After studying in several institutions of higher learning in several nations, I always feel strange when I learn something from television. Especially network daytime television.
When my husband attended elementary school in rural Kansas, he tells me that the school nurse checked the kids for head lice. In mine, in suburban Boston Massachusetts, it would have taken the school nurse a whole year. So in third grade, when I happened to be in public school for a little bit, my humongously obese but friendly schoolteacher checked the whole class and found two kids out of about thirty and sent them to the nurse. Me, she told me to brush my hair a lot because my curly frizz got tangled. Read more on Killing Head Lice With An (Expensive) Sledge Hammer…
Filed under Diagnosis, News by on Mar 24th, 2011. Comment. 
I remember the pain of being the fat person on an airplane, waiting for the stewardess to finish demonstrating how the seat belt had to be buckled. Was there really someone on the plane who had never buckled an automobile seat belt, who did not know how this apparatus was supposed to work? Sitting dutifully through the safety procedures description was a reason to squint, to ignore while seeming to listen. Then, the stewardess would hand off the seat belt example, which was really an extender. Suddenly, the fat woman could feel safe, and ignore her extender, as the belt fastened low on the hips, just like everyone else.
The “growing problem” (pardon my attempt at humor) of larger-size people is not a reason for guilt, but it is an obvious factor in the safety of transports. Obesity in America is the function of an over-processed food supply that addicts people to foods. Of this I am sure, having seen too many examples, including myself. Personal responsibility, detailed descriptions of the determinants of leptin secretion, none of these helped this morose fatty when there were only one or two in sight in any group.
Now there are more – scads more. Every time you walk into a room there are so many heavy-weights that there seems to be nothing else.
If these people are anything like I was nearly 200 lbs. ago, they want mutual support instead of guilt trips. Read more on Don’t Pick On The Heavyweights…
Filed under eating disorders, weight by on Mar 24th, 2011. Comment.
If this is the first time you’re reading my blog – Welcome!
If not, you know that I’m … ummm … mature and that I’ve been restless enough to study many branches of medicine.
My current credential is in psychiatry, and like Rodney Dangerfield, we shrinks “Don’t get no respect.” Read more on Researchers Are Short-Sighted When Looking At Data…
Filed under depression, Diagnosis, Research by on Mar 25th, 2011. Comment.
Here are some phrases that you might not expect to hear sweet, friendly Dr. G use very often:
“No, there is no way in hell I am going to renew that prescription as written.”
“Read my lips. No more oxycodone. We gotta get you into a rehab, sweetie.”
“Sure, you can see another doctor. I don’t know how long it will take to get an appointment. If I am your doctor, you go on a tapering schedule. Today.”
“If I did what you want, I could kiss my license goodbye. I am not prescribing outside my specialty and certainly not this crap. Yes it is crap. I am sorry you don’t like how I talk, but it is crap. I can start getting you off it.”
These are all things I have actually said. Usually loud, yelling over the patient. Read more on Pill Mills Are Death Traps — Marginally Legal…
Filed under Addictions, prescription drugs by on Mar 28th, 2011. Comment.
My psychopharmacology preceptor told me a long time ago that the best and most efficient way to know what is happening in pharmacology is to check out the business news. He was right.
I want to applaud the FDA for doing something perhaps a bit audacious, surely without precedent, but something I consider correct and appropriate.
They declined acceptance of Contrave, a pill for obesity, and requested a longer term and larger study.Bravo. It’s rare that I give the FDA a “standing O.” The folks at Orexigen pharmaceuticals concocted Contrave — an amalgam of 400mg. of Wellbutrin sustained release and a couple of different doses of naltrexone, 48 and 16 mg. Here is the clinical trials record if you are interested. Read more on Prescription Diet Drug Makes Food Taste Horrible…
Filed under News, prescription drugs, weight by on Mar 29th, 2011. Comment.
When a woman becomes a surgeon, she doesn’t necessarily have to give up her femininity – but she often has to make sacrifices.
I enjoy nail polish, but that’s not the reason I switched specialties from neurosurgery to psychiatry. The upside is that I can now indulge myself and my nails.
At first, when I was still in residency, I would sometimes sit on and hide my nails when I was around someone who had a good a professional salon nail-do. Now I do not much care, as I am more mature and more self-confident. My nails are polished with some generic enamel from a discount store in a single color, and I apply the lacquer myself. If you inspect them at any random time, you will probably find them plenty chipped. If someone ever noticed — and critical women patients occasionally do — I remind them that those nails were attached to the hands that wrote the prescriptions, so they were good enough for now. The answers didn’t matter. Mostly there is none. Sometimes a woman would say, as this one did, “You are nice looking for a doctor, so I thought I should remind you…” “Feh,” I thought but did not say. I refocused on the job at hand. Nails are more important to some other people. Sometimes more important than health. Read more on Since When Is Sugar A Vitamin?…
Filed under News by on Mar 31st, 2011. Comment.
Beware the rare tree octopus, for he/she is in reality possessed of a frightening power. For this animal can show us how the internet has rendered us gullible.
This was an internet hoax, apparently created by Lyle Zapato in 1998. It not only persists, but grows.
I had suspected that people believed anything if it appeared on a television screen, but this way far beyond adolescents believing Hannah Montana lives and has a double life as a plain, ordinary high school girl. This research seems to have been picked up by — would you believe — the British Daily Mail, people who speak the same language we do although with quite a bit of “panache.” Read more on Chasing The Tree Octopus…
Filed under Research by on Mar 31st, 2011. 2 Comments.