DR. PATRICIA A. FARRELL

Physicians graduating from medical school take The Hippocratic Oath where they agree to “first do no harm,” but what is “harm” and does the oath stand for anything in a world filled with avarice? A simple perusal of the headlines or a Google search will disabuse you of any naïve beliefs you have in regard to how the oath is viewed in the profession. Many aspects of the “first do no harm” can be explored and I couldn’t possibly do an extended discourse on it, but I’ll scratch

Science and the advances it has brought to our lives has been incredible when you think about it. Our lives have been enriched by new medicines, new techniques, innovations we never dreamed of are now coming to the fore. But one advance, in the world of nourishment, has a dark past and it has lingered under the radar for over four decades. I speak, of course, of the scandal surrounding the giant Nestle company, headquartered in Switzerland. The marketing of Nestle baby formul

As a child, I knew our family physician as a kindly guy who came to the house with his small medical bag, checked my temperature, wrote a script and left. You didn't have to go to his office, he came to you. Times have changed in many things and in medicine it has been a huge change, but one thing is coming back; docs are making house calls. Of course, it's not your friendly doc you've known for years, but a new doc each time because they work for a service that makes house c

Not too long ago, and possibly still to some extent, it was considered unethical for physicians to sell medications from their offices. The belief is/was that such transactions would spur treatment in the service of sales, but that may have been happening all along. Next time you go to your dermatologist or dentist or ophthalmologist, take a look around for brochures and advertisements for products with the practitioner's name on them. You may find that dermatologists have al