Kiddie Quote Of The Week
Just because no one understands you, doesn’t make you an artist.
— Sara, 10
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Thanks to my friend Mindy Roberts for creating this terrific Kiddie Quote site: PearSoup.com!
Latest Posts
Being Right Versus Being Influential
On May 9th I had the pleasure of lecturing to an audience of critical thinkers at the NYC Skeptics meeting. The topic of discussion was pseudoscience on the Internet – and I spent about 50 minutes talking about all the misleading health information and websites available to (and frequented by) patients. The common denominator for most of these well-intentioned but misguided efforts is a fundamental lack of understanding of the scientific method, and the myriad ways that humans can fool ourselves into perceiving a cause and effect relationship between unrelated phenomena.
But most importantly, we had the chance to touch upon a theme that has been troubling me greatly over the past couple of years: the rise in influence of those untrained in science on matters of medicine. I have been astonished by the ability of “thought leaders” like Jenny McCarthy to gain a broad platform of influence (i.e. Oprah Winfrey’s TV network) despite her obviously flawed beliefs about the pathophysiology of autism. Why is it so hard to find a medical voice of reason in mainstream media?
The answer is probably related to two issues: first, good science makes bad television, and second, physicians are going about PR and communications in the wrong way. We are taught to put emotions aside as we carefully weigh evidence to get to the bottom of things. But we are not taught to reinfuse the subject with emotion once we’ve come to an impartial consensus. Instead, we tend to bicker about statistical analyses, and alienate John Q. Public with what appears to him as academic minutiae and hair-splitting.
I’m not sure what we can or should offer in place of our “business as usual” behavior – but I’ve noticed that being right isn’t the same as being influential. I wonder how we can better advance the cause of science (for the sake of public health at a minimum) to an audience drawn more to passion than to substance?
I would really enjoy your input, dear readers, because I’m at a loss as to what we should do next to reach people in our current culture, and with new communications platforms. What would you recommend?
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
Weird X-Ray Of The Week
Can anyone tell me what this is? (I’ll post the answer in the comments section).
Film Credit: Dr. Michael Armento
Function Versus Aesthetic: Arm Reconstruction After Land Mine Explosion
Tragically, land mines injure between 15,000 to 20,000 people each year. Some civilians see a metal object sticking out of the ground and attempt to pick it up and inspect it – the result is often loss of both hands and eyes.
The goal of rehabilitation after trauma is to restore as much independence as possible to patients. With loss of vision and no hands, self care, feeding, and donning/doffing arm prostheses can be very challenging. There is a procedure, known as the Krukenberg operation (named after Hermann Von Krukenberg, who first described it in 1917), that allows the forearm bones to be separated, using the muscle rotators that exist between them to create a pincer grasp. This procedure is not uncommonly used in India and Pakistan and does indeed return some degree of functional use to the arms.
At a recent Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation conference, this photograph was used to illustrate arm function after the Krukenberg operation.
Photo Credit: Dr. Heikki Uustal
It certainly presents a conundrum – should function trump aesthetics in all cases?
I’m not sure that I’d want this procedure, even if I lost my vision and both hands.
Would you?
