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A patient has just heard that treatment is no longer working. Their family is searching for another option. The room is quiet, but the physician may feel pressure to explain everything at once. This is where communication becomes part of the care itself. Conversations about terminal illness require more than clinical accuracy. Patients and families are processing uncertainty, fear and deeply personal values.

Dr. Erica Schwartz, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Connect South announced that Dr. Erica Schwartz, newly confirmed Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will participate in a fireside chat along with Samantha Brown-Parks, MD, MPH Regional Director HHS during the healthcare conference taking place on September 16 at the Georgia Aquarium. Dr. Schwartz will be one of the 45 healthcare leaders to speak at the conference.

Piedmont Atlanta Hospital has successfully treated the first patients in the Southeast in the PIANO IDE Trial. The study is testing two devices used to help treat brain aneurysms. Piedmont is the third site in the United States to join the PIANO Trial and the first in the Southeast to perform these procedures. The first two cases were led by Michael F.

Zachary Senders, MD Zachary Senders, MD, a fellowship-trained surgical oncologist, has joined Northeast Georgia Physicians Group (NGPG). Dr. Senders provides surgical care for patients with a wide range of cancers, including those affecting the liver, pancreas, biliary system, gastrointestinal tract, skin and soft tissue. Dr. Senders most recently worked with Penn Highlands Healthcare, caring for patients south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Patients treated with a new procedure for advanced thumb arthritis are shaking hands again at two weeks post-surgery, a milestone that used to take six months to a year. Illustration by M. Crespi for Eric Wagner, MD Georgians and those living in the Southeast now have access to a new surgical option for advanced thumb arthritis through Emory Healthcare, the first health system in the region to offer total thumb arthroplasty.

Chronic neck and back pain remain among the most common reasons patients present to primary care, and a substantial subset will fail conservative management with physical therapy, pharmacotherapy, and activity modification. For these patients, interventional pain procedures offer a middle path between conservative care and surgery.

Back pain is something most adults expect to experience at some point in their lives, but it can be surprising—and often concerning—when a child or teenager begins to complain of it. Many parents understandably worry that back pain in a young person may signal a serious underlying problem. Fortunately, this is rarely the case. The vast majority of back pain in children and adolescents is benign, mechanical in nature, and highly treatable.

Back and neck pain are among the most common complaints in clinical practice, affecting up to 80% of adults at some point in their lives. Despite its prevalence, the causes and presentations of these conditions are diverse, ranging from benign mechanical strain to serious structural pathology and possible neurologic compromise.

Ending a physician-patient relationship is rarely a decision healthcare providers make lightly. While continuity of care is the goal, situations such as repeated missed appointments, disruptive behavior, ongoing noncompliance or a breakdown in trust can make it difficult to provide safe, effective care. In these circumstances, practices may determine that terminating the relationship is the appropriate course of action. However, the decision itself is only part of the process.

Dr. Colleen Kelley Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains a major public health challenge in the United States.1 Approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV, and an estimated 13% do not know they have it.2 The Atlanta metro area had the third-highest rate of new HIV diagnosis among U.S. metro areas in 2021, accounting for more than half of all new HIV diagnoses in Georgia that year.3 Daily oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) can be highly effective to help prevent...