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Drinking And Driving: 20 Years In Retrospect

A gripping piece by the Transport Accident Commission (TAC) in Victoria about  drinking and driving and the use of illicit drugs. Words cannot depict this powerful and graphic piece. Take a look:

TAC Campaign: 20-Year Anniversary Retrospective Montage “Everybody Hurts”

“On December 10, 1989 the first TAC commercial went to air. That year the road toll was 776. Twenty years on it has fallen to 303. There is still a long way to go.”

You’ll find more TAC Victoria videos HERE.

Your turn

We would love to hear from you. Did this video move you in any way? Did it increase your awareness? We would love for you to share your insightful thoughts. As always, thank you for your time.

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Texting While Driving: “It’s Like Everybody’s Drunk” Or Worse

A mentor recently mentioned in passing that he stopped riding motorcycle when cellphones came out, as he noticed the average driver distraction level had gone way up. He said, “It’s like everybody’s drunk.”

There’s lots of ways to be an impaired driver: Physical or mental fatigue, chemicals (legal and not), emotional extremes, etc. (This is not an exhaustive list). What I want to focus on here is a very controllable risk factor: Divided attention.

A quick Internet search turned up some original research from Car and Driver on the subject of texting while driving compared with actual alcohol-impaired driving, and the results are shockingly worse than I would have thought. From their (admittedly limited but well done) study, texting is way worse than being at the legal alcohol limit when it comes to both reading and writing. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

A Meth Lab, The ER, Judgment And Grace

Last week a trailer less than a mile from our house experienced a small explosion. Trailers, which seldom explode on their own (without undiscovered volcanoes or CIA drones with missiles) was concealing a meth lab.

What can you say? If I weren’t an emergency physician I’d say, “Shocking! Ghastly! Unbelievable!” But I do what I do so I say, “Huh, how about that.”

I’ve lost much of my capacity to be shocked. I have seen meth users, and probably meth dealers. I’ve known and enjoyed the company of alcoholics and Valium addicts. I’ve cared for murderers and the murdered (albeit briefly in the case of the latter). I’ve been involved in the evaluation of sexual assault victims, car thieves, drunk drivers and child abusers. A meth lab is, in its own way, kind of small stuff.

What does it say about me? I don’t know. It may suggest that I’m cynical. Or it may mean that I’m cold. Or it may mean, as I suspect it does, that I’m just realistic. I know the world is full of drugs and brokenness. The ER, where I work, is just the place where all of it arrives in its fermented, fully concentrated, “contents under pressure” form. Read more »

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

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

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Latest Book Reviews

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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