Richard Rathe, MD

Associate Professor of Family Medicine (ret.) and Medical Informatician
12
Apr


closed

Exemplary Teacher Award 2016

By •• Posted in Teaching

 

Thanks to My Students & Colleagues!

Tagged as: ,  
 
19
Oct


closed

Approach to Cough Algorithm and Podcast

By •• Posted in Medicine, Podcast

I recently updated my lecture on cough, given to third-year medical students and residents. It presents an algorithm I developed based on the omnibus supplement published in the journal Chest and other sources. Here is a quick summary of key points that are often missed  by primary care physicians…

  1. Acute cough is largely due to viral infections and therefore antibiotics are NOT indicated.
  2. There is growing evidence that first generation antihistamines are the drugs of choice for undifferentiated acute cough.
  3. Post-infectious cough is the most common etiology for cough lasting between 3-8 weeks.
  4. Secondary causes of cough (reactive airways, GERD, post-nasal drip) should be considered based on symptoms and time course.
  5. In areas of high TB prevalence consider testing for active disease in any patient with a cough lasting more than two weeks (WHO recommendation).

I concise version of the lecture is available as a podcast.

The lecture handout is available in PDF format.

 

 
 
29
Sep


closed

A Guide to Medical History Taking

By •• Posted in Medicine, Teaching

Always start with the standard questions applied to the patient’s Chief Concern(s): Location/Radiation; Quality/Severity; Duration (total/episode)/Frequency; Aggravating/Relieving Factors; Associated Symptoms/Effect on Function.

It is useful to think of the secondary history as a Focused Review of Systems (ROS). These questions often bring out information that supports a certain diagnosis or helps gauge the severity of the disorder. Unlike the primary history, a certain amount of interpretation (and experience) is necessary.

The tertiary history brings in elements of the Past Medical and Family History that have a bearing on the patient’s condition. By the time you get to the tertiary history you may already have a good idea of what might be going on. Read More…

 
 
30
Aug


closed

Web-Based Audience Response System

By •• Posted in Evaluation, Teaching

Canvass ARS is a flexible and scalable program for polling a live audience. Instructors have the choice to use it as a stand-alone presentation tool, or integrate it with presentation software such as Powerpoint. It blends easily with other instructional technologies such as teleconferencing, streamed video events and Webinars. The audience is not limited to a single physical location. You can also use it to record votes during a meeting. In fact, you could run an entire presentation with audience responses from your smartphone! Read more…

 
 
4
Apr


closed

My Twitter Feed(s)

By •• Posted in General

I have begun using Twitter for links to articles and other sites on a daily basis.

My Twitter address is: http://twitter.com/richardrathe

 

My personal twitter address is: http://twitter.com/richard_rathe

 
 
10
May


New Course Evaluation Form

By •• Posted in Evaluation

new-course-eval-form

See example posted on posted on the MedInfo site.

 
 
11
Dec


closed

Welcome

By •• Posted in General

Welcome to my “revised” site.

I’m in the process of switching from my old static site to WordPress.

The main page from the old site is now the About page for this site.

You may also be interested in my personal Reading Room site.

As they say, “Please pardon our dust!”

RR