Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary



Latest Posts

Saved By Dance: One Doctor’s Story Of Burnout And Recovery

No Comments »

By Susan Biali, M.D.

Ten years ago, I was an emergency medicine resident and wanted to die. Today, I’m a general practitioner in part-time practice and in love with life. What made the difference? I signed up for a dance class.

Reports on physician burnout list the personality traits that set us up for trouble: we’re excessively conscientious, feel overly responsible, want to please everyone, and function on an extremely high level –- even if we’re overloaded, exhausted, or our personal life is falling apart. We burn out because we bend over backwards to help others, until something (like our minds or our health or our marriages) finally snaps. Now imagine this: what if we took some of that deep caring and hyper-responsibility, and turned it on ourselves? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Genius On The Edge - The Life Story Of Dr. William Stewart Halsted

No Comments »

I am one who loves medical history and Genius On The Edge - the bizarre double life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted, was a captivating read. For those who don’t know, Dr. Halsted is known as the “Father of Surgery” and practiced medicine after the civil war. Written by author physician, Dr. Gerald Imber, the medical facts are sound and the story is fascinating for any reader.

We learn that in 1850 there was no anesthesia, no knowledge of germs, no IVs or blood transfusions and no more than 200 surgeries a year were performed because the outcomes were usually disastrous. The patient who needed emergency surgery died of overwhelming infection, gangrene or shock from blood loss.

Dr. William Halsted, like all physicians of that time, was born into wealth and privilege. He began his training in 1875, ten years after Louis Pasteur showed sour milk was caused by a bacteria and when Robert Koch was able to cultivate the anthrax bacillus. At a time when surgeons were not washing their hands and were operating in dirty clothes, the concept of antisepsis was a critical advance that Dr. Halsted seized for his own training. Medical Schools were for-profit trade schools and no laboratory or clinical work was required but like many wealthy young physicians, he traveled to Europe to study the newest techniques. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Book Review: Genius On The Edge

No Comments »

I received a free copy of the book, Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted by Gerald Imber, MD, a week ago.  I have enjoyed reading it.  The book is the biography of Dr Halsted, but also gives you a glimpse into the life of many other great medical figures:  William Osler, William Henry Welch, Harvey Cushing, etc.  (photo credit)

In many ways it is a history of medicine/surgery in America.  Halsted was very influential in bringing aseptic techniques to surgery and introduced the residency training system.  He used his knowledge of anatomy to improve surgical technique.  He performed the first successful hernia repair and radical mastectomy for breast cancer.

Early in his career Halsted became addicted to cocaine while experimenting with the drug for use as a local anesthetic.  Treatment at the time, involved substituting morphine for cocaine.  Halsted spent 40 years of his life struggling with his addiction to both cocaine and morphine. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

Book Review: Time to Care: Personal Medicine in the Age of Technology

No Comments »

time2careIn 1925, Francis Peabody famously said “The secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient.” A new book by Norman Makous, MD, a cardiologist who has practiced for 60 years, is a cogent reminder of that principle.

In Time to Care: Personal Medicine in the Age of Technology, Dr. Makous tackles a big subject. He attempts to show how modern medicine got to where it is today, what’s wrong with it, and how to fix it. For me, the best part of the book is the abundance of anecdotes showing how medicine has changed since Dr. Makous graduated from medical school in 1947. He gives many examples of what it was like to treat patients before technology and effective medications were introduced. He describes a patient who died of ventricular fibrillation before defibrillators were invented, the first patient ever to survive endocarditis at his hospital (a survival made possible by penicillin), a polio epidemic before polio had been identified as an infectious disease, the rows of beds in the tuberculosis sanitariums that no longer exist because we have effective treatments for TB. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

No Comments »

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 250px.jpgThis past weekend’s international science communication conference, ScienceOnline2010, also saw the first, final hardback copies of Rebecca Skloot’s long-awaited book make it into the hands of the science and journalism consuming public. Moreover, an excerpt of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has just appeared in the new issue of Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine. And already, those online science communicators who left the conference with Skloot’s book are registering their praise via this Twitter feed that was so active it was a trending topic at the science aggregator, SciencePond.

The story of the rural, Virginia woman who descended from slaves and developed cervical cancer in the early 1950s is notable most obviously for her tumors giving rise to HeLa, the first immortalized human cell line continuously maintained in culture. I have noted previously my enthusiasm for this story as both a long-time admirer of Skloot’s writing and the fact that HeLa played a central role in my PhD thesis work and first papers from my independent laboratory. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*

Book Review: FDR’s Deadly Secret (Malignant Melanoma)

2 Comments »

Earlier today I wrote a short article which resulted in correspondence with one of the authors of the new book, ‘FDR’s Deadly Secret’ by Steven Lomazow and Eric Fettmann.

Dr. Steven Lomazow sent me a copy of his Archives of Dermatology article with Dr. Bernard Ackerman, this photo, and a pdf of his book which I have spent the afternoon reading.

The article goes through a series of photos of FDR from his younger days to his older ones, showing the progression and changes. From the article: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

Book Review Of Coppola: A Pediatric Surgeon In Iraq

No Comments »

War can paradoxically bring out the best in people. Despite the violence, tragedy, and pain, there are moments of kindness, compassion, and brave camaraderie. Soldiers band together as brothers and sisters under terrible

circumstances to offer their lives in support of a nation they deem just and vulnerable. Often they are terribly wounded. Families on both sides of the conflict suffer and grieve sickening losses. The reasons for war seldom justify the human misery it causes, but perhaps one type of soldier has the luxury of always being on the right side. Consider the medic, nurse, or military doctor. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles*

Book Review: All Medicines Are Poison!

No Comments »

That’s the title of a new book by Melvin H. Kirschner, M.D. When I first saw the title, I expected a polemic against conventional medicine. The first line of the Preface reassured me: “Everything we do has a risk-benefit ratio.” Dr. Kirschner took the title from his first pharmacology lecture in medical school. The professor said “I am here to teach you how to poison people.” After a pause, he added, “without killing them, of course.”

He meant that any medicine that has effects has side effects, that the poison is in the dose, and that we must weigh the benefits of any treatment against the risks. Dr. Kirschner has no beef with scientific medicine. He does have a lot of other beefs, mainly with the health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and alternative medicine. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

Book Review: Choices: A Novel

No Comments »

Choices: A Novel is a must read for teachers, parents and teenagers, everywhere. A combination of coming-of-age textbook, conversation starter, bite-your-nails, and gotta finish book, it took me by surprise. Laughter, tears, and some great conversations have filled our home this week as we read Choices.

In a nutshell, the main character, 15 year-old Kara, lives in a very sheltered world, attends a girls school, is an outstanding student. Kara seems to know very little about her own feelings and body, and less about those of others, until the star jock from a local school catches her eye and introduces her to the world of parties, drinking, drugs, and sex. Fearing that she is losing his attention, Kara binge drinks, has non-consensual unprotected sex, and gets pregnant. Her life is immediately turned upside down and Kara feels like she is all alone. Read more »

This post, Book Review: Choices: A Novel, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown Ph.D..

Book Review: The Water Giver

No Comments »

EverythingHealth strongly recommends a wonderful new book called “The Water Giver” and I predict you will not be able to put it down. Author Joan Ryan is a remarkable writer who takes the reader on a journey she lived when her son, Ryan, sustained a near -fatal severe head and brain injury on a skateboard. It is both a medical drama and a meditation on motherhood.

The book begins with Joan’s description of her son’s learning difficulties and years of psychological and developmental testing. Her style as a mother was to intellectualize, do research and try to fix what was “wrong” with her son. The years went by with family stress and teachers conferences and medical consultations but it wasn’t until the day he fell, that Joan realized some things are too big to be studied and fixed.

The nightmare began when he was 16 and went skateboarding without a helmet. The fall on a hill near their home caused a huge brain bleed that obliterated much of his brain tissue. He remained in a coma for weeks and underwent multiple surgeries to relieve pressure. The book chronicles months of near death events in the Intensive Care Unit that nearly drove his parents insane with worry. I will let you read it to find out how it turns out. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Latest Interviews

Dr. Val Reports Live From HIMSS To ABC News

httpv www.youtube.com watch v KDGYwm ty…

Read more »

How Much Does Technology Improve Health?

Watch CBS News Videos Online Last week’s CDC report Health United States confirms that Americans are increasingly turning to medications scans and procedures to improve their health. Exercising eating right and weight loss not so much. Don’t get me wrong. I love technology as much as the next guy. Maybe…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

cardiaccath

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Saved By Dance: One Doctor’s Story Of Burnout And Recovery

By Susan Biali M.D. Ten years ago I was an emergency medicine resident and wanted to die. Today I’m a general practitioner in part-time practice and in love with life. What made the difference I signed up for a dance class. Reports on physician burnout list the personality traits that…

Read more »

Genius On The Edge - The Life Story Of Dr. William Stewart Halsted

I am one who loves medical history and Genius On The Edge the bizarre double life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted was a captivating read. For those who don t know Dr. Halsted is known as the Father of Surgery and practiced medicine after the civil war. Written by author…

Read more »

Book Review: Genius On The Edge

I received a free copy of the book Genius on the Edge The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted by Gerald Imber MD a week ago. I have enjoyed reading it. The book is the biography of Dr Halsted but also gives you a glimpse into the life…

Read more »

See all book reviews »