Four-year-old Devan Tatlow’s struggle with leukemia has caused quite a stir on the Internet, prompting celebs like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian to encourage people to donate their bone marrow. Dr. Jon LaPook talks with Devan’s family about their search for a match.
Imagine throwing a lifesaving treatment in the garbage. That’s exactly what happens in the United States over ten thousand times a day because we do not routinely offer to collect precious umbilical cord blood at the time of birth. Thousands of Americans — many of them children — needlessly die annually because they cannot find either a bone marrow or umbilical cord blood match to help treat conditions like lymphoma and leukemia. Yet umbilical blood is discarded as medical waste in the vast majority of the more than four million births occurring each year. Read more »
Dance legend Mary Anthony has had a life-long love of dance. At 93 years old, she continues to dance and teach students. Dr. Jon LaPook talks with Anthony about her philosophy on life.
Twenty-five years ago, Jennifer Dunning wrote in The New York Times: “DANCE doesn’t seem to take much stock of its wise elders. Among those veterans is Mary Anthony, one of the city’s most highly respected modern dance teachers.” I’m a big fan of wise elders. It’s how I learned medicine.
So when I got the chance to meet the now 93-year-old Ms. Anthony earlier this week, off I went to her beautifully-lit, peaceful but active studio in the East Village of New York City. My goal as a doctor: try to gain some insight into her longevity. Yes, genes are important and she certainly chose the right parents. Exercise and diet are important (she still dances and is a vegetarian). But — more interesting to me — what have been the emotional and philosophical foundations of her life? Read more »
For the first time in history, a living organism has been manufactured with the help of a computer-generated genome. Dr. Jon LaPook reports on the groundbreaking discovery’s widespread implications.
Craig Venter and his team of scientists recently announced that they had created the first “synthetic cell” — a bacterium controlled by genetic material that they had designed on a computer and concocted from four bottles of chemicals. This is the closest thing to creating life that has happened outside of a science-fiction movie. If it doesn’t fire your imagination, then you should fire your imagination.
Basically, what Venter et al did was remove the “brain” (the genetic material that runs the cell) from one species of bacteria (Mycoplasma capricolum) and inserted a new brain — one synthetically created based very closely on the known genetic makeup of a second species of bacteria (Mycoplasma mycoides). The new organism then divided just as a normal cell would and followed the instructions of the new brain. Think micro-Avatar, except that the Avatar’s body morphs into one designed by its new brain. Read more »
More than 10 million Americans undergo elective cosmetic procedures each year. Dr. Jon LaPook reports on what every patient should know about anesthesia with Dr. Panchali Dhar, author of “Before the Scalpel.”
Last year — despite the recession — there were about 10 million cosmetic procedures in the United States. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, over 90 percent were in women and about 1.5 million were surgical.
The top five surgical procedures were breast augmentation (311,957), liposuction (283,735), eyelid surgery (149,943), rhinoplasty (138,258), and abdominoplasty (127.923). As you awaken on the morning of your elective surgery, there’s no way you haven’t yet met the surgeon who will be performing the procedure. But odds are you still haven’t met the person who will be most responsible for keeping you alive: the anesthesiologist. Read more »
Misconceptions about mental health can have devastating effects on individuals, families and communities. National Alliance of Mental Illness’ Wendy Brennan talks with Dr. Jon LaPook about the importance of education and treatment.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
