Mechai Viravaidya has been fighting poverty and disease in Southeast Asia through innovative promotions of safe sex practices. In this TED talk, he gives an amusing overview of how Thailand went from seven children per family to 1.5 in less than four decades and a 90 percent reduction in HIV infection rates from 1991 to 2003.
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Nurses and doctors depend on coffee to perform their jobs the most of any profession, reports a survey.
Nurses ranked first and doctors second when asked if they needed coffee to get through their day. The rest of the coffee-fueled careers were a mixed bag of white collar and blue collar positions. Among other findings:
— 48 percent of those in the Northeast said they were less productive without coffee, compared to 34 percent of Midwesterners.
— 40 percent of those aged 18 to 24 said they can’t concentrate as well without coffee.
— 37 percent said they drink two or more cups a day.
NOTE: The study was funded by CareerBuilder and Dunkin’ Donuts.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
This gave me a chuckle from Doc Cartoon:
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
ZDoggMD, a hospitalist in California, gives us Diagnosis: Sesame Street — a “cluster of mental illness, all on one urban inner-city avenue.” Enjoy.
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
Doug Farrago is a family physician in Maine and the editor of the entertaining Placebo Journal. He uses his Placebo Journal media platform to show his audience what primary care is all about. In this video, “Doug Unplugged,” Dr. Farrago gives us a little taste of that journey. Hollywood, take notice.
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
