palmd
Posts by this author
March 1, 2010
Here in the U.S. our rich are very rich and all but our poorest live better than most Haitians. In this context it's easy to lose perspective and to be a bit naive about the survival needs of the people in post-quake Haiti.
Or maybe that's being too generous. How hard could it be for an adult to…
February 25, 2010
Ambivalent Academic made a fascinating observation today about certain parts of the animal rights movement:
What really strikes me is that a lot of this rhetoric reads like snuff-porn.
[...]
There is an undercurrent of appetite for the kind of violence they describe. It reads as if they take…
February 24, 2010
I have this friend. She used to be a scientist, but changed fields, earning a Ph.D. in philosophy. She now studies and teaches the ethics of the practice of science. I'm sure most of my readers understand how important this is. Without transparent, thoughtful, and informed discussions of ethics…
February 23, 2010
Several months ago, Dr. Val Jones wrote about a growing fad in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. The therapy, called platelet rich plasma (PRP) injection, involves taking a small amount of blood from a patient, spinning it down in a centrifuge, and then injecting the plasma component…
February 22, 2010
I've written previously about my decision not to assist patients in obtaining medical marijuana. My decision is based on my interpretation of the data and of medical ethics. This decision is independent of any opinion I may have about legalization.
But other doctors may see things differently.…
February 22, 2010
Human beings are fundamentally narcissistic, and this narcissism can be antithetical to good science and good medicine. We place far too much confidence in our individual abilities to understand what happens to us, and we place far too much importance on our own experiences, inappropriately…
February 22, 2010
Every morning I get to wake up my daughter and get her ready for school, but often that's the last time I see her until the next day. The other day, my wife took her out of school to go to the dentist (apparently the entire school became aware of this just after my daughter). Despite her initial…
February 18, 2010
There are plenty of bloggers who consider themselves to be serving a larger social purpose. How much of a service they actually provide depends very much on your own ideology. I'm sure RedState thinks they are providing vital, timely political analysis, while I think they're a waste of bandwidth…
February 16, 2010
The story of the Texas nurses who were fired and prosecuted for reporting a flaky doctor just keeps getting better. This case was surprising in that it at first seemed to be a clear abuse of power by local officials but on deeper exploration involved a whole army of unorthodox medical thinkers (…
February 15, 2010
I'm crabby. Normally I'm a pretty easy-going dude, but right now I'm crabby and some of the stuff I'm reading on the internet lately is so stultifyingly stupid, I just can't contain myself any longer.
It's not unexpected for Dr. Communication-is-My-Field to belie his title with every word he…
February 13, 2010
What constitutes quackery depends very much on how quackery is defined. If part of that definition is making false or unsubstantiated claims about a medical product you are selling, then Dr. Rolando Arifiles is a quack.
Dr Arafiles and his cronies in the Winkler County government may not realize…
February 13, 2010
I love writing about quackery and other medical shenanigans, but there are some activities and organizations that are so distasteful that I can rarely force myself to write about them. One of these is the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). This is an organization that has…
February 12, 2010
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a fascinating little bugger. Certain strains can interfere with tumor suppressor genes leading to cancer, especially cervical, anal, and some mouth cancers. Other strains cause genital warts. The vaccine offered in the U.S. (Gardasil) protects against the two…
February 11, 2010
Good news out of Texas. Anne Mitchell, the nurse who filed an anonymous complaint about a doctor with the Texas Medical Board, was acquitted of felony charges.
Mitchell brought her concerns about Dr. Rolando Arifiles to her hospital administration, and when she got nowhere, she felt forced to…
February 10, 2010
I get a lot of email asking me about various alternative therapies and supplements. A recurring theme on this blog has been the hyperbolic claims of alternative practitioners and supplement makers, and while I can't answer every email, I can at least address some of them in the blog. Supplements…
February 10, 2010
There have been some disturbing rumors circulating about Dr. Rolando Arafiles, the Texas doctor who enlisted a local sheriff to harass and ultimately prosecute local nurses. The nurses filed anonymous complaints with the state medical board about Arafiles' practices, and one of them is now in…
February 8, 2010
There's a prosecution going on in Texas that sounds so corrupt, and could have such a chilling influence on the pursuit of quackery nationwide, that it cannot be ignored. I urge you to read the story in the Times, but here's a brief recap.
In Kermit, a small Texas town, two nurses at local…
February 4, 2010
I recently raised some questions about narcotic therapy contracts and my readers raised even more issues. Some of these questions deserve further discussion.
First, despite the examples I gave, when I'm speaking about narcotic contracts I am talking about people chronically on narcotics. I don't…
February 4, 2010
Medicine has traditionally been full of hierarchies. Employees' uniforms make their role easy to identify: one color for radiology techs, another for secretaries, etc. When I was a resident, medical students wore short white coats, residents long blue coats, and attendings long grey coats.…
February 3, 2010
I'm heartened by the discussions of medical ethics arising out of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. From reading and listening to interviews with writer Rebecca Skloot, and from my brief conversations with her, I know that medical ethics were very much on her mind during the ten years it took…
February 1, 2010
Treating patients with narcotic analgesics is not simple. Narcotics can be very effective at relieving pain, but they come with a whole set of problems, including risk of adverse effects such as nausea, constipation, and altered mental status; overdose; and dependence. As I've written before,…
January 31, 2010
This is a special shout out to the doctors and scientists out there. Everything we do in our fields has repercussions, often unexpected ones. Because of this, we strive to practice ethically to help prevent or minimize negative repercussions.
This discussion comes up specifically as an…
January 30, 2010
It's a cold day here in Lake Woebegone southeast Michigan. I'm looking out the kitchen window at the thermometer: +11 F, which is apparently the same -11 C. From my kitchen table, I can see the neighbors let out the dog, who seems unfazed by the cold. He's some sort of little fuzzy white dog and…
January 27, 2010
"...It never was our guise
To slight the poor, or aught humane despise:
For Jove unfold our hospitable door,
'Tis Jove that sends the stranger and the poor..."
---Homer: The Odyssey, Translation by Alexander Pope
A few weeks ago, Drugmonkey wrote a piece about perceptions of drug users. …
January 27, 2010
I'm hard on hardware, apparently. My current computer, an hp tablet, is falling apart. I need to start thinking about replacement. Cost is the number one issue, so I was thinking about an Acer or a Dell Mini or similar product.
I use my computer all day, every day, for work and for writing. My…
January 25, 2010
Salmonella is lots of fun. Human infection usually involves fever, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea, which is often bloody. Salmonella infections are reasonably common, especially food-borne outbreaks. It's unknown exactly how many people in the U.S. suffer from salmonellosis each year since…
January 25, 2010
After learning of the British vicar who sent the cops after a blogger, I decided to read up a bit more about this guy.
Sizer is a Mideast activist. By "activist", I mean that he sees the State of Israel as an abomination. He has revisionist ideas about Middle East history which he feels was…
January 25, 2010
From my pal Arikia, I learned of a disturbing case in the UK. A blogger over there has been posting information about Stephen Sizer, an Anglican vicar and holocaust denier. The vicar apparently felt so threatened by the dissemination of his own ideas that he called the cops.
According to…
January 24, 2010
In The Checklist Manifesto (Amazon, Borders, b&n), Dr. Atul Gawande expands on his previous writing about the work of Dr. Peter Pronovost. Pronovost developed a system to help reduce complications of hospital care, such as infected venous catheters. This system has been very successful. It is…