Area doctors will answer health questions

Yuma-area residents will soon be able to get medical opinions without necessarily having to make an appointment with a doctor.

The Yuma County Medical Society is urging area residents to submit health questions for response by area doctors in Medical Opinion, a column that will appear in The Sun's Monday Health section.

The medical society volunteered to do the question-and-
answer column for The Sun to provide public education as part of its community service, said Dr. Sultan Lalani, a Yuma ear, nose and throat surgeon who is president of the medical society.

While The Sun has offered Ask the Doctor, a question-and-answer column from an out-of-town physician, the new feature will provide a greater local perspective to health topics, said Lalani.

"We felt there is a need to have ... patients of the Yuma community to be able to ask questions to their local physicians."

The Ask the Doctor column will continue to run interchangeably with the local question-and-answer column.

Residents can submit their health questions to the Yuma County Medical Society by e-mail to mma2450@earthlink.net or by mail to P.O. Box 4476, Yuma 85366.

The questions will be screened by a society panel, then distributed to appropriate physician members to be answered. The questions and answers will appear in The Sun's Health section.

The questions have to be health-related and cannot concern issues such as billing, Lalani said. They can be written anonymously and the person's problem can be simply stated without medical terminology.

The medical society is made of physicians from every medical specialty, said Lalani. "All the panel members from the Yuma County Medical Society are board-certified in their specialty and practicing in this community."

Lalani stresses that Medical Opinion is just that - opinion. For complete advice, residents should see their physicians.

The column is scheduled to begin either in June or July, said Lalani, and will run every Monday if enough questions are sent in.

Lalani said the column can help both Yuma-area residents and the doctors.

"We would rather see the patients in the community ... knowledgable in
health topics. The knowledgable patient is always better for us than patients that we have to explain everything (to). So it helps both ways - health education and it's part of the medical community service."

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SAMPLE QUESTION

Q: How dangerous is TB, how can it be avoided?

A: Tuberculosis is a disease as old as mankind but still dreaded by all cultures. Prior to the advent of antibacterial agents, it meant death to some, isolation to many and misery to multitudes. It was a disease that escaped detection until it was well on its way to your destruction. It was found in ancient man and shadows mankind today. Its primary adversary is improved economics. A prosperous economy means less tuberculosis. Poverty breeds the disease. Public education regarding tuberculosis is almost equal to the use of antibiotics as far as prevention is concerned.

Active tuberculosis is primarily a lung problem. However, any organ in the body can become infected with TB but the lung is chief source of the infection. It is transmitted by the air we breathe. It is dose-related, for the longer you breathe in the infected air, the greater risk of the disease.
A person with active TB and on medication is regarded as non-infectious. This is the reason for laws that force people to take medication or face jail time. Children and the elderly are the most susceptible victims. Therefore, detection of TB in teachers, doctors, nurses and other caregivers must be certain.

Once the presence of the tuberculosis bacterium is proved to be in your body, therapy is needed. Even though the symptoms are not present, the TB bacteria can become active years after it enters the body. This therapy is called prophylaxis. Treating the active disease is a no brainer. Prevention is far easier. Treating drug-resistant TB is becoming a major problem. It results from poor, inadequate treatment.

- By Dr. Dale F. Webb is the former TB control officer for the Yuma County Health Department.