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Latest Posts

Romance, Hypotension, And The Little Blue Patch

A patient was brought in around midnight as a “possible stroke.” She was a 60-something woman who had suddenly become unresponsive.

She and her husband had been making love at the time, and he noticed that she was no longer conscious. Unable to revive her, he had called 911. She looked bad — but it was strange. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

MRI Of The Female Orgasm

6774nnd.jpgScientists at Rutgers University are studying the female orgasm using functional MRI (fMRI).

During the experiment, women masturbate with the help of a dildo inside the fMRI machine so the team can study which areas of the brain are activated by arousal.

First they map the cervix, uterus, and clitoris to regions of the brain to create a sort of sexual homunculus. Then the women get ten minutes to stimulate to an orgasm, which is signaled to the researchers by raising a hand. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Condoms With Handles Help Keep “The Mood”

According to Grove Medical, disruption of “the mood” is a main barrier to condom use. With their Sensis condoms with QuikStrips, the company tries to overcome this mental handicap by offering a new condom technology to protect the passion while practicing safer sex.

The QuikStrips are little handles on the side of the condom that work much like the pull-off tabs on a bandage, creating an application that helps to apply the condom quickly in the right way.

Presumed benefits include appropriate spacing at the reservoir, no touching of the condom as it’s being applied, and less chance of accidental inside-out-then-flip contamination. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

The New NHS Sexual Health Hub

No matter how early I wake up, it’s always five hours later in the UK and I’m overwhelmed by the thought that I’m already behind (I won’t even get into the feeling I have when I think of our Australian readers).

So when I start the day reading my Twitter stream, it’s usually populated by midday news from England. I follow the NHS – National Health Service – “one of the largest publicly funded health services in the world,” and their superb health information site, NHS Choices.

This morning I saw this tweet about the launch of their new sexual health site:

@NHSChoices Our new sexual health hub includes advice on contraception, good sex guides, sex & young people, STIs and much more http://bit.ly/3wtJwL Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata - PostRank (PostRank: All)*

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…

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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…

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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…

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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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