Pulse

Doctoring the Old-Fashioned Way

Susan Rutten, M.D., who practices out of her home in central Minnesota, makes house calls, shuns insurance, and recently found herself in the thick of a public health scare.

Getting Quick to Serve the Sick

The proliferation of retail-based clinics is forcing primary care doctors to re-examine the way they serve their patients.

Faith and Practice

Here’s how two family physicians are integrating their Christian beliefs with their medical practice in a time when faith and science often seem to be at odds.

Big Push

Minnesota doctors are slowly moving toward making mental health care an integral part of primary care.

Quality Rounds

When the Pain Won’t Go Away

By Scott D. Smith

Treatment for chronic low-back pain—often flawed, inconsistent, and costly—is now in the crosshairs of a national quality organization and a local insurer and provider. 

End Notes

House Calls

By Nancy J. Baker, M.D.

A family physician who carries a black bag carries on a family and medical tradition.

January 2006 | Table of Contents

Cover Story

Retooling Family Medicine

By Amy Snow Landa

Uneasy about the present and worried about the future, family physicians are remodeling their specialty in order to adapt to the changing health care environment and attract future physicians
to the neighborhood. 

Face to Face

Minimalist

By Kim Kiser

Sometimes on foot, sometimes on bike, Kenneth McMillan, M.D., delivers the most basic of primary care to patients on the streets of Minneapolis.

Avian Flu

A Pandemic of Fear

By Charles R. Meyer, M.D.

From Newsweek to the New York Times, media have fanned the flames
of flu fear. 

Avian Flu is Coming!

By Harry Hull, M.D.

The appropriate response to recent reports about avian flu and talk of a pandemic is neither hysteria nor apathy. It is, rather, acknowledgement of the threat coupled with appropriate emergency preparedness.

Commentary

The Crisis in Primary Care

By Judith A. Easley, M.D.

Are primary care physicians an endangered species?

Enhancing the Role of Internal Medicine Subspecialty Societies in Defining Quality of Care

By Jayant A. Talwalkar, M.D., M.P.H.

The subspecialty organizations within internal medicine ought to be actively involved in developing and promoting evidence-based practice standards.

Clinical and Health Affairs

Factors Influencing Patients’ Choice of Primary Medical Doctors

By Matthew E. Bernard, M.D., Jesse C. Sadikman, M.D., and Caren L. Sadikman, M.D.

 

The Minnesota Medical Home Learning Collaborative: A Step to Improving Care for Minnesota’s Children with Special Health Care Needs

By Jeffrey S. Schiff, M.D., M.B.A., and Ann Ricketts, M.P.H.

 

Editor's Note

Calling the Plays

 

MMA Viewpoint

Warning Bumps Can Direct Us to Better Care

 

MMA News

Mentoring Future Doctors
Juice, the New Cookie

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