Don’t Use Antibiotics for Most Cases of Pharyngitis!
I have practiced medicine for over 18 years and have gotten a lot of CMEs over that time. The lectures I have enjoyed the most have tended to be those exposing the myths of modern medical practice....
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I suspect that almost every physician in theUnited Stateswould agree that antibiotics are over-prescribed. Unfortunately, since the total number of antibiotic prescriptions in theUnited Statesgiven to...
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Evidence Based Use of NSAIDS—Less is More
When we want to do an evidence-based approach to the use of any drug, we have to consider three factors: What beneficial effects do we want the drug to have on our patients? What harm might the drug...
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You Need a Medical Commissary in Your Facility!
When I was an undergraduate, before I switched to pre-med, I was an economics major. Maybe because of that training, when I look at jail medical practices, I tend to look at all of the costs of...
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A Quick and Easy Solution for Second Mattress Requests!
The Elmore County Jail in Mountain Home, Idaho I have a quick ‘n easy solution for those pesky requests for a second mattress that plague all correctional facilities. But before I get to that, though,...
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The Right Way to Deal with Outside Physicians
Those of us who practice medicine in jails frequently (Frequently? Daily!) run into the thorny issue of our relationship to the doctors who care for our patients outside of the jail. When patients are...
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Jail Medicine Is Now On Facebook
In an effort to increase our visibility and make Jail Medicine more accessible online, we are pleased to announce that you can now follow us on Facebook. We plan to post special articles, videos,...
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Six Months Later–Top Posts
Well, JailMedicine is now over six months old and has been more fun to write and much better received than I had imagined it would be. JailMedicine has had over 30,000 hits! Thank you especially to...
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Get Updated Information Here…
We have added an ‘event’ on our Facebook page for the Essentials of Correctional Medicine Conference. Make sure to jump over there and join the event for all of the latest information regarding the...
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Book Review. Maximum Insecurity: A Doctor in the Supermax
Quick! Name a book that describes the experience of being a medical professional in a jail or prison! . . . Can’t do it, can you? There are lots of books that talk about the life of a lawyer or a...
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Constipation Plus Sample Guideline
Today’s post is a repost of an article I wrote previously about Constipation. Concurrent with this article, I have added a Sample Guideline on Constipation to the Guideline Section of JailMedicine...
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Do You Understand the Requirements for Multiple DEA Licenses?
I have found that many correctional practitioners, especially in jails, do not understand the license requirements of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and, as a result, do not have all of the...
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Words Matter. “Inmate” or “Patient?”
Words matter. What we write about our patients in our medical notes to a great degree reflects how we feel about them. Our words also mold our future relationship with our patients. One good example...
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Prescribing Without an Exam?
The State Board of Medicine in my home state recently sent out a bulletin about the practice of “friendly prescribing” to people who the practitioner has not examined. For example, a friend might...
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Reducing NSAID Use PLUS NSAID Prescribing Guideline
Through many years of experience in correctional medicine, I occasionally have come up with a speech or dialogue that works especially well with patients; a speech which I then use over and over...
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Oral Testing of Reported Penicillin Allergies?
Penicillin is miraculous. It was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming (founding the modern era of antibiotic medicine) and is still the most common antibiotic prescribed in my jails. The dentist...
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Gabapentin for Musculoskeletal Pain?
At one of my recent jail medical clinics, three patients in a row requested prescriptions for gabapentin. One was a patient newly arrived from the Idaho Department of Corrections to be housed at my...
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How Can You Violate the Hippocratic Oath by Providing Medical Care to the Needy?
Five months ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an editorial entitled “Can Physicians Work in US Immigration Detention Facilities While Upholding Their Hippocratic...
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The Rules for Treating Benzodiazepine Withdrawal
Patients are dying in correctional facilities from benzodiazepine withdrawal! This is not just a theoretical observation; this really is happening. This fact bothers me since benzo withdrawal deaths...
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You Need a Plan for Corona virus in your Facility
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have been hearing about the threat of a Corona virus pandemic. Every day, the evening news anchor breathlessly gives an update of the number of new cases,...
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