Of all the trials and tribulations we can suffer in life, none is so devastating as the loss of a loved one.
Unfortunately, we will all eventually suffer such a great loss and the grief that it brings.
Believe it or not, a properly trained professional can help minimize the grief and help those sufferers to cope. Much of this horrible experience can be truncated, if not removed, by people who know what they are doing.
But it seems that most people don’t believe this, and some people will never learn. Read more on No Need To Suffer Through Grief — Get Help!…
Filed under End Of Life, Family by on Aug 26th, 2010. Comment. 
I first found out about this list of so-called “Influential Doctors“ in the USA Today newspaper and did not finish the article before I became aware of two powerful realities: 1. This list does not sound like it will help people who need a doctor, but more likely it will benefit someone else in the health care industry. 2. Nobody compiling a list of influential doctors is going to add me because I’m a professional pain in the rear-end of the other doctors on the list.
It sounds like one of those times when somebody is making money from patients pockets by marketing drugs or services, via insurance companies or drug companies.
Hello “parasite!” Hello person-making-money-from-sick-people without adding “value” to healing them. Read more on Turning The Brain Back Ten Years And Slowing The Decline…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease, Brain, Disease by on Aug 24th, 2010. Comment.
There seems to be a massive controversy about building a mosque near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York City. This is bothering people so much that somebody has asked the president to say something.
Well of course the man said something. And of course his words were “measured.” People seem to have forgotten that the country was founded on religious freedom. This bit about the Founding Fathers (and mothers — yes they did as much as they could) intending the USA being only for Christians is pretty much rubbish.
Was George Washington a Christian? Thomas Jefferson wrote in his private journal, Feb. 1800 — “Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself.” Read more on Politics, Religion and Sports: Forbidden Topics…
Filed under politics, Religion by on Aug 23rd, 2010. Comment.
“Innovative Health Care Programs?”
This seems to be the era of backwards-definitions. “No Child Left Behind” means a diminished budget and fewer programs for child education. “Compassionate Conservatism” means cutting programs for the unemployed, the medical indigent and the hungry. “Strategic Defense” means a full-speed-ahead attack.
The “Innovative Programs” article talks about are mostly supplied by The Greenfield group, where improved medical care is provided if people fork in some cash to get it. Also “Harvard Vanguard,” who loves to be the first to do things.
Since there is nothing but Harvard hospitals on the reality TV show Boston Med, I wonder if the Harvard Public relations people have descended to some all-invasive biological state, to infiltrate all media, and to try to get us to believe that they do things medically and surgically that are more advanced than other providers. Read more on Walls and Barriers To Providing Health Care…
Filed under Healthcare reform, politics by on Aug 20th, 2010. Comment.
I guess the death of Anna Nicole Smith has become old news. All I found in the daily newspaper was a short item saying that the trial was going on in Los Angeles.
After more than one internet search, the only mention I found of what is going on online is this one, in what seems to be a Seattle tabloid.
I strongly suspect that this is a road that has been travelled more than I know. After all, I am not exactly a celebrity watcher. Nevertheless, from what we already know about folks like Michael Jackson, and from what Dr. Nathalie Maullin seems to have said under oath, I think we have a pretty good idea of what it is like to be a drug-seeking celebrity.
First, I think it worth noting that Dr. Maullin was on staff at Cedars-Sinai at the time. Now putting aside the PR of the latter (it is allegedly the best in L.A.; they have ads and some top notch publicity firm–) Cedars Sinai is a hospital. I can testify that to be on staff at any clinic or hospital, they do a background check. Read more on Anna Nicole’s Doctors Couldn’t Have Made Worse Decisions If They Tried…
Filed under Addictions, medicine, prescription drugs by on Aug 19th, 2010. Comment.
I — and everybody — seems to enjoy it when neurochemical research links the seemingly distant mysteries of the brain to real everyday behavior, to feel-good acts, and such.
I am not sure that it is the stuff people should spend their whole careers on. But a single association between neurochemistry and holding hands has been enough for a previous posting.
Now the association between feelings of gratitude and lowered cortisol has delighted me so there is a smile on my face. I guess this is because it validates some of the pure observation from life kind of anecdotal advice that my grandmother of blessed memory would come up with. Things like “Roughage is good for you,” which later became “eat
fiber.”
The idea that gratitude is good for brain chemistry is so delightful and potentially validating for otherwise not too tough to validate behavior, that it has been joyously co-opted by coaches. They are an entrepreneurial lot who never bother with footnotes, not any more than they do with credentials. I mean, there is no regulation known to me about using the nomenclature “coach.” But on the other hand, they build careers and get paid with the results of their ministrations, a situation which I believe would send a fair amount of physicians to the poorhouse. Read more on Lower Cortisol By Giving Thanks…
Filed under Research by on Aug 18th, 2010. Comment.
People in an Australian study would rather have a pill than agree to eat chocolate daily for a chronic heart condition.
Some people have an idea why, but I will tell you the truth and the light.
After 30 years of practicing medicine in three different specialties, in three different countries, and in every kind of clinical situation anyone can imagine, I have come to a realization.
No matter how pleasant or non-invasive the alternative methods proposed, people want to just take a pill and get better. Read more on It’s Time For Your Daily Dose Of Chocolate…
Filed under Alternative Medicine by on Aug 17th, 2010. Comment.
This is the system we want to run health care.
Civil liberties get lost, people spend a lot of money writing spy reports and then don’t read them. There is little in government that works.
I know the system that the FDA wants for drugs does not work.
First, you know nobody will use it with diet and exercise as recommended. They are both dull, not fun, and in the literature I read changes that are increasingly modest seem to be acceptable, and take a team of cheerleaders. Even “natural” companies, like Metagenics, have gone and credentialed counselors to help with lifestyle changes. Read more on Diet Drugs: The Public Is The Loser…
Filed under eating disorders, medicine, weight by on Aug 17th, 2010. 2 Comments.
No small part of the life of psychiatrists (and other doctors, I suppose) is made up of writing papers and reports. A rather astonishing part of this are reports that are supposed to predict other people’s behavior.
This is basically impossible. I remember hearing and never forgetting, early in my training, a supposedly ironclad rule of behavior prediction.
“If they did it before, they will do it again.”
Sometimes it had slightly different forms, made to appear more authoritative. “Past behavior is the solidest predictor of future behavior.” Read more on Prediction and Propinquity…
Filed under relationships, Research by on Aug 14th, 2010. Comment.
When first we moved to an office in a bohemian section of town, my marketing efforts were as naive as they were enthusiastic. I walked into every shop in the neighborhood to introduce myself as a physician and psychiatrist who had recently moved in, and did some innovative things.
I especially remember my visit to a salon, where the customers, all male, (I said it was a bohemian section) told me about various troubles with their physical appearance; hardly my specialty, but I am open to doing what I can do in many context.
As soon as I returned to my office, I got a phone call asking if I could do a wart removal, and how quickly. I declined. I cannot be all things to all people. Read more on Warts And All…
Filed under medicine, Science by on Aug 13th, 2010. Comment.