Steve Wilson, PA-C, DFAAPA, FAPACVS

At the end and/or beginning of each year there is the ever present "Year in Review" or "Top Ten Whatever for 2011!" There are even a few of these for medicine. I found a couple but I accept no responsibility for their accuracy.

The Tour de France is taking place this month. The cyclists are quite remarkable, but despite the natural abilities of the participants, this race always seems to center on the debate about performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).

Clinical features, diagnosis, and treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome and pulmonary embolus are discussed.

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons has initiated a program specific for recruiting new physicians into the field of cardiac and thoracic surgery. It is the same for other specialties. Why bring this up in a PA blog? Because I believe as physicians go, so go the PAs.

I often listen to NPR's "All Things Considered" on my way home after work. One evening there was a story about the decreasing number of public defenders. In some states there is such a shortage that the attorney is actually reading the case while walking down the hall to the courtroom.

To commemorate JAAPA's 20th anniversary year, we are publishing a series of clinicalcases that will highlight and contrast the changes that have occurred in the practiceof medicine and surgery between 1987 and 2007.

I was struck by an article in The Wall Street Journal announcing that the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery had prohibited some authors from publishing in it because they did not fully disclose their affiliations with the companies that produced the products they discussed in their submitted and accepted manuscripts.

When I heard the news that JAAPA is now considering manuscripts on surgical topics, it gave me pause. I thought, why is this such big news?