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Komen, Cancer, And Colbert: “Lawsuits For The Cure”

Comedian Stephen Colbert, who says he is “a huge supporter of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation,” nonetheless took a sarcastic swing at the organization this week “for spending almost a million dollars a year in donor funds to sue…other groups” for using the phrase “for the Cure” in their promotions.

We blogged, “Who owns pink ideas or cure slogans? Welcome to the Charity Brawl” back in August after the Wall Street Journal (to our knowledge) first reported the story.

Then in December, the Huffington Post reported that “Komen has identified and filed legal trademark oppositions against more than a hundred of these Mom and Pop charities, including Kites for a Cure, Par for The Cure, Surfing for a Cure and Cupcakes for a Cure — and many of the organizations are too small and underfunded to hold their ground.”

Colbert said: “If they don’t own the phrase ‘for the Cure,’ then people might donate money thinking it’s going to an organization dedicated to curing cancer, when instead it’s wasted on organizations dedicated to curing cancer.”

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

Physician Visibility In Public: I See Patients, And They See Me

In the movie “The Sixth Sense,” there was that kid who saw dead people. I’m like that. But I see patients and their parents instead. They’re all around me.

They’re watching at the grocery store when my kids act up. We meet during anniversary dinners, at Christmas Eve service, and on the treadmill at the Y. I bump into parents when buying personal effects and even during the early morning coffee run in my oldest sweats. I see patients.

The follow-up dialog between the parents might go something like this:

Dad: “Marge, don’t you think Billy’s colitis might be better managed by a doctor capable of pulling himself together?”

Mom: “Don’t be ridiculous, Frank. DrV’s bedhead has nothing to do with his ability to care for Billy. And besides, I’ve heard that he can intubate the terminal ileum in under 10 minutes.”

It’s not that I necessarily mind being seen in the wild. I’m pretty comfortable in my own skin, even when it’s glistening after a workout. I’m bothered more by the fact that patients may be repulsed by my occasional bedraggled appearance. If I knew they were good with it, I might be less caught up with the whole matter. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*

“I Smell (Health) Trouble”

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*

What Not To Say To A Parent Of A Kid With Diabetes

I didn’t make this video, but the fact that it quotes questions I’ve heard people ask the parents of children with diabetes time and time again makes me smirk. It’s a little bit sassy. And my goodness, did I laugh when I first watched it. The second time I watched it, I paused it to write down my favorite line:

“There are only two things my daughter cannot eat:  Poison, and cookies…made with poison.”

(Note:  If someone can hook me up with this moss that supposedly cures all things that ail ya, let me know. I’d love some in time for the holidays.)

This video was born on Joanne’s Death of a Pancreas site. Thanks for the laughs, Joanne!

*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*

The 12 STIs Of Christmas

My yearly Christmas favorite reposted, courtesy of the British National Health Service (BNHS):

The 12 STIs Of Christmas

(Click on the title image to watch)

I have seen several searches of this blog for the BNHS and wondered why. The answer: The site no longer carries the wonderful show, for reasons unknown to me. As for the searches, I guess the Christmas season has people thinking about sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) set to a Christmas tune.

Merry Christmas!

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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