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

Latest Posts

Preventing Surgical Fires

A month ago during a storm with significant straight line winds we had a tree near the house loss it’s top half.

Upon inspection, it turned out the pine tree was infested with pine beetles. We were encouraged to burn the debris to help protect the other trees from the beetles.

This past week my husband cut up the felled tree (we still need to get a tree cutter out to cut down the 2/3s of the tree still standing) and carried it to an area of the front property.  Yesterday morning after a light rain, he decided it was a good time to set it afire and burn it.  Note the red container under the tree to the left.  It contains gasoline.  [Even though he told me he wouldn’t use an accelerant.]  He did run a water hose down from the house which is barely visible in the forefront of the photo.

Medscape has a really nice article with video by Kenneth L. Silverstein, MD; Stephanie Josephon —  Surgical Fires: How They Start and How to Prevent Them: Read more »

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

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

Read more »

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

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

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…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles