May 13th, 2010 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Humor, Medical Art, Opinion, True Stories
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Back to the subject at hand.
To those who are relatively new to this blog, one of the most popular…uh…tolerated series of posts has been my series on the physical exam. If you haven’t done so already, you may want to go back and read the posts to get in the proper mindset (or destroy enough brain cells).
Astute readers will note that doctors are not the only professionals to examine the hand.
Long before we knew anything about carpal tunnel syndrome or the thenar eminence, we had Madam Linda and her cohorts looking at the hand for signs of what the future will bring for the individual that happens to be connected to the hand in question. Just as stars and planets can have a peculiar interest as to whether a person will run into money, the lines on a person’s hand can foreshadow a person’s future. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
May 13th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Medblogger Shout Outs, News, Opinion
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In the medical blogosphere, we talk a lot about medical community sites such as Sermo.com, Ozmosis.com or Doctors.net.uk and we always mention these as huge communities.
While Sermo has over 110,000 physician members, the Chinese dxy.cn has over 1.4 million professionals on its site. It has a blog, a conference site, a pharmacy channel, biomedical business information platform, it covers more than a 100 specialties, and offers thousands of jobs. I tried to translate the mission statement with Google Translate:
Lilac Garden Biomedical Science and Technology Network ( DXY.CN ) was established in July 23, 2000, and since its inception has been committed for the majority of medical professionals to provide a specialized life science platform. With professionalism and strong accumulation and the deepening and development of professional exchange, Lilac Garden has grown into the largest and most popular group of pharmaceutical industry professionals to network media platforms.
Now I’m looking for Chinese doctors who would help us create a Chinese section for PeRSSonalized Medicine, the easiest medical information aggregator that features only selected resources. If you know someone, please let me know.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
May 13th, 2010 by Steve Novella, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Research
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On SBM we have documented the many and various ways that science is abused in the pursuit of health (or making money from those who are pursuing health). One such method is to take a new, but reasonable, scientific hypothesis and run with it, long past the current state of the evidence. We see this with the many bogus stem cell therapy clinics that are popping up in parts of the world with lax regulation.
This type of medical pseudoscience is particularly challenging to deal with, because there is a scientific paper trail that seems to support many of the claims of proponents. The claims themselves may have significant plausibility, and parts of the claims may in fact be true. Efforts to educate the public about such treatments are frustrated by the mainstream media’s lazy tendency to discuss every study as if it were the definitive last word on a topic, and to site individual experts as if they represent the consensus of scientific opinion.
Recent claims made for low-dose naltrexone (LDN) fit nicely into this model –- a medical intervention with interesting research, but in a preliminary phase that does not justify clinical use. And yet proponents talk about it as if it’s a medical revolution. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
May 13th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Professor Mark Kendall of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and his team have been investigating a novel way to deliver vaccines.
Their method makes use of nanopatches, which are fingernail-sized dermal patches with microscopic projections on their surface that hand vaccine off directly to the antigen-presenting cells just below the surface of the skin.
The scientists’ recent work in mice has shown that an immune response equivalent to that achievable by needle and syringe can be reached using 100 times less vaccine. Not only does the nanopatch appear to be a more effective delivery method, it’s also cheaper to produce and doesn’t require refrigeration, adjuvants or multiple doses. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
May 12th, 2010 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, True Stories
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There is discontent in the house of medicine. So many physicians struggle. They seem to wade through uncertainty every day — uncertain about diagnoses, about pain, about disposition. We find ourselves uncertain about our jobs, our futures, our finances.
The consultants we call are uncertain about their practices and whether they can remain viable in the coming years as medicine evolves into something we may find unrecognizable.
Some days, as I enter my 17th year of practice, I don’t know if I can bear to walk around our little department for 10 or 20 more years, like some gerbil on an exercise wheel. I am uncertain if I can bear the weight of more entitlements, more confabulated stories, more regulations, and manufactured drama. I wonder if I can endure decades more of circadian assaults on my brain. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
