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Adrenal Surgery
Explaining the Options to Your Patient By lAurA FreemAn
Sometimes the first sign of trouble is a set of labs that don’t make sense. Or it could be an incidental finding on a scan for something else. The radiologist spots a nodule where a nodule shouldn’t be. “You may also be trying to find out why a patient with high blood pressure isn’t responding to any combination of medications you’ve prescribed,” Justin Malek, MD with Advanced Surgeons said. “As you rule out possibilities, you see the levels of adrenal hormones in the patient’s blood and then you have a pretty clear idea of what is going on.” Whether a physician is dealing with an adrenal gland gone rogue and over-
Justin Malek MD
producing, or a nodule that could be producing hormones or harboring a budding malignancy, it’s likely the patient will need a surgical consult for input to help decide what should happen next. “While adrenal surgery isn’t as common as some other endocrine surgeries, it helps to refer the patient to someone who has done enough to be familiar with some of the more subtle factors,” Malek said. “There are several issues to consider. For example, although (CONTINUED ON PAGE 4)
Cullman Internal Medicine First in State With CorVista Machine Learning Bypasses Need for Some Invasive Procedures By JAne ehrhArdt
A new noninvasive diagnostic technology can quickly assess the likelihood of coronary artery disease (CAD) and pulmonary hypertension (PH) at the time of evaluation. Arriving first in Alabama at Cullman Internal Medicine, a 23-physician practice, the CorVista system utilizes machine learning to analyze
a patient’s cardiac signals, bypassing the need for invasive procedures to identify potential several cardiovascular issues at the point of care. Cullman Internal Medicine has referred patients to the cardiologists at the Cullman Regional Medical Group Cardiology Clinic (CRMGCC). “We have now employed CorVista technology in our cardiology office, and also in the hos-
pital setting, to help us streamline diagnosis,” says Tracy Neal, MD, a cardiologist with CRMGCC. In the two months since the clinic started using CorVista, they have already seen the device’s accuracy save a life. A (CONTINUED ON PAGE 4)
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