January 26th, 2010 by EvanFalchukJD in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: Dogs, Finding Your Calling, Happiness, Joy, Laborador Retriever, Living Life, Meaning, Personal Choices, Psychology
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One late afternoon, some summers ago, I was at the beach.
I was with our dog, a Labrador retriever. He was playing fetch with a stick I was throwing into the ocean. Every time I threw it, he darted into the ocean to find it. Swimming through the waves, he would get the stick and carry it
back proudly to shore. He would drop it in front of me, shake off some of the water soaking his coat, and stare at me, heaving, begging me to throw it in again.
We did this for a while, and it was always the same. He was joyous. Eventually I had to stop, even though I loved
seeing him that way. He would have kept doing it until he drowned.
I realized something else as I was watching him.
He was so happy because jumping into the North Atlantic to retrieve things is what he was born to do.
Now, people are much more complicated than dogs. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*
January 26th, 2010 by BobDoherty in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Brown, CNN, Democrats, Healthcare reform, Massachusetts, Monty Python, Next Steps, Not Dead Yet, Politico, Republicans, uninsured
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One of my favorite movie scenes is from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” when an unfortunate soul pleads with the designated collector of corpses (this being after the plague, mind you) that “I’m not dead … yet.” The collector responds by whacking him on the head … until he is, in fact, quite dead.
This scene comes to mind as I blog about yesterday’s stunning GOP upset of the seat-that-used-to-be-held-by Ted Kennedy. If the election of Republican Scott Brown didn’t quite kill off health care reform, some Democrats are quite willing to complete the task. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
January 26th, 2010 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Drop Medicare, Healthcare reform, Internal Medicine, Medicare, Payment, Physicians, Primary Care, Specialists, Stop Accepting Medicare
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President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Bill will not work. It is based on decreases in physician reimbursement while forcing physicians to increase overhead with unaffordable electronic medical records. More and more physician groups and practices are starting to realize that they cannot make a living from the reimbursement from Medicare. They are quitting taking new Medicare patients and trying to get rid of the old ones by not taking assignment.
President Obama’s idea is to force physicians to be more efficient producers. It is very difficult to force anyone to do anything they cannot afford. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
January 26th, 2010 by DrCharles in Better Health Network, Health Tips
Tags: Conception, Family Medicine, Fertility, Infertility, Male, NPR, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Sperm, Sperm Count, Tips, Urology
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Today NPR ran a story about fierce competition and cooperation among mouse sperm cells trying to fertilize an ovum. Apparently spermatozoa from the same male will often clump together, wiggling their flagella in a collective swim that accelerates the group faster towards an egg. In the race to be the first sperm to fertilize an egg this team approach (with sperm of a feather flocking together) may confer an evolutionary advantage. Solo-swimmers move more leisurely. The research and cool video presented on NPR were of sperm from the promiscuous deer mouse. Such murine sperm “behavior” may not be as evolutionarily needed in (usually) less promiscuous humans. Yet the idea of sperm cooperation, fitness, and competition in a microscopic steeplechase is fascinating. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles*
January 25th, 2010 by Dr. Val Jones in Audio, Better Health Network, Expert Interviews, Health Tips
Tags: Allergy And Immunology, Batman, Diptheria, Fever Phobia, Fevers, Food Allergies, Health News Reviews, Huffington Post, Joker, Mythbusters For Moms, Oprah, Peanuts, Pediatrics, Polio, Rahul Parikh, risus sardonicus, Salon.com, Teething, Tetanus, Vaccines
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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]
Read more »
