Health and Medical Copywriter: Selected Work

You are a good candidate for ear reconstruction surgery if you are older than age five, in good overall health, and do not smoke. Being a smoker is particularly problematic because it slows the healing process by reducing the blood flow to the area. …

Regardless of how eager you are to have your ears pinned back or reshaped, it is vital to research the procedure and find the right plastic surgeon for you. When you are ready to proceed, start by finding a board-certified plastic surgeon for otoplasty in your area, since board certification gives you a reasonable assurance that your doctor is highly trained in ear corrections. At the time of your appointment, your doctor will conduct a complete medical history review, examine your ears, discuss the risks and benefits of the procedure, and share with you how much the surgery will cost.

Meditation is an ancient practice with numerous studies supporting its multitude of benefits to your health. Many people are surprised to hear that it even helps to improve your hearing. When you sit in silence and turn your attention within, you assist your body to regulate your blood pressure, blood flow, and normalize other physiological processes. …

This simple yet powerful practice encourages deep relaxation and increases blood flow to your brain. When you tune in to the sounds around you, or other ambient sounds such as birds chirping, you inadvertently work on your hearing, and over time your subconscious mind will assist in helping you notice smaller sounds you may have missed before. Meditating in a park allows you to immerse yourself in a whole host of different sounds, and doing deep breathing exercises as part of your meditation will oxygenate your blood and increase your circulation.

Jejunal feeding devices are specialized tools designed to deliver nutrition directly into the small intestine. Unlike conventional feeding tubes that pass through the stomach, these devices bypass the stomach entirely, offering a direct pathway for nutrients to enter the intestines. For children facing certain medical conditions, such as gastric outlet obstruction, gastroparesis, severe reflux, or aspiration of gastric contents, oral feeding or feeding through a gastrostomy device may prove ineffective or impractical. …

In such circumstances, jejunal feeding devices emerge as a vital solution, ensuring the essential delivery of nutrients and hydration to support growth and overall well-being. Proper placement of jejunal tubes is crucial for ensuring the safety and effectiveness of a child's nutrition support. The actual procedure for placing a feeding tube directly into the jejunum, part of the small intestine, is known as a jejunostomy, and endoscopy and fluoroscopy are visualization techniques that assist healthcare providers in guiding and confirming proper placement.

Urban trauma centers, particularly Level I facilities, are often well-equipped to handle REBOA procedures. These hospitals typically have a multitude of specialists, trauma surgeons, interventional radiologists, and others, who are not only trained in REBOA but use it regularly. This combination of expertise and experience means that when a critical case comes through the door, there's usually someone on hand who can confidently perform the procedure. …

Additionally, the availability of advanced imaging equipment and hybrid operating rooms can facilitate the fundamentals of EVTM, Endovascular Hybrid Trauma and Bleeding Management, which includes REBOA, and some urban centers are even exploring prehospital REBOA deployment, with studies showing the feasibility of placement in the field by specially trained EMS teams. The picture in rural areas is vastly different. Longer transport times to trauma centers are a significant hurdle, and millions of U.S. residents, particularly in rural areas, lack timely access to a trauma center.

Today, physicians no longer have complete discretion to prescribe whatever medication they deem necessary. With approximately 85% of all prescription drugs reimbursed under some managed care plan, doctors' decision-making is largely influenced by managed care formularies. Market access has become a critical issue for most commercial pharmaceutical companies. It is no longer sufficient to sell doctors strictly on the clinical benefits of a product to gain market share. …

As a result of the changing landscape, healthcare is now comprised of three main players from an industry perspective: patients, prescribers, and payers, with marketing and sales teams focused mainly on patients and prescribers while managed market teams concentrate on the payer side. Whether an organization has a pipeline full of innovative products or merely a few established pharmaceuticals, the possible success or failure of the portfolio will be affected by the existence of a well-founded managed care strategy, and pharma companies need to understand the priorities and decision-making processes of managed care organizations.

In the past, many pharmaceutical companies would send their representatives to visit doctors personally. This exhausted the resources of the companies and lacked accuracy and actionable insights. With the traditional way of sales promotion, broad-scale production wasn't possible. Thus, the ROI generated was comparatively lower. …

Today, the market is still at a fairly nascent stage, with significant challenges such as poor data integration, lack of investment in talent and technology, and limited stakeholder alignment. Applying big-data strategies to make better-informed decisions could generate substantial value annually across the U.S. healthcare system, according to research from a leading global consulting firm, by optimizing innovation, improving the efficiency of research and clinical trials, and building new tools for physicians, consumers, insurers, and regulators.

Studies have shown that following a mostly plant-based diet not only guards against getting diabetes in the first place, but it may also treat the disease more effectively than the diabetic diets frequently recommended to patients. Eat an organic diet loaded with low-glycemic foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains, and olive oil. …

Eliminate sugary, high-calorie processed foods. When you increase the number of whole plant foods in your daily diet, you will also be getting a lot more fiber, which improves blood sugar control, helps you lose weight, and keeps you feeling full. Another benefit of centering your diet around plenty of fresh, plant foods is that you will find yourself eating less animal protein, and while not every expert agrees on cutting back on meat and dairy, a number of studies support the idea, including a meta-analysis linking higher total meat consumption to a significantly higher risk of diabetes.

AHCC® comes in both capsule and powder forms. Capsules are convenient and easy to dose accurately. Powder can be mixed into water or juice, but some people find the taste earthy or bitter. I also recommend taking AHCC® at the same time every day. Immune modulation is gradual, so consistency is key. …

If you miss a dose, there is no need to double up, just resume your normal schedule. AHCC® does not produce overnight results, it supports gradual, lasting change in how the immune system functions. In clinical trials involving women with persistent high-risk HPV infections, negative test results were often observed after four to six months of continuous use, and some participants maintained negative results even after stopping the supplement. For best results, pairing it with good habits, enough sleep, balanced nutrition, hydration, and regular follow-up with a clinician, gives a supplement like this the best chance to work as part of a broader plan for health and prevention.

Chronic stress makes us more vulnerable to infections and diseases because as part of the stress response, the brain sounds the alarm bell by signaling the endocrine system to release an array of hormones. While these stress hormones help us get ready for fight or flight, they also drastically lower our immune system. …

According to experts, ongoing stress has such a dramatic impact on our immunity that a striking share of illnesses are thought to be rooted in it, and serious diseases such as cancer and heart disease are also believed to be driven in part by chemical reactions initiated by stress. In stressful situations, cortisol floods the body, leading to a drop in white blood cells, a decrease in Natural Killer cells, an increase in tumor formation, and an increase in tissue damage and risk of infection.

Fibromyalgia is the most common chronic pain condition in the United States that causes widespread muscular pain all over your body. Fibromyalgia affects about 10 million Americans, and approximately 3-5% of the world's population. If you have fibromyalgia, you may feel pain in any part of your body with no apparent cause. …

Some people describe this overall body pain as aching, burning, or throbbing, and for the majority, symptoms are most painful upon waking, gradually subsiding throughout the day. Even though the pain of fibromyalgia alone can be disabling enough, other health issues often diminish quality of life further. Chronic fatigue syndrome has been closely linked to fibromyalgia, and disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, heavy menstruation, and temporomandibular joint syndrome may also be present.

Search engines and websites have truly become the preferred sources of health information. According to a 2018 survey, 80 percent of American adults have used the internet to search for healthcare-related information during the preceding year. The results of the same poll also showed that 63 percent of people choose a provider over another because of a robust online presence. …

Unlike what most believe, it isn't only younger generations who have been influenced by the digital realm, a majority of survey participants aged 60 and over also conducted an online search for healthcare-related information that year. The new patient journey starts online, and a practice has to become an active participant in shaping its own online presence, which reaches far beyond a website into consumer sites, directories, review sites, and social media. Nurturing the patient relationship should guide every action, online and offline alike.

A growing number of health consumers turn to Dr. Google instead of their primary care physicians when looking for answers to their health concerns. Not being upfront about the price of services rendered by doctors and hospitals is a real deterrent to many people which greatly diminishes the healthcare experience. …

In the old days, patients were likely to follow their doctors' advice and adhere to the suggested treatment plans. Today most will think twice about filling their prescriptions; a meaningful share of new prescriptions never even get filled, largely due to cost and a lack of price transparency, a pattern tied to increased morbidity, mortality, and higher rates of hospitalization. People are also increasingly aware of the risks associated with long-term prescription use, with a large share of the U.S. adult population now turning to some form of non-mainstream medical approach alongside conventional care.