25th August 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
Moderately severe to severe acne can have significant psychological harm associated with low self-esteem, poor perception of one’s body, social isolation, and depressive symptoms. Patients often believe that consumption of various food contribute to their acne development and severity. Although chocolate, fatty foods, and milk are frequently thought to be responsible is there any evidence on the role of nutrition in acne?…
27th July 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
Just pause and think for just one minute. Over the last 12 months, how many atrial fibrillations have you picked up incidentally on ECG? How many silent old acute myocardial infarct have you seen on ECG in a patient with diabetes? How many ST and T wave changes have you seen on ECG which suggest ischaemia which requires further investigations?…
26th July 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
Whenever we think about management of hyperglycaemia in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), we usually think about the most efficacious hypoglycaemic agent we can find (and on the PBS). If you look carefully at most management guidelines, lifestyle measures appears at the very top of the algorithm, side by side metformin. Sadly, it is often not the most prominent and usually, dismissed as an important part of the treatment algorithm.…
11th July 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
Another month, another change to the immunisation schedule. You must have heard about the major changes to schedule from 1st July. There are changes to who should get the pneumonia vaccines and which pneumonia vaccine they should get under the National Immunisation Program (NIP). Oh, that is, if they don’t run out of stocks again.…
22nd May 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
Let’s imagine we have a pregnant woman who tested positive for β-thalassaemia trait (minor) on antenatal screening blood tests. If both partners carry the same thalassaemia trait, there is a 25% chance of having a baby with thalassaemia major. Thus, we are advised to screen her partner for thalassaemia as well. Say, the partner’s blood picture is normal with no microcytosis and high performance cation-exchange chromatography (HPLC) shows normal levels of HbA2 and HbF.…
11th May 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
Although the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be under some control, we are still in danger of a second wave if we relaxed the social distancing rules too much too quickly. One of the big unknowns is what is the proportion of people with SARS-COV-2 who are asymptomatic? These are the people we are not testing.…
28th March 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
Covid-19 belong to the subfamily Coronavirinae in the family of Coronaviridae of the order Nidovirales, and this subfamily includes four genera: α-coronavirus, β-coronavirus, γ-coronavirus, and δ-coronavirus. The new 2019 nCoV (or Covid-19), which belongs to β-coronavirus can infect the lower respiratory tract and cause pneumonia in humans, but it seems that the symptoms are milder than SARS and MERS.…
25th March 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
They tell us that patients need to have 1) returned from overseas (any country will do now) OR been in contact with someone confirmed to have coronavirus infection AND 2) Flu symptoms with FEVER before we swab for Covid-19. Otherwise, we just reassure the patient that no they can’t have the swab and yes, they probably don’t have coronavirus infection.…
I told you last week that I am no expert and despite that I did write an article about the coronavirus. Well, I am doing that again this week but this time with a little more information and little bit more “expertise”. We have been getting oodles of feeds from many sources and I don’t know about you, but, all these bulletins really don’t help us working at the frontline.…
14th March 2020, Dr Chee L Khoo
I have been holding off writing about the coronavirus so far as I didn’t think that I have the expertise. I would be out of my depth. It’s been coming up to three months since the world woke up to Wuhan. It’s been 6 weeks since Australia banned all flights from China. It was only a matter of time before the virus run rampant in Australia causing mayhem.…
13th November 2019, Drs Chee Khoo & Sobhy Khalil
We have a contribution from our GP colleague this week. Dr Sobhy Hakeem KHALIL who thoroughly studied the ADA/EASD Management of Hyperglycaemia In Type 2 Diabetes, 2018 Consensus Report and provided his take on the guidelines. I have added my comments to his take (in blue):
14th September 2019. Dr Chee L Khoo
We all have patients similar to this presenting to the practice not that infrequently. This is a real case that I came across just recently. Joanne was referred to the practice by a friend of a friend. She had just been discharged from the local hospital after three weeks following amputation of the lateral two toes of her right foot.…