Kathy Stone

epilepsy, migraine, headache, Parkinson disease, parkinsonism

general neurology

Subspecialization within the practice of neurology is now reality with the recent approvals of subspecialty designations for neuromuscular pathology, headache medicine, and neuro-oncology. The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Committee on Neuromuscular Pathology sponsored the neuromuscular pathology membership application. Two associations--the AAN Headache and Facial Pain Section and the American Headache Society--sponsored the headache medicine application.

Plenty of data show that a greater share of physicians practice in urban than in rural areas. The Council of Graduate Medical Education called it geographic maldistribution, "one of the most enduring features on the American health landscape," and said that it is likely to continue until universal health care is enacted.

Joseph I. Sirven, MD, and Joseph F. Drazkowski, MD, neurologists at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, led a recent study in partnership with the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University (ASU) to determine how well medical risks and treatment advances for neurologic conditions are conveyed in US newspaper articles.

Joseph I. Sirven, MD, and Joseph F. Drazkowski, MD, neurologists at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, led a recent study in partnership with the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University (ASU) to determine how well medical risks and treatment advances for neurologic conditions are conveyed in US newspaper articles.1 Their findings reveal that coverage of neurologic disorders does not always correlate with the prevalence of the disorders and that more collaboration is needed between journalists and neurologists to better educate the public.

With all the talk about electronic medical records (EMR) and hundreds of products flooding the market, why aren't more physicians adopting the technology? The Institute of Medicine's 1991 watershed report on computer-based patient records1 spurred widespread excitement and inspired many information technology (IT) companies to invest in the development of new health care products.

Long before the term "neurology" was coined and the brain was wholly mapped and labeled in illustrations by Thomas Willis (English anatomist and physician) in the mid-1600s, healers were trying to understand the cause of headaches and bring relief to sufferers. Willow bark, the "natural aspirin," has been in continual use for headache relief for more than 2000 years by Native Americans and Europeans. Once a contemporary of such therapies as the application of an electric catfish to an aching head (Egypt), and cutting a hole in the skull and inserting a clove of garlic for 15 hours (Arabia), it has withstood the test of time.