I idolized the American medical establishment. When I was a mere Blue Cross number-collecting lackey working at the front desk of the Emergency Room of Massachusetts General Hospital, I sometimes saw, slipping into the doctors’ lounge, notable people — doctors whose surname in footnotes graced the basic core medical textbooks I was using as parallel reading in France, to prepare myself for my American examinations in medicine. I never wanted to penetrate more than the lowest echelons of the American medical establishment when I returned from France. I mean I doubted the Harvard-types would open their world to me easily, no matter how clever I was. I proved to be right. At a Harvard-associated residency program, I was actually asked at the interview if anyone in my family was a Harvard University trained physician. I still remember the program chairman’s barely muffled laughter when I told him my father held a graduate degree from the Harvard University School of music. Read more on Drug Misuse in American Medicine Leads to Possible Catastrophe…
Filed under Doctors, medicine, News, prescription drugs by on May 23rd, 2016. Comment. 
Okay, so my Continuing Medical Education Provider gave me every imaginable disclaimer on this one.
Abstracts at a meeting, so the demands were not as rigorous as for published articles. There could be confounding factors. A British study; maybe they aren’t wired the same way us yanks are. People who take a nap of at least a half hour during the day have lower blood pressure 4 mm. lower 24 hr. average systolic than folks who don’t. Espresso, on the other hand, raises blood pressure. This study was done on Italians. Are they wired like us? Drinking enough espresso may also be increasing the incidence of type 2 diabetes, by some kind of an effect on long term glucose (sugar) metabolism. Read more on Helpful Hints From A Former Caffeine Fiend…
One of the themes that keeps coming up in those little “newslets” for 15 minutes of Continuing Medical Education each is that systematic screening for several serious diseases, like cancers, is simply not as efficient as one wishes it were. At the very least, in terms of cost, it rarely pays. Sometimes people try to identify a subset of people who should be screened; but all too often, even that is a daunting task.
Some stalwart and doubtless realistic physicians sometimes suggest–screen patients who ask for it. This seems strikingly similar to the young doctor in Amiens who told me, that if he wanted to build a practice and feed his family, he had to give everyone antibiotics. It is that ancient trend of anti-intellectualism, patients who second-guess the doctor, people who are worried about their health– And yet, these people could argue that (they have paid their health insurance and earned what they think is good care), and they are individuals and not statistics. Read more on When To Screen For Things Medical That Could Kill…
Only 16% of all murder victims are members of the defendant’s family?
That’s according to the PDF file that pops open (or opens in your browser) when you click this link – and you must have the free Adobe Acrobat reader to see it. (Fortunately, it is included with most computers nowadays).
Actually, I am surprised to see the number is so small.
I am a little bit heartened to learn that only 20% are strangers.
This leaves 64 % that are friends and acquaintances. Read more on Your Family Really Can Kill You…
Filed under Family, medicine, News by on Nov 7th, 2014. Comment.
If I haven’t convinced everyone yet, I don’t know how.
I have written on this before.
Vaccination keeps kids alive. Kids who could die dead as door nails from preventable diseases.
Vaccination has very few side effects. Read more on We Can Fix This Vaccination Bit…
The first person I remember who approached me telling me clearly and articulately that uncertainty was his problem was Dr. W.
Not that he was (or ever could have been) a medical doctor. He was an engineer who had been laid off for being somehow “supernumerary” from Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas.
Very stable, very “establishment, a former president of the synagogue (where we had met) the late Dr. Larry Weller was the kind of guy who wore a necktie around the house, just because he was more comfortable that way. His wife was a sharp-as-a-tack social worker. He was continually thankful for this, as his two adult children were living and working elsewhere and the two of them could keep their home and live fairly well (with the occasional flight to New York to visit relatives) on her salary. Read more on Uncertainty Is A Tough Mistress…
Filed under medicine, News, Psychiatrists by on Sep 24th, 2014. Comment.
Humans are … well, strange. A fixed problem can become unfixed.
First, let’s take it on good authority this problem really has been fixed.
It has been fixed with vaccination.
Nobody wants problems. So why? Why is the number of measles cases suddenly rising? Read more on Rise In Measles From Lack Of Vaccination…
Filed under medicine, News by on Jun 11th, 2014. Comment.
I do not claim to be perfect but I DO claim to be a good doctor. Not just a good psychiatrist. Being a good doctor comes first.
One reason is that despite a lot of medical practice since graduation (I will admit to wincing a bit when I quote the figure in years–34) in multiple specialties, I still believe that taking care of other human beings and trying to help them through life is a sacred trust. I actually believe that doing what I do the best I can is more important to whatever religious future my soul can scrape up than showing up at public worship. Honest.
Another reason that I am a good doctor is that I am old enough that an amazing amount of bad medical things have happened to me. Often before I knew better, they were the side effects of prescription drugs. I now accept them only as temporary solutions. I would rather dive into the world of alternative natural substances — which do work — if the practitioner is someone who knows what they are doing which I do. Read more on Cholesterol Lowering and Drugs…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, medicine, News, prescription drugs, Research by on Apr 4th, 2014. Comment.
It is noble to teach the history and pharmacology of marijuana. After practicing as a medical marijuana doctor and writing some for The NORML Women’s Alliance, and Ladybud (among others), my endorsement of marijuana and its constituents as nothing less than medicinal marvels is a matter of public record.
What is going on in Florida is something very, very different indeed. Like the days of the Old West, when the gunslingers lived by the weapons on their holsters, now entrepreneurs are living on the cusp of an extraordinary wave of public opinion. The pro-marijuana opinion in these United States has never been higher, and those who watch, comment upon, and work in the field seem to have little doubt that a generalized legalization of use is not far away.
Recreational and medical use are very different entities. Read more on Tampa Marijuana School…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Government, medicine, News by on Mar 12th, 2014. Comment.
I was wearing my best pastel multicolor weave suit as I walked up the stairs of a drab gray Victorian mansion converted into a medical office on the outskirts of large mid-western city. It was a bit cool, early spring, and I had been through all of the other principal personalities in a fairly large and well respected neurosurgery department. The emeritus chief of the department — older, semi-retired, wrote hunks of textbooks about 20 years before; was the last one I had to see. Although nobody seemed wildly excited, I had “passed” the interviews to make it this far.
The Victorian mansion was the office building of the neurosurgical group that was the residency faculty. I was ushered into a richly furnished Victorian style office with antimacassars and gigantic velvet wing-backed chairs.
The father-to-us-all type neurosurgeon spent over five minutes asking me about France and my passion for the brain before asking me if my period gave me any problems. Read more on Women In Science Sore And Soar…
Filed under Education, Government, medicine, News by on Nov 20th, 2013. Comment.