November 7th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
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I was hesitant to post this photo because it is an image of my girlfriend’s bathtub in New York City. I’m sure she wouldn’t want me to post this, but I figure it’s ok because I didn’t reveal her identity and also, she doesn’t read my blog.
My girlfriend is a physician. She is friendly and smart and well-groomed. Her bathroom, on the other hand, is pretty scary. It’s not unlike other bathrooms I’ve seen in New York – which means this could be partially a cultural phenomenon. She knows it needs cleaning – I guess.
She invited me to stay at her place during a recent visit – instead of a hotel – and I gladly accepted. We planned to have a nice dinner and drinks out on the town. She showed me to my room and casually mentioned that she needed to get some Draino for the bathroom. I wondered what exactly that might mean, and was surprised by her use of understatement in this case. Read more »
November 4th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Medical Art, Video
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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ebdGR3IZp8
For more information about this lecture, check out:
Meredith Gould’s blog post, A Tale of One Presentation
Science-Based Medicine’s, Mainstreaming Science-Based Medicine: A Novel Approach
November 3rd, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed
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Today the LA Times described a bizarre and troublesome healthcare reform bill provision that would require Medicare to pay for Christian Science Prayer as a medical treatment:
…a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.
The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.
The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”
Of course, I had warned about this very thing over a year ago on KevinMD’s blog – something I wish the LA Times had picked up on then. Read more »
November 2nd, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements
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I recently spoke at the first annual ePatient Connections conference in Philadelphia. I’ll be discussing the ePatient revolution (patients participating in their healthcare decision-making using Internet tools) at ABC news channel 8 live this morning with Dave Lucas. During the segment I’ll be referring to several websites that people will want to check out. For those of you who saw the segment, welcome to my website! Here are the links:
1. Doctors answer questions for free at MedHelp.org Did you know that 9 of the top 11 hospital centers in the country offer access to their physicians for free at MedHelp.org? As part of a PR effort, hospitals are volunteering their doctors’ time to make sure that ePatients can get their questions answered by a reputable source.
2. Identify those mystery pills. Thanks to David Hale at the NIH, a new pill identifier tool is now available online. It’s called “PillBox” and it will soon allow you to search its large pill database by describing the color, shape, and letter/number codes printed on the tablet. Eventually, you may even be able to take a photo of the mysterious pill and have PillBox automatically identify it for you! Today, unfortunately, photo resolution on most cell phones and cameras is not sufficient for this feature to work. Read more »
