healt care
palmd | February 8, 2009It's generally a bad idea to assault the religious beliefs of your friends, neighbors, and relatives. That being said, sometimes it's unavoidable. My being Jewish is hard for some people, who feel that just by being me, I am denying their Lord and delaying His return (and before you start tossing No True Scotsmans at me, this has indeed happened more than once). Still, unless someone is directly pestering me with their religion (you know, by posthumously baptizing my grandma or something), I leave them be.
But what about quasi-religious beliefs? A great deal of alternative medicine is…
palmd | February 5, 2009A delusion is usually defined as "a fixed, false belief". Anyone can be wrong, but to persist in being wrong despite all the evidence is the hallmark of delusional thinking. In their latest senseless rant at HuffPo, infectious disease promoters David Kirby and Robert Kennedy, Jr. cling to thin strands of tainted reality as the gaping maw of insanity opens beneath them.
Of course, delusions are very closely related to lies. The only difference is that liar doesn't believe his bullshit, while the psychotic does. It's hard to know where K and K fall. There latest article, entitled, "Autism…
palmd | February 5, 2009Reproductive ethics is a field I'm not all that familiar with, but it's been a big deal lately, so I've been thinking about it a bit. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has a few broadsheets on ethics, which are actually rather helpful. Reproductive medicine is a great field for looking at ethical problems. Let's examine two of them to learn something about the ethics of the field (and of course, about ourselves as well):
Parental factors, that is, facts about the parents, may be important in reproductive medicine. When doctors become part of the reproductive process, someone…
palmd | February 4, 2009So, what's up with low back pain? Well, here's what's up with mine:
To quote from The Book of Pal:
Just below the L4-L5 disc, behind L5 vertebral body on the
right side, there is evidence of a large extradural soft tissue density
measuring approximately 1.5 x 0.8 cm in its maximum vertical and
anteroposterior dimensions respectively. This has the appearance of a large
extruded disc fragment within the epidural space, compromising the right L5
nerve root.
And we say, "Amen."
An MRI of the lumbar spine consists of hundreds of images; I've pulled one out for you. It turns out that science is…
palmd | February 3, 2009She sat on the exam table looking tired an cranky. Otherwise there wasn't much to note about her appearance---not young, but not old; not thin, but not fat; she didn't smell of smoke or have pet hair on her clothes. A glance at her demographics sheet confirmed that she was middle-aged, domiciled, and employed---and uninsured. But why tired and cranky?
She's been wheezing for weeks and this was her second visit to the doctor for the same problem. She has been using her short acting inhaler every few hours, with some temporary relief, but she's run out. It's hard for her to sleep at night…