November 2nd, 2011 by KennyLinMD in Health Policy, Opinion
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Last month, my family was involved in a scary traffic accident en route to the Family Medicine Education Consortium‘s North East Region meeting. I was in the left-hand eastbound lane of the Massachusetts Turnpike when a westbound tractor trailer collided with a truck, causing the truck to cross over the grass median a few cars ahead of us. I hit the brakes and swerved to avoid the truck, but its momentum carried it forward into the left side of our car. Strapped into child safety seats in the back, both of my children were struck by shards of window glass. My five year-old son, who had been sitting behind me, eventually required twelve stitches to close a scalp laceration. Miraculously, none of the occupants of the other six damaged vehicles, including the truck driver, sustained any injuries.
Family physicians like me, and physicians in general, like to believe that the interventions we provide patients make a big difference in their eventual health outcomes. In a few cases, they do. But for most people, events largely outside of the scope of medical practice determine one’s quality and length of life, and Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Common Sense Family Doctor*
October 25th, 2011 by GruntDoc in News
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Wow, that is awful beyond belief.
Army seeking troops bitten by stray animals following rabies death – Army – Stripes.
SEOUL – The Army is redoubling its search for anyone who might have been bitten by a wild animal in Iraq or Afghanistan following the Aug. 31 death of a soldier from rabies, the service’s public health command stated Wednesday.
…
“The death of this soldier is very tragic, and we are taking actions to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
October 23rd, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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A researcher has used social media to track attitudes about vaccination and how they correlate with vaccination rates, in the process creating a novel model to track a variety of disease states.
The study adds to a growing body of evidence that social networking can be used to track diseases and other natural disasters that affect public health. Earlier this year, researchers used Twitter to track rapidly-evolving public sentiment about H1N1 influenza, and found that tweets correlated with actual disease activity. Before that, researchers analyzed how Twitter was used to disseminate information (and misinformation) about flu trends.
In the latest study, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
October 21st, 2011 by Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. in Opinion
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Contagion is a thriller about a virus that rapidly spreads to become a global epidemic. There aren’t enough coffins. Gangs roam neighborhoods like ours because police have abandoned their posts, fearful of exposure. Garbage fills the streets because sanitation workers are dying. As scientists work feverishly to understand the virus and develop a vaccine, public panic unravels the fabric of civil society, fueled by terror and rattled by false claims of a homeopathic cure promoted by a charismatic charlatan.
The movie has grossed $76 million worldwide since it opened on September 9th. It has all the elements a successful movie needs: a just-believable dystopian vision of the future, flawed good guys, an evil schemer, suspense, heroic action…the works.
And while it’s an action-thriller first and foremost, you don’t have to concentrate hard to notice that it also shows:
- Why the Federal government is necessary: its authority to communicate, negotiate and work with other nations to solve a global problem; its ability to exert authority across state lines and to marshal resources immediately to protect its citizens from peril with no expectation of profit.
- How scientific research is iterative and complicated, not bumbling or malicious. Research is conducted by scientists—normal people with normal lives—who are Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
October 9th, 2011 by Medgadget in News
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BI, Inc. a manufacturer of compliance monitoring technology for community offenders, has announced an upgraded version of the company’s BI-TAD alcohol consumption monitoring bracelet.
The BI-TAD is an ankle-worn bracelet which measures an offender’s alcohol consumption levels through vapors and perspiration passing through the skin. The device also features radio-frequency circuitry to detect the presence of the offender in their own home at a given time. The upgraded BI-TAD sensor now includes wireless functionality allowing it to transmit compliance data through the cellular network to a remote base station. The device log can then be checked against an offender’s profile to see if he is adhering to specific curfews or drinking restrictions.
From the press release: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
