Hygiene Can Hurt

Can reassurance hurt ?

What you can't see can hurt you!

What You Can’t See Can Hurt You! Summer is here, the weather is warm and thoughts turn to sandy beaches and sunbathing as well as outdoor sports. While we may think to protect our skin from sunlight, we tend to forget about the eye. Both visible and invisible or ultraviolet (UV) portions of sunlight can damage the eye, lids and surrounding skin. The nature of the injury varies with the amount a...

What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us

T he sexual health of midlife women is a topic often overlooked by both primary care providers and researchers. Traditionally, sexual health research and risk reduction strategies have focused on younger women who have higher rates of sexually transmitted infection (STI) and unintended pregnancy.1,2 However, there is now evidence that midlife women are at greater risk of new STIs and unintended...

Tuberculosis: what we don't know can, and does, hurt us.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis has a penetrance of its host population that would be the envy of most human pathogens. About one-third of the human population would have a positive skin test for the infection and is thus thought to harbor the bacterium. Globally, 22 "high-burden" countries account for more than 80% of the active tuberculosis cases in the world, which shows the inequitable distribut...

Can words hurt? Patient-provider interactions during invasive procedures.

Patients are often prepared for procedural discomforts with descriptions of pain or undesirable experiences. This practice is thought to be compassionate and helpful, but there is little data on the effect of such communicative behavior. This study assesses how such descriptions affect patients' pain and anxiety during medical procedures. The interactions of patients with their healthcare provi...