We have known for many years that melittin, an ingredient in bee venom, is a poison to tumor cells. Development of therapeutic uses of the substance has been stymied by the fact that melittin does damage to healthy cells as well. Now researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have developed nanoparticles called “nanobees” that can ferry the melittin directly to tumor cells with great specificity.
Ezra kindly responds to my post from Friday with a more reasoned stance than “just don’t commit malpractice.” His response, however, boils down to two main theses:
Frivolous Lawsuits are not as common as generally thought, and
Standardization can reduce the opportunity for error and thus decrease the frequency of medical malpractice suits.
Well, yes, but I’m not sure that addresses the typical physician’s complaints regarding the current med-mal system.
For example, the “frivolous” moniker is a pretty ambiguous term, especially to doctors’ loose understanding of legal terminology. To a physician, a “frivolous” case is one in which there was no error — where the standard of care was met, but perhaps the outcome was bad. Or to put it another way, doctors tend to feel that when they are vindicated in court, it’s prima facie evidence that the case was frivolous. This conviction is bolstered by the little-recognized fact that physicians win the vast majority of cases that actually go to trial, and the vast majority of claims filed do not result in a financial settlement. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
There’s a disease that American doctors are absolutely terrible at diagnosing. It’s estimated that three million Americans have celiac disease and only a small percentage of them know it. In celiac disease, a component of wheat, rye, and barley called gluten sets off an immune reaction that attacks the intestine and can affect the entire body. Read more »
When you build a house, you begin with the foundation. The same holds true for the U.S. health care system. The President and Congress are scrambling to put up a reform structure that would have a better chance to succeed if the cinderblocks and joists were in place. No health care system in our country can develop adequately unless supported by validated information, policies and procedures based upon accurate data related to its most important features, and updated continuously. While there are agencies and institutions that can answer some of our questions, a comprehensive assessment is lacking. We should learn much more – the sooner, the better. Conflicted entities cannot be relied upon for objectivity, so if the government would like to increase its role in health care, creating a method for objectifying the rationale for change is the correct place to start. Read more »
Last night I had a chance to sit with some parents here in Norwalk and talk about our collective experiences with diabetes. These parents were taking care of children with diabetes, ranging from the newly diagnosed three year old to the newly diagnosed 13 year old, and everywhere in between. High school angst, the issues of disclosure, the pursuit of “perfection,” and all those other issues that parents of kids with diabetes, and the kids themselves, are dealing with.
“I was invited here to talk about how to raise a child with diabetes without losing your mind. But I’m not really qualified to talk about that sort of thing, to be honest. I’m not the parent of a diabetic child. I am the diabetic child.”
The parents at this group were wonderful, all actively engaged in their child’s health, just trying to make sense of what diabetes doles out every day. We were a small group – about 12 of us in total – so the conversation flowed pretty smoothly and comfortably. And we hit upon some very intimate issues.
Like menstrual cycles and their impact on blood sugars. (Remind me again why I’m talking about puberty and my female hormones with strangers?) Or the dodgy things I did as a kid to lash out at my diabetes or my parents or at life in general. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…
I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…
I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…
When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…
I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…
We have known for many years that melittin, an ingredient in bee venom, is a poison to tumor cells. Development of therapeutic uses of the substance has been stymied by the fact that melittin does damage to healthy cells as well. Now researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have developed nanoparticles called “nanobees” that can ferry the melittin directly to tumor cells with great specificity.
