Rarely mentioned: how we arrived at the quantitative definition of a rare disease.

Patients' difficulty obtaining medications for rare diseases and the advocacy of mothers led to a compelling and convoluted story of the development of the Orphan Drug Act (ODA) of 1983. While valid criticisms of the ODA remain, articles continue to be published on its ongoing beneficent influence. As hoped, ODA tax incentives stimulated research to develop pharmaceutical interventions for rare diseases.

Peace, love, music, health care, and irony at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival.

Myron Gittell's 2009 book, , is a compelling treatise referencing health care at Woodstock. Gittell's work partially informs this article about the iconic 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. About 400,000 people attended the concert, though organizers had initially planned for only 50,000.

Non-hospitalized Adults with COVID-19 Differ Noticeably from Hospitalized Adults in Their Demographic, Clinical, and Social Characteristics.

The characteristics of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have primarily been described in hospitalized adults. Characterization of COVID-19 in ambulatory care is needed for a better understanding of its evolving epidemiology. Our aim is to provide a description of the demographics, comorbidities, clinical presentation, and social factors in confirmed SARS-CoV-2-positive non-hospitalized adults.

Collaborative patient- and family-centered care for hospitalized individuals: Best practices for hospitalist care teams.

Traditionally, hospital medicine services have been dominated by the physician and hospital team, with significant barriers to patient- and family-centered care. This article offers principles and associated strategies to reduce those barriers and guide implementation of systemically informed, collaborative, and culturally responsive patient- and family-centered care provided by hospitalist care teams, especially regarding collaborative decision-making for treatment and discharge planning. Such an approach is associated with reduced lengths of stay and hospital costs and lowered rates of medical errors and mortality.

The Oslerian legacy in the Southern states.

In the pages of , in 1919, William Osler's colleague Lewellys Barker published a piece entitled "Osler and the South." Using glowing terms but with startling inaccuracy, Barker described Osler's relationship with the South and Southerners. Essentially, the brief communication was a happy birthday letter.

The prevalence and impact of psychiatric symptoms in an undiagnosed diseases clinical program.

In 2008, the NIH launched an undiagnosed diseases program to investigate difficult to diagnose, and typically, multi-system diseases. The objective of this study was to evaluate the presence of psychiatric symptoms or psychiatric diagnoses in a cohort of patients seeking care at the Emory Special Diagnostic Service clinic. We hypothesized that psychiatric symptoms would be prevalent and associated with trauma exposure, and a decreased quality of life and functioning.

(gunshot wound).

Fading from the vernacular, the Latin phrase is a quaint, mystifying, and fascinating term that is translated as . There is a fulminating paucity of published information regarding the meaning of this term and the etymology. Trauma surgeons, military surgeons, and scholars of the medical aspects of the civil war may be familiar with the term.

Mentoring: A tale of two poems, filling graveyards, and learning the art of medicine.

Polar approaches to mentoring are reflected in this pair of poems, which on first inspection appear to be unrelated. Mentoring comes in different forms, and combining medicine, mentoring, and poetry in one essay is an opportunity to explore the vital role mentoring plays in medical education. A nod toward the humanistic side of medicine is also illuminated by the selected poetry and associated discussion.

A tale of Congress, continuing medical education, and the history of medicine.

Well-intentioned attempts by the Senate Finance Committee to improve the content and quality of continuing medical education (CME) offerings had the unanticipated consequence of decimating academically oriented history of medicine conferences. New guidelines intended to keep CME courses free of commercial bias from the pharmaceutical industry were worded in a fashion that caused CME officials at academic institutions to be reluctant to offer CME credit for history of medicine gatherings. At the 2013 annual conference of the American Association for the History of Medicine, we offered a novel solution for determining CME credit in line with current guidelines.

The Osler Societies: a qualitative and quantitative portrait.

Over 700 presentations have been given at the meetings of the American Osler Society (AOS) since its inception in 1970. Fully half of these have treated various aspects of Osler's personal and professional life. Many have dealt with Osler's specific contributions to an array of medical specialties.

Prevalence of and risk factors for colonization with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in an outpatient clinic population.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization in an outpatient population and to identify risk factors for MRSA colonization.

Design: Surveillance cultures were performed during outpatient visits to identify S. aureus colonization.