January 25th, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Audio, Better Health Network, Expert Interviews, Health Tips
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Since mainstream media is feeding parents a constant stream of health information that is often inaccurate and poorly vetted (just ask Gary Schwitzer), I thought it would be helpful to create a new series at Better Health: Mythbusters for Moms. Now, I know that moms aren’t the only ones who will benefit from “straight talk” from healthcare professionals, but the alliteration was simply irresistible.
Our first guest of the series is Dr. Rahul Parikh. Rahul is a board-certified pediatrician who works at Kaiser Permanente’s Walnut Creek Medical Center in California. Prior to becoming a pediatrician, Rahul completed a degree in molecular biology at UC Berkeley, and his medical degree at Tufts in Boston.
Online, Rahul is perhaps best known for his columns, featured at Salon.com. There he takes a critical look at media misinformation about health and science, and has spoken out against misleading content promoted by Oprah Winfrey and the Huffington Post.
You may listen to an audiocast of our conversation here (or read a short transcript below):
[Audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/rahulparikhmfm.mp3]
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January 25th, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, Audio, Better Health Network, Expert Interviews, True Stories
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Dr. Paul Auerbach And Injured Haitian Boy
Dr. Paul Auerbach is the author of the definitive textbook on Wilderness Medicine. Though he’s spent his entire emergency medicine career teaching others how to survive in the wild, even that didn’t fully prepare him for the extraordinary devastation in Haiti. He’d never seen anything like it. He hopes he never does again.
In an exclusive Skype interview with Better Health, Paul describes what it was like “on the ground” during the first week of the disaster. He goes on to explain (in part 2 below) what the current critical needs are, and which organizations and websites volunteers should go to in order to contribute in a coordinated fashion.
[Audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/paulauerbach124102.mp3]
Dr. Val: Do you need supplies?
Dr. Auerbach: We have lots of medications, vaccines, and small supplies. What we need most is a large autoclave to sterilize used OR equipment. Read more »
January 25th, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Audio, Better Health Network, Expert Interviews
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Paul Auerbach, MD (far right)
In this extraordinary first-hand account, Dr. Paul Auerbach (he is now the head administrator for NGOs at Port Au Prince’s largest hospital) describes what he has seen on the ground since his arrival one week ago.
[Audio:https://getbetterhealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/paulauerbach12410.mp3]
“The floor was covered with bodies. Some were dead, some were alive, some were screaming… There were rows of children with missing limbs… The smell of dead bodies was coming out of the old nursing quarters where the peers of the women helping us lay dead… The Haitian people are the strongest people I’ve ever seen.”
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January 24th, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Better Health Network, True Stories
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Dean Lorich, MD
I received this letter from a medical colleague today. It was written by Dr. Dean Lorich, Associate Director of the Orthopedic Trauma Service at NYC’s Hospital for Special Surgery. I hope to interview him for Better Health soon. Stay tuned for the audiocast…
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I believe we went in with a reasonably comprehensive service we wanted to provide acute trauma care in an orthopedic disaster. Our plan was to be at a hospital where we could utilize our abilities as trauma surgeons treat the acute injuries involved in an orthopaedic disaster. We expected many amputations however came with a philosophy that would reasonably start limb salvage in what we thought was a salvageable limb.
David Helfet put a team together which included: Read more »
January 19th, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips, Video
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January is thyroid disease awareness month, and I was invited to educate the good people at Let’s Talk Live about this often-forgotten little gland. For this segment, I used Twitter to poll my friends about interesting thyroid factoids. Thanks to Nick Genes @blogborygmi who reminded me of the connection between carpal tunnel syndrome and hypothyroidism and to Meredith Gould @meredithgould who mentioned that depression sometimes has a thyroid-related cause.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCk1MA5dhjY
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