July 23rd, 2010 by Davis Liu, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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First, I am a big admirer of Apple CEO Steve Jobs for his thoughtful 2005 Stanford commencement speech, his clarity of vision, and his superb skills as a leader. Fortune magazine named him CEO of the decade after turning around the company he founded from near bankruptcy in the late 1990s to becoming the most valued company today. Though I have great respect for him, I haven’t bought an Apple product, ever, until this year.
So I watched with great interest his press conference regarding Antennagate which has consumed technology news with regards to the design of the new iPhone 4 and its new antenna design. Apparently this makes the smartphone vulnerable to dropping phone calls when held a certain way, known as the death grip. If one simply avoided holding the phone that one explicit way, the phone otherwise worked fine. As a result, 22 days after the latest iPhone was available to the public, Jobs and Apple were instead addressing an issue which dwarfed their latest product launch.
Doctors and patients can learn plenty by watching Jobs’ approach to the problem, because the situation he and his team were tackling is similar to what a doctor addresses daily in the office. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis*
July 23rd, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, True Stories
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Last week I invited a local pediatrician to connect with me on a physician social network. I thought it would be cool to see how it might improve our ability to stay in touch and share information. In a return email she was enthusiastic, but qualified it by saying that she wouldn’t want to be held liable for anything she said.
It raises an interesting concern: Can a physician be held accountable for rendering an opinion in a clinical scenario casually presented in a physician network?
Water Cooler Risk
The question of liability for casual dialog is interesting, but not a new question. Doctors have been talking for years. At lunch conferences, in hallways, and in surgical lounges -– the curbside is a way of life for all of us. Good physicians, after all, almost never work alone. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
July 23rd, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Humor, Medical Art, Opinion
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Medical Pastiche blogger Peter Zavislak, whom I can always count on to point out the unusual and interesting sides of medicine, sent me to a website that has nothing but pictures and videos of food in an MRI scanner.
Here’s a series of images from their site of a cantaloupe as viewed from an MRI:
I just find myself thinking that these MRI machines aren’t cheap to run and maintain. Doctors and nurses used to be able to get “freebies” by buddying up with the X-ray, CT or MRI technologist and running a scan for free.
Some hospitals allow their employees to test the machines after being set up or maintained to get images for testing purposes. I’m sure more than a technologist or radiologist or two have found incidentalomas from this practice. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
July 23rd, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion
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All it takes to assure you’ll keep your local cardiologist employed is 19 strips of bacon and an egg and you’ve got yourself one heck of a solid bacon burger:
Having read about the difficulties people making such burgers have had keeping them together, I decided to add one large egg to the food processor along with the 19 slices of bacon. I ground the bacon and the egg together, then, using my hands, pulled the mixture out and used a hamburger press to make a burger. It is possible that my hands have been greasier at some point in my life, but if so I have (fortunately) forgotten it. I was not quite prepared for the raw burger to look like pure fat, and I must admit that it didn’t look very appealing. But it was for science, so I soldiered on!
I put the burger on the rack-Pyrex assembly and slid it under the broiler. Having learned a lesson from last week, I turned the stove exhaust fan to high immediately. I peeked in on it as it cooked, and it seemed to be cooking nicely, with tons of little fat bubbles sizzling on top. After seven minutes or so, I took it out to turn it over, and was pleased how easily it flipped. Five minutes later, it looked done, so I took the temperature of the inside (you need to be careful with pork, of course), and it registered at 160 degrees Fahrenheit, so out it came. Now it looked like food, and smelled delicious.
My family and I thank you, America!
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
July 22nd, 2010 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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I first saw mention of the “vampire facelift” two weeks ago as a news article listed in the July 9th issue of the Plastic Surgery SmartBrief: “Vampire facelift” uses patient’s platelets and fibrin in dermal filler.”
The article begins:
Instead of a traditional facelift, patients are being offered another option to get rid of wrinkles. It’s called Selphyl or the “vampire facelift,” and it uses a person’s own blood to sculpt the face.
Selphyl, according to the company’s website:
The patented SELPHYL® System enables the safe and rapid preparation of an activated Platelet-rich Fibrin Matrix (PRFM). A small volume of the patient’s blood is collected and the platelets and fibrin are concentrated during a simple centrifuge process. The resulting product (liquid, gel or membrane) can be applied to a treatment area of the face or body to stimulate natural, new tissue growth. SELPHYL® prepared PRFM has been shown to increase skin volume and rejuvenation.
SELPHYL® ensures a preparation of fibrin and platelets, with virtually no red or white blood cells. Studies have shown these platelets to be viable and intact. Platelets will release proteins, which have been reported to trigger cell migration, proliferation and differentiation over time.
With over 45,000 procedures performed world-wide, this technology has been extensively used for soft tissue regeneration in plastic surgery, orthopedics and maxillofacial surgery.
So how does Sephyl create any face-lifting effect? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
First, I am a big admirer of Apple CEO Steve Jobs for his thoughtful 2005 Stanford commencement speech, his clarity of vision, and his superb skills as a leader. Fortune magazine named him CEO of the decade after turning around the company he founded from near bankruptcy in the late 1990s to becoming the most valued company today. Though I have great respect for him, I haven’t bought an Apple product, ever, until this year.
