White Coat Underground
Archives for March, 2009
Poking the hornets’ nest
Posted by PalMD on March 19, 2009 I played hooky from the office this morning. My hours have really been weighing down on me, and with my recent back injury, I really wanted a break. Then my wife begged me to take our daughter to school. And stop at the store. And find the shopping list in her car. I was unhappy.…
Obscene! Sexually charged! Amusingly violent!
Posted by PalMD on March 19, 2009 That would be a good descriptor for an average summer blockbuster, but really, it’s just to catch your attention so that I can send you over to my friend Isis’s place. She’s talked a major academic science organization to match her to give a scholarship to a promising young scientist. How will she raise her…
Which cult is the funniest?
Posted by PalMD on March 18, 2009 I often write about “cult medicine”, that is, medical practices that share many characteristics of cults: they are based on faith, they follow charismatic leaders, they separate people from their money—you know, like The Church of Scientology. The COS has everything going for it—a religious arm, a health care arm (the Citizens Commission on Human…
A simple bump on the head can kill you
Posted by PalMD on March 18, 2009 How can a seemingly trivial head injury kill you? To answer this, you need a little anatomy. Your brain is a pretty important organ, and is well protected. It sits inside a thick armor (the skull) and floats cushioned in a bath of cerebral-spinal fluid. It’s surrounded by several layers of tissue, and its blood…
In health care, the needs of the patient usually outweigh the needs of the provider
Posted by PalMD on March 18, 2009 A frequent commenter on the conscience issue has raised a lot of questions on an recent post. He seems somewhat frustrated that I don’t understand his point. What I think he doesn’t realize is that I do understand his point all too well—he is just wrong. Here is an example: You also still haven’t cleared…
Imus—synonym for “stupid”
Posted by PalMD on March 17, 2009 I’ve written a number of times how blindingly stupid and irresponsible Deirdre Imus has been. Now, Don Imus has revealed he has prostate cancer, and he is apparently surprised. According to ABC News, “he was surprised by the diagnosis because he had been following a healthy diet for the last decade.” He also stated that,…
Comments fixed?
Posted by PalMD on March 17, 2009 Apparently there’s been a problem with the commenting function on the blog. I think this is fixed, so if you’ve been trying to comment and haven’t been able to, try again, and if you have a problem, email me at palmd [at] 1 x10^100 mail.com.
Out, pesky engram!
Posted by PalMD on March 16, 2009 Over at Neurotopia, Scicurious has been doing some terrific writing about depression. Mental illness is a topic I’ve written about many times, so I was inspired to look into the vault and see what kind of goodies I had back there. Well, since I truly loathe people who dole out dangerous medical lies, I figured…
Guilt mitigated by Spring
Posted by PalMD on March 16, 2009 I woke up yesterday morning feeling almost rested, but something was missing. During the week, I don’t have time to have coffee at home, but on the weekend, I love to brew a pot and slowly enjoy it while reading my Sunday feeds, writing, or putting together the PalCast. On this morning, I was to…
How not to think
Posted by PalMD on March 16, 2009 Thankfully, I don’t receive all that much blog-related mail. But this weekend I received several communications about a piece in popular liberal blog. The piece is (ostensibly) about Lyme disease, which coincidentally happens to be one of the topics of my first post here at SBM. In fact, I’ve written about Lyme disease a number…