’s Health

Birth control, and family physicians’ knowledge of contraception and options counseling, are critical to caring for families. Family doctors need to be competent in providing comprehensive family planning; it is the bread and butter of primary care and preventive medicine. Let’s get real: birth control is an issue that affects everybody. Unintended pregnancy is one Read more

Editor’s Note: This blog post was published earlier today by The Hill, on its Congress Blog. Angelina Jolie, best known as an actress and director, has recently taken center stage in a robust public discussion about genetic testing and the patentability of genetic discoveries with her revelation that she had undergone prophylactic bilateral mastectomy because Read more

The patients had undergone workups and appointments with hematology experts. Most of them did not have sickle cell disease or other exotic red blood cell problems. What they had was the usual, run-of-the-mill iron deficiency—the kind most pregnant women exhibit in a mild form. But their iron deficiency was so profound, and of such long Read more

I thought the financial barriers to intrauterine device (IUD) access would disappear on August 1, 2012, with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which stipulates that all “FDA-approved contraception” will be covered without copayments. I was wrong. Since last summer I have often felt that helping my family-medicine patients get IUDs—the most reliable, reversible Read more

  Wednesday, 11:15 a.m.* We are on 6 South; I’m hunched over a computer at the nursing station. I spent the early morning coordinating care for our postpartum patient in the intensive care unit (ICU), so now I’m desperately trying to catch up on the rest of my inpatient notes from the morning. The fellow Read more