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Health And The Value Of Open-Mindedness

January 5th, 2011 by Elaine Schattner, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research

Tags: Adult Brain, Alternative Medicine, Annals Of Internal Medicine, Brain Circuitry, Closed-Minded Doctor, Cognitive Fitness, Cognitive Health, Common Cold, Dr. Elaine Schattner, Dr. Oliver Sacks, Echinacea, General Medicine, IBS, Infectious Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Medical Lessons, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, NCCAM, Neurology, Open-Minded Doctor, Open-Mindedness, Placebo Effect, PLoS Medicine, PLoS ONE

Three recent sto­ries lead me to my open­ing topic for the year: The value of open-mindedness. This char­ac­ter­is­tic — a state of recep­tive­ness to new ideas — affects how we per­ceive and process infor­ma­tion. It’s a qual­ity I look for in my doc­tors, and which I admire espe­cially in older people.

Piece #1 — On the brain’s matu­rity, flex­i­bil­ity and “cog­ni­tive fitness”

For the first piece, I’ll note a Dec 31 op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times: This Year, Change Your Mind, by Dr. Oliver Sacks, the neu­rol­o­gist and author. In this thought­ful essay, he con­sid­ers the adult brain’s “mys­te­ri­ous and extra­or­di­nary” power to adapt and grow: “I have seen hun­dreds of patients with var­i­ous deficits — strokes, Parkinson’s and even demen­tia — learn to do things in new ways, whether con­sciously or uncon­sciously, to work around those deficits.”

With appro­pri­ate and very-real respect, I ques­tion Sacks’ objec­tiv­ity on this sub­ject — he’s referred some of the most out­stand­ing (i.e. excep­tional) neu­ro­log­i­cal cases in the world. And so it may be that his care­ful reports are per­fectly valid but not rep­re­sen­ta­tive; for most of us, the adult brain’s capac­ity to estab­lish new cir­cuitry for lan­guage learn­ing or music appre­ci­a­tion may be lim­ited. What his sto­ries do show is that unimag­in­ably strange things hap­pen in our brains, at least occa­sion­ally. And maybe we should just accept that and take notes (as he does so care­fully), and keep an open mind. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medical Lessons*

Liposuction-Related Death And Finding A Safe Doctor

January 5th, 2011 by John Di Saia, M.D. in News, Opinion

Tags: ABMS, American Board of Medical Specialties, Board-Certified Doctor, Board-Certified Specialist, Disciplinary Action, Dr. John Di Saia, Dr. Roger Gordon, Florida Department of Health, Good Medical Decision Making, Healthcare Decision Making, Informed Healthcare Consumer, Informed Healthcare Decisions, Informed Patient, Lauderhill, Lidvian Zelaya, Liposuction, Medical Malpractice Settlements, Patient Death, Plastic Surgery, Risk of Complications, Strax Rejuvenation and Aesthetics Institute, Surgery Deaths, Truth in Cosmetic Surgery

From the Chicago Tribune:

A 35-year-old woman who wanted to resculpt herself for the new year with liposuction and a buttocks enhancement is dead from apparent complications of plastic surgery, her husband and lawyer said Thursday. Miami customer service representative Lidvian Zelaya died Monday, hours after the operation began at Strax Rejuvenation and Aesthetics Institute, a busy cosmetic surgery practice in Lauderhill. Zelaya went to Strax to have fat suctioned from her back and belly, and to have the material injected into her backside, family representatives said. She chose Strax because she got a good deal. Aronfeld said the operation was to be done by Dr. Roger L. Gordon. He was disciplined by the state in connection with two plastic surgery deaths in 2004.

This is getting ridiculous. Liposuction deaths have been frequent in the media as of late. And this surgeon, Roger L. Gordon, M.D., is a real, board-certified plastic surgeon as per the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).

Then again, plastic surgery IS surgery and therefore has risk associated with it. Was this an unfortunate accident or something else? How can a potential patient choose well to limit the risk of cosmetic surgery? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*

“I Smell (Health) Trouble”

January 5th, 2011 by AnneHansonMD in Better Health Network, Humor, News, Research

Tags: Aggressive Patients, Breast Cancer, Breath Acetone Detection, breath test, Canine Scent Detection, Diabetes, Diagnosis and Scent, Dogs Sniffing Out Cancer, Dr. Anne Hanson, Endocrinology, fMRI, Lie Detection, Lung Cancer, Medical Humor, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Three Shrinks, Oncology, Patient Violence, Pheromone, Psychiatry and Psychology, Sense Of Smell, Shrink Rap, Smelling Schizophrenia, The Nadjik Pheromone

I was surfing around the Net one day and I found this article about scientists who are creating a machine that will detect acetone in someone’s breath. Acetone can be a sign that someone suffers from diabetes, so in theory this machine could use scent to diagnose this disease.

That story brought to mind other stories I’ve heard about people using dogs to sniff out cancer in people. According to this article:

“The results of the study showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers. Moreover, the study also confirmed that the trained dogs could even detect the early stages of lung cancer, as well as early breast cancer.”

People have even tried “smelling” schizophrenia. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*

Text-To-Braille Conversion Via Touch-Sensitive “Thimble”

January 4th, 2011 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research

Tags: Blind, Blindness, Bluetooth, Braille, Electro-Tactile Grid, Engadget, Eyesight, Fingertip Camera, Health and Smartphones, Medgadget, Medical Technology, Smartphones and Medical Apps, Thimble, Touch-Screen Smartphones, University of Washington, Visually Impaired

While Braille can give the blind the ability to read, much of the text one encounters is not available in Braille (and our increasing dependence on touch-screen smartphones isn’t helping.) Two students at the University of Washington hope to solve this problem with their concept device, which they have termed the “Thimble.” The Thimble contains a fingertip camera and an electro-tactile grid which can read text and convert it to touch-sensitive Braille. The device can also interface with a user’s smartphone via Bluetooth for reading online content.

Source: “Thimble”: Another smartphone-enabled concept for the visually impaired

(Hat Tip: Engadget)

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Breast Implants: A Geographical Comparison

January 4th, 2011 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, News, Research

Tags: Breast Augmentation, Breast Implants, Breast Size, Canadian Journal of Plastic Surgery, Cosmetic Surgery, Dr. Ramona Bates, Geographical Comparison, Self Image, Suture For A Living, Women's Health

This article (full reference below, free access) came to my attention via MDLinx. It was interesting to read. The conclusion verified my expectations rather than surprised me.

The authors conducted a retrospective review of patient demographics and implant information from three university settings: Kelowna (British Columbia, Canada), Loma Linda (California, USA), and Temple (Texas, USA). Each cohort included 100 consecutive breast augmentation cases. Characteristics analyzed included age, height, weight, BME, parity, and average implant volume. 

When considering the 300 as one cohort, the average age was 34 years with a height of 163 cm (5’4”), weight of 58.1 (127.8 lb) and parity of 1.7 . The average implant size was 370 ml. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*