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TUESDAY, July 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. medical field is less dominated by white men than it used to be, but there are still few Black and Hispanic doctors, dentists and pharmacists, a new study finds.The study, which looked at trends over the past 20 years, found that white men no longer make up the majority of physicians and surgeons in the United States.By 2019, they accounted for about 44% of those positions nationally — down from 54% in 2000. That was due to an increase in women entering those fields, particularly white and Asian women.In contrast, there were only small increases in the percentages of Black and Hispanic female doctors, and almost no change for Black and Hispanic men.Meanwhile, similar patterns were found in dentistry and pharmacy — two other...

TUESDAY, July 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- A treatment commonly used to tackle an often painful Achilles tendon condition doesn't actually work, British researchers warn.At issue is "Achilles tendinopathy," a degenerative wear-and-tear disease that affects the critical tissue linking calf muscles to the heel.Patients have sought pain relief with a treatment -- embraced by a number of famous athletes -- that involves injecting platelet-rich plasma (PRP) directly into the tendon. Study author Rebecca Kearney explained that this involves taking a patient's own blood and "spinning it in a centrifuge to separate out the blood components, and then injecting one of the blood components -- which contains a high number of platelets that play an important role in the repair processes -- into the...

TUESDAY, July 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Anyone who's ever undergone knee replacement understands the real and troubling risk of post-op blood clots. Many patients are told take a daily blood thinner pill long after their procedure.But a new study finds that a one-time injection of an experimental blood thinner called abelacimab may greatly reduce the odds for these clots in recovering knee replacement patients.The researchers compared abelacimab with another prescription blood thinner called enoxaparin (brand name Lovenox) in 412 patients undergoing knee replacement.Compared to enoxaparin, a single injection of abelacimab reduced the risk of blood clots by 80% for up to a month after surgery, and didn't increase the risk of bleeding — a common side effect with blood...

TUESDAY, July 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- If you're a parent, here's another reason to encourage your kids to get a good education: Children's educational successes or failures can impact their parent's physical and mental health, new research suggests.For the study, researchers at the University at Buffalo in New York analyzed data from the ongoing U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health that began in 1994, and concluded that "it was detrimental to parents' self-reported health and depressive symptoms if none of their children completed college," said study co-author Christopher Dennison, an assistant professor of sociology."The negative mental health outcome of the parents was in fact our strongest finding," Dennison said in a university news release.The study...