Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

Disgusting Parasite Of The Month

2 Comments »

Thanks to science writer Carl Zimmer for highlighting this totally disgusting fish parasite. Read the description and check out the photo link if you dare.

“Parasites often choose very particular–and peculiar–places to live. This crustacean invades a fish’s mouth, devours its tongue, and takes the tongue’s place. It then acts like a tongue; the fish can use it to grip and swallow prey.”

The fish’s version of “has the cat got your tongue?”

In the mood for more creepy stuff? Check out my previous posts:

Spider bite

Malaria

Rabid bat bite

Total body warts

Poisonous snake in ICUThis post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Weird Stuff From Around The Blogosphere

No Comments »

I had every intention of publishing my follow up Disney post today… but I’m afraid it’s not quite ready for prime time. So queue the musical interlude and enjoy some weird stuff from around the medical blogosphere…

Dr. Deb highlights a new fashion trend: high heel baby shoes.  Join the discussion at her blog – do the shoes represent an inappropriate sexualization of infants, or is it just good fun that’s lost on the babies? You decide.

Medgadget presents the prosthetic solution to two-legged dogdom. This little puppy is getting around nicely thanks to a custom front end with wheels. The Ostrovsky brothers dub this “unbearably cute.”

Dr. Dino is surrounded by blooming cacti. Who knew that such flora existed in the northeast?

Dr. Joe, the part-time anesthesiologist, has found two amusing websites – the first will turn your name into an Ikea-style furniture label, the second is an audio survey regarding what makes noises annoying. As in, “Hey, do you wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?”

And if you got that last reference – then you’re telling me there’s a chance… A chance you liked these links.

And on a more serious note, I’m going to interview Dr. Nancy Nielsen, new President of the American Medical Association, on Medicare cuts this week. So stay tuned for more of my unique blend of news, humor, touching stories, and high level interviews.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Physician Exasperation From Around The Blogosphere

1 Comment »

Some bloggers’ clinical vignettes speak volumes about why doctors are exasperated with their day-to-day work lives. Here are a few good ones:

From White Coat Rants:

A patient from a nursing home was transferred by ambulance to our ED with the following chief complaint:

Mental status changes not responsive to albuterol [an asthma puffer].

Of course now we’re stuck trying to figure out how much this patient’s mental status has actually changed. I never could figure out how in the heck nursing homes can determine that an essentially non-verbal patient is having a mental status change. She sat in the bed, watched me walk around the room and smiled. So was she blinking less, or what?

I was waiting patiently on the next ambulance run for a patient with nasal congestion unresponsive to Ex-Lax.

From Ten out of Ten‘s Medical Jeopardy:

Answer: Massive Diarrhea

Question: What is the end result of eating nothing but beans and peaches all day?

People are so weird.

From Musings of a Dinosaur’s Anything Else?:

The perils of the open-ended question in a new patient interview:

Me: Tell me about your health.

Patient: I have hypertension and a little arthritis in my knees.

M: Anything else?

P: No, that’s all.

M: What medications do you take?

[presenting bag full of bottles, we find:]

Cozaar

Hydrodiuril

Lipitor

Zoloft

Ativan

Ultram

Celebrex

M: Why do you take the Zoloft and Ativan?

P: Oh, the Zoloft is for anxiety and the Ativan helps me sleep.

M: Anything else?

P: No, that’s all.

M: What about this Lipitor?

P: Oh, I stopped that about three years ago. It’s just for people who eat a lot of fat in their diet. I don’t think I need it.

M: Ok. When did you last have blood work done?

P: About four years ago.

M: And when did you last see a doctor?

P: About four years ago.

M: Any other medical problems?

P: No, that’s all.

M: Are you allergic to any medicines?

P: I get a rash with penicillin, and oh yeah! I have this weird rash that comes and goes. I’ve seen all the specialists downtown and no one knows what it is.

M: Anything else?

P: No, that’s all.

M: Anything run in the family?

P: My brother had a heart attack when he was 42, and oh yeah! I have a 30% blockage.

M: When did you find this out?

P: About four years ago.

M: Anything else?

P: No, that’s all.

M: Do you need any of these meds refilled?

P: Just the Celebrex.

M: Most of these other bottles also say “no refill” on them.

P: Oh, I have more at home. I just dumped them out and brought the bottles.

M: How much more do you have at home?

P: About two weeks.

M: How about if I write refills for all of them.

P: Ok.

M: Anything else?

P: No, that’s all.

M: Can I do some blood work on you today?

P: Sure. Oh, and I see a cardiologist, rheumatologist and orthopedist too. Can you send copies to them?

M: No problem.

Anything else?

P: No, that’s all.

M: Are you sure?

P: Yes.

Do you know why dinosaurs have no hair? It’s because I pulled it all out this morning.

We really do need a common, interoperable medical record system.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Laughter is the Best Medicine: Amusing Websites and Videos

1 Comment »

Thanks to KevinMD and the folks at Science Based Medicine respectively, I have enjoyed a good belly laugh at the following:

1. A satirical website devoted to a new EMR system: “Extormity

“At the confluence of extortion and conformity lies Extormity, the electronic health records mega-corporation dedicated to offering highly proprietary, difficult to customize and prohibitively expensive healthcare IT solutions. Our flagship product, the Extormity EMR Software Suite, was recently voted ‘Most Complex’ by readers of a leading healthcare industry publication.”

2. A video spoof of the TV show “ER,” but run by New Age therapists. It’s called “Homeopathy ER.”

3. And as a bonus website for those of you who may not have discovered it yet, engrish.com is full of amusing foreign signs and product messages in broken English.

I hope these sites get your endorphins going!This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Which Physicians Are Most Likely To Lose Their License?

2 Comments »

Thanks to KevinMD who flagged this interesting journal article:  Characteristics Associated With Physician Discipline.

Can you guess which physicians are most likely to undergo disciplinary action (license revocation, practice suspension, probation, and public reprimand)?

  • Males
  • Older physicians
  • Those who trained at medical schools outside the US
  • Physicians who are not board-certified

Score one for the lady docs. Woo hoo! This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

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…

Read more »

How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

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…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

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…

Read more »

The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

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…

Read more »

Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

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…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles