
{"id":24081,"date":"2012-02-23T15:08:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T20:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=24081"},"modified":"2012-02-23T15:08:15","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T20:08:15","slug":"house-calls-february-23-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2012\/02\/23\/house-calls-february-23-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"House Calls, February 23, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2012\/01\/19\/house-calls-january-19-2012\/stethoscope-4\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-22924\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"stethoscope-4\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-22924\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4-113x70.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4-150x94.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/stethoscope-4-100x62.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><em>Practicing family physicians from the <strong>UNC Department of Family Medicine<\/strong> have teamed up with<\/em> <strong>The Carrboro Citizen<\/strong> <em>to bring you a weekly feature responding to your questions about health and medicine. Send your questions or comments to yourhealth@unc.edu<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This week we respond to questions about syphilis and blood types.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear <strong>HOUSE Calls<\/strong>, My brother was recently diagnosed with syphilis. He was treated at a free clinic and got a prescription but did not get any better. He went back and had to get another prescription. Is there any difference in the quality of care given at a free clinic versus a private practice?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We generally feel that the level of care given at free clinics is excellent. They often have an impressive staff of volunteers to help with pharmacy needs, care management and other types of therapy. The clinicians usually work in private practice or are retired from private practice and are generally very skilled. There are some downsides to free clinics. Because they are staffed by a rotation of fill-in doctors, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very hard to develop a relationship with a primary-care physician. They sometimes are not well set up for continuity care but offer excellent acute and episodic care. They may not have a full range of resources, such as medicines, and might have to settle for a second choice for a condition. The alternative might be filling a prescription at a drugstore, which many clients at a free clinic cannot afford. Specific to your brother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s condition, syphilis has different stages, and in later stages can be harder to treat. It is usually best treated with injectable penicillin, and the number of injections varies with the stage. The free clinic might not have had the injectable penicillin, or perhaps your brother is allergic to it. If things don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem right, the health department is another excellent resource for communicable diseases.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear <strong>HOUSE Calls<\/strong>, I give blood regularly. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m told that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m type O negative and the Red Cross loves it. What does that mean?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It is great that you give blood regularly, especially because you are O negative. This means you are a universal donor. Basically, anybody can accept your blood. Most people have to be cross-matched to a specific blood type to receive blood, but your blood can be received by anyone, and in an emergency we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll use O negative to transfuse somebody we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have time to type. The bad news about your blood type is that you are the most restrictive receiver of blood. You can only get blood from other people with O negative blood. We should say that blood is needed from people with all types of blood. Consider giving blood if you are in good health. Your body will build that blood back up in no time, and you may be saving a life. Check with your local American Red Cross for upcoming blood drives.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>House Calls<\/strong> is a weekly column by <strong>Dr. Adam Goldstein<\/strong>, <strong>Dr. Cristy Page<\/strong> and <strong>Dr. Adam Zolotor<\/strong> on behalf of Your Health and the UNC Department of Family Medicine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week we respond to questions about syphilis and blood types.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":22924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-house-calls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24081"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24083,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24081\/revisions\/24083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}