August 6th, 2010 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Humor, Medical Art, Opinion
Tags: Anatomical Snuff Depression, Anatomy, De Quervain's Tenosinovitis, Finkelstein Test, General Medicine, Hand, Internal Medicine, Medical Humor, Physical Exam, Primary Care, Scaphoid Fracture, Snuff Box
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It’s time we get away from all of the serious nonsense and back to something I am far more comfortable with: Taking otherwise-useful information and twisting it into utter nonsense. Yes, it’s time to journey back to the wonderful world of the physical exam.
My ongoing mission is to explore the human body from my unique (albeit moderately unstable) perspective. For an overview of my previous posts on the physical exam see this post which features Dick Chaney on a Segway (reason enough to click on the link). Please visit a psychiatry blog to aid in recovery once you have done so.
My most recent post in this fine series covered the topic of psychics and about the examination of the hand. It was mainly about psychics examining the hand, but I did slip in a little doctor stuff to keep the cops off of me. But then I got a call from the department of homeland security and they said that if I didn’t shape up, I’d no longer be able to use the picture of Dick Cheney on the Segway. It’s hard to resist such harsh tactics. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
August 5th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, News, Opinion
Tags: Apple iPad, Contortionist, Course Content, Environmently Friendly, Ergonomic Nightmare, First-Year Medical Students, General Medicine, Medical Education, Medical School, Not User-Friendly, Stanford School of Medicine, Steve Jobs, Technology and Medicine, Textbooks, Too Heavy
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Stanford plans to provide all first-year medical students with a 32 GB WiFi iPad. The students are already familiar with them, the tablet enhances how they view course content and take notes, it allows better access to textbooks, and it’s environmentally friendly.
Good thing they’ll become doctors, because one blogger says the iPad is an ergonomic nightmare. It’s too heavy to use for long stretches, and even Steve Jobs has to be a contortionist to balance it while reading. (Scope-Stanford School of Medicine, Suite101.com)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
August 5th, 2010 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion, Research
Tags: Andreas Marx, Biology, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry, Dr. Carmen Drahl, Five Favorite Drugs, Five Favorite Molecules, General Medicine, Medical Humor, Pharmacology, Princeton, Remote Desert Island, ScienceOnline2010, Sole Occupant, Survival, Thomas Mayer, University of Konstanz
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This post follows a lengthy conversation I had with my wife, a physician-scientist, about this very topic.
Many of you who attended the ScienceOnline2010 conference here last January probably met Carmen Drahl, the Princeton-trained chemist who now writes for Chemical & Engineering News and their appropriately-named drug discovery blog, The Haystack, as well as their Newscripts feature.
For the latter, Dr. Drahl pointed us toward a recent “Crosstalks” paper in Chemistry & Biology by Thomas U. Mayer and Andreas Marx of the University of Konstanz (and her interview with the authors) who mused as follows from their abstract:
Which five molecules would you take to a remote island? If you imagine yourself as a castaway on an island you might pick water, glucose, penicillin, and ethanol in combination with aspirin. However, as a scientist, you may ask yourself which molecules impressed you most by their chemical or biological property, their impact on science, or the ingenuity and/or serendipity behind their discovery. Here, we present our personal short list comprising FK506, colchicine, imatinib, Quimi-Hib, and cidofovir. Obviously, our selection is highly subjective and, therefore, we apologize up front to our colleagues for not mentioning their favorite compounds.
The authors pose two different questions: a) Which molecules, drug or not, would you take as the sole occupant of a desert island? and b) Which drugs most impress you with their chemistry, biology, or impact on science? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
August 5th, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Asclera, Blood Vessels, Cosmetic Surgery, Dermatology, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, Plastic Surgery, Poliocanol, Spider Veins, Varicose Veins, Vascular Surgery
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The FDA recently (March 2010) approved Asclera (poliocanol) injection for the treatment of small spider veins (tiny varicose veins less than 1 millimeter in diameter) and reticular veins (those that are 1 to 3 millimeters in diameter).
Asclera is a detergent sclerosant and produces endothelial damage through interference with the cell’s surface lipids.and acts by damaging the cell lining of blood vessels. This causes the blood vessel to close, and it is eventually replaced by other types of tissue. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
August 5th, 2010 by David H. Gorski, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: Dogma-Based Medical Models, EBM, Evidence Based Medicine, Hard Science, MCAT, Medical College Admission Test, Medical School, Medical Students, Pre-Med Students, SBM, Science Based Medicine
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One of the recurring themes of this blog, not surprisingly given its name, is the proper role of science in medicine. As Dr. Novella has made clear from the very beginning, we advocate science-based medicine (SBM), which is what evidence-based medicine (EBM) should be. SBM tries to overcome the shortcomings of EBM by taking into account all the evidence, both scientific and clinical, in deciding what therapies work, what therapies don’t work, and why.
To recap, a major part of our thesis is that EBM, although a step forward over prior dogma-based medical models, ultimately falls short of making medicine as effective as it can be. As currently practiced, EBM appears to worship clinical trial evidence above all else and nearly completely ignores basic science considerations, relegating them to the lowest form of evidence, lower than even small case series. This blind spot has directly contributed to the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine and so-called EBM because in the cases of ridiculously improbable modalities like homeopathy and reiki, deficiencies in how clinical trials are conducted and analyzed can make it appear that these modalities might actually have efficacy. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
