March 1st, 2011 by PeterWehrwein in Health Tips, Medical Art
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The film “The King’s Speech” won the Academy Award for Best Picture [on Sunday night.] The movie has come in for some criticism for its depiction of the political machinations surrounding the abdication of Edward VIII and Britain’s appeasement of Hitler. The British-born writer Christopher Hitchens, unsparing and deliciously eloquent as always, puts the politics of George VI in a far less favorable light than the movie does.
But “The King’s Speech” has won almost universal praise for its portrayal of the reluctant monarch’s stuttering, a speech pattern that includes involuntary repetition of sounds and syllables and “speech blocks” that cause prolonged pauses. Many young children who stutter grow out of the problem, but perhaps as many as one in every 100 adults are affected by the condition, 80 percent of whom are men. Stuttering clusters in families, so researchers have been searching for inherited genes that might cause the condition. Last year, in The New England Journal of Medicine, NIH researchers reported some success with results showing an association between three mutated genes and stuttering, although those mutations are probably responsible for a very small minority of cases.
It’s been said that “The King’s Speech” will do for stuttering what “Rain Man” did for autism: Plant a sympathetic view of a disability in the public consciousness. One danger of such a quick infusion of awareness, however, is that it can harden into a fixed, if largely favorable, stereotype. We are finding out — or are being reminded — about all the famous people who have stuttered (many of them writers). First-person accounts are popping up all over the place because of the film. The best I’ve come across is by Philip French, a British film critic, who describes vividly what it was like to listen to the radio broadcasts of the real King George VI, wondering if he would make it to the end “like a drunken waiter crossing a polished floor bearing a tray laden with wine glasses.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
November 2nd, 2010 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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The top vote-getting answer on my poll about what people feel about the election: Different lunatics, same asylum. We are getting jaded by our system. Being the “flaming moderate” that I am, I find it hard to hear the substance of the rhetoric on either side, just the shrillness and rancor of the voices.
From the physician’s perspective, it is very hard to know who to favor in this election. The democrats seem to love lawyers and hate tort reform, and they also favor an expansion of government. The republicans love big businesses and “free market,” accepting the bad behavior of insurance and drug companies as “the market working itself out.” They both seem hell-bent on sticking it to the other party at the expense of getting anything done — and this in a time of crisis for our industry.
The results of this playground brawl between the two gangs of bullies is that all of us wimpy kids (the ones without power) end up lying bloody in the dirt. Here are the facts as I see them about healthcare in our country:
1. It costs far too much. The top item on the agenda needs to be cost control. The only way to control cost is to stop paying for things that are unnecessary or for which there is a cheaper alternative. I know that’s not simple as it sounds, but so much of the discussion is about coverage and how things are paid, while the real issue is not who pays, it’s what and how much gets paid. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
November 2nd, 2010 by JenniferKearneyStrouse in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News
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All eyes are on today’s mid-term elections and how they’ll play out across the country. The results are likely to affect the recently enacted healthcare reform legislation, Politico reports. Although repealing the legislation would be difficult, Republicans may be able to challenge its implementation if they gain control of the House. Attempts to modify the law could require a delicate balance since, as noted by the Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein, some of its provisions, such as coverage for dependents age 26 and younger, are individually popular.
Reuters has published a Q&A on what the election results could mean for the healthcare reform law. The Wall Street Journal is asking readers to weigh in on whether the legislation is affecting their votes. (Politico, Washington Post, Reuters, Wall Street Journal)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
August 23rd, 2010 by GruntDoc in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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CAIRO — A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man’s spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, the brother of the victim said Thursday.
Every time I think my country is screwed up, I read this sort of thing and feel better about it. And kudos to the hospital that (apparently) just said, “No.”
SOURCE: “Saudi judge considers paralysis punishment” – World News – Mideast/N. Africa – MSNBC.com
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
