palmd | October 19, 2009Thanks to some friends, colleagues, and strangers, we've almost got another project funded. There's only 85 bucks left to fully fund this creative math project. Let's see if we can get this done before the sun rises.
palmd | October 19, 2009A few weeks ago, I wrote a little about hospitals "dumping" patients. At least around here, it's a rare problem. But what about people who don't get dumped but have no place to go?
Let's take "Mrs. Anton". She's 68 years old and has metastatic breast cancer. She's going to die of the disease, but probably not this week or next. She is admitted to the hospital for a fall, but nothing is broken and there's no reason to keep her. Her husband has been caring for her, but he's a little guy and can't handle the day-to-day care which includes cleaning her, changing her diaper (she can't get to…
palmd | October 19, 2009The Donors Choose challenge still has about ten days left, and we are falling off track for meeting our goals. There's about $1000.00 in challenge money still needed for needy Michigan classrooms, and given the traffic increases on this blog, there must be a number of people who can afford a couple of bucks. I've made my donation (although it's going somewhere a little surprising), so I have to lean on you guys. I've issued a challenge to health care professionals---we're one of the few parts of the economy that is not shrinking rapidly. Even a few bucks makes a difference.
Let's start…
palmd | October 19, 2009There is so much bad health reporting out there that sometimes I forget that there are still some reporters out there who know how to do more than google. A recent issue of Forbes features a report by Mattew Herper about human papilloma virus as a cause for some head and neck cancers. It's written at a level most literate lay-people can understand, and doesn't mangle the science or depend on sensationalism.
A recent issue of wired (h/t Orac) features an article by Amy Wallace on the anti-vaccine movement---a must-read.
Kudos to you, Matthew and Amy
palmd | October 18, 2009Ahh, Saturday night. Our plans were simple. MrsPal wanted to run some errands at the mall, and PalKid wanted to go out with me for sushi. The plan sounded great, but I thought, "hey, it's Saturday night. We should hang together as a family." So I ran it by everyone and we agreed to have dinner some place everyone likes, and then go run errands with Mom.
One of the "rules" for taking multiple choice exams is "never change your answer". I'm really good at multiple choice exams, but apparently I fail at life. Kiddo was a screaming mess most of the evening, tantruming every five minutes…
palmd | October 18, 2009Dr. Weil is often seen as the smiling "mainstream" of alternative medicine. He's a real doctor (unlike, say, Gary Null), and much of what he advocates is standard and uncontroversial nutritional advice. But Weil illustrates the two biggest problems with so-called alternative medicne: once you've decided science is dispensible, the door is open to anything, no matter how insane; and no matter how altruistic you may start, sooner or later you start selling snake oil. Most doctors out there are working hard to help their patients prevent and overcome disease use the available evidence. …
palmd | October 17, 2009A couple of days ago I posted a cranky rant that most doctors can relate to. But folks aren't too interested in what doctors think, apparently, so let's examine what others think.
I confessed my behavior to a number of nurses in a local hospital, and the summary response was, "I would not wake a doctor up for a throat lozenge, and don't be such an asshole."
Responses on the blog were roughly of two types: nurses need to do their jobs so you should take whatever they dish out you arrogant prick; you're an arrogant prick; and hospitals should create rational policies, you arrogant pig.
I've…
palmd | October 17, 2009Just a reminder to you all that my Donors Choose campaign is still going strong. Yesterday I issued a challenge to health care workers to toss a couple of bucks to needy classrooms. If we're lucky, some of these kids will be our colleagues some day. So far, in response to my challenge the kids have received exactly bubkes (that means "nothing").
Yo, health care folks, if you can afford it, even a couple of bucks helps. Many of these classrooms don't even have pencils and paper, so if you think a two dollar donation isn't much, think again.
I know I'm starting to get annoying here, but…
palmd | October 16, 2009Recent discussions around here reminded me that it's time again to talk about what it's like to be in a hospital, and how to survive the experience.
But first, as we move into the last two weeks of our very-successful Donors Choose challenge, I'd like to invite health care professionals in particular to participate. Gifts are tax-deductible and help out needy Michigan school kids with specific, vetted projects that are often useful for several years.
Micro-donation is a great way to go. While big gifts are great, even a couple of bucks add up quickly, especially on challenges with Gates…
palmd | October 15, 2009My Donors Choose drive is part of a larger drive. ScienceBlog's campaign is part of a larger Social Media Challenge, reaching out to millions of internet users to help kids. I'm running second among my SciBlings, thanks to Dr. Isis and her theatrics, but Scienceblogs is doing great overall, especially compared to our friends at Discover Blogs.
Discover is a powerhouse. Some of my favorite science writers hang out over there, including fellow skeptic Phil Plait, Carl Zimmer, and Sheril Kirshenbaum. They're circulation must be huge, but they are dragging far behind us in raising money for…
palmd | October 15, 2009Update: you guys finished funding one of the projects below, which is incredibly generous. I'm a big fan of micro-donations, so feel free to kick a buck or two into another project! --PalMD
OK, you guys have been great. We've funded eight projects in needy Michigan schools, reaching 630 kids---and many of the projects are multi-year so even more kids will be reached.
But from a strictly selfish viewpoint, I want more. One of my favorite bloggy friends, Dr. Isis, has brought out the big guns. She is offering to much public self-humiliation to encourage extra giving. I've got nothing on…
palmd | October 14, 2009First let me remind you that I've written extensively about HPV infection, cervical cancer, and Gardasil, the vaccine to prevent these. The links are at the bottom of the post for your reference.
OK, here's the deal. A bloggy friend of mine is dealing with some serious health concerns due to HPV infection. I've written lots of pieces about the more intimate side of medicine, but no one can tell it like a patient. How someone deals with disease is a personal matter, and she has decided to "come out" and share her story in order to help others. (Digression: a great book called Everything…
palmd | October 14, 2009The last project I was trying to fund---a netbook for a classroom--is finished. The netbook is on the way.
This one is really cool. It's from an inner city chemistry teacher. As the husband of a teacher (and briefly a teacher myself) I can only imagine the struggles of this teacher and her kids---most are poor, class sizes are outrageous, and there's no money for anything. The teacher wants some chemistry kits. That's it. Remember your first chemistry kit, playing with the phenolphalein? The tart smell of the weak acids? The colors? These kits are probably a bit more sophisticated,…
palmd | October 14, 2009I'm very worried about the change in seasons, and about eating in response to stress. I'm starting to worry that I can't do this. My sleep patters are terrible, due to work. It's hard to eat better when you don't feel well and you're used to treating mood with food.
The good news is that despite my backsliding this week, I'm down to 201#. Yeah, it would have been better if I hadn't eaten a bunch of chocolate gelt (CostCo, Belgian, nut-free). Still, my overall change in habits is gradually paying off.
palmd | October 13, 2009Dr. Isis assures me that she will soon unveil a secret weapon to pull ahead in the Donors Choose challenge. I'm all for anything that helps kids, but c'mon---we can stay ahead. Even small donations help tons. For example, if 23 people give $10 each, we can buy a netbook for a classroom in need. There are plenty of other proposals from needy Michigan classrooms, too. Even a couple of bucks will help bring these projects closer to completion.
If you can give a buck, or twenty of them, that's great, but if you can't, you can still help by tweeting, facebooking, etc. so that more people…
palmd | October 13, 2009My readers are pretty bright, and for that I am thankful. As you have no doubt noted, I posted a nice, cranky rant this morning. Shall we examine it dispassionately in the light of day?
Any doctor who takes care of inpatients walks a fine line. As most nurses know, docs can be real assholes. While asshole-ism is never justified, it is sometimes explainable. Many hospitals are unable or unwilling to implement standing orders for basic comfort measures. It is theoretically possible to write a ton of "prn" orders to cover any contingency, but it's unlikely.
For the non-medical folks, I'd…
palmd | October 13, 2009Dear RN,
Thank you for choosing a difficult, sometimes thankless, but often rewarding profession. We need more people like you. And please know that I am available by pager 7 days a week, 24 hours a day for my patients. If anything goes wrong, I'd like to hear about it. My training has prepared me to answer pages at any time, switching instantly from sleep to work mode, and to give that order for a chest X-ray and intravenous furosemide to help our mutual patient who is having difficulty breathing.
I also appreciate that you are thinking not just of the life-or-death needs of my patients…
palmd | October 12, 2009You guys (and my next blogging check) have managed to fully fund several programs already (six by my count), and we're not even at the half-way mark in the drive (well, we're almost there). We've reached over 550 kids.
I have a great project for you: there's a classroom in Michigan that wants to buy a netbook. One. That's it. It would allow the students to research questions without leaving the safety of their classroom. They need another $365 to get it. Can you imagine what kind of world could open up to these kids with web access?
It won't take very many readers making modest…
palmd | October 12, 2009A reader sent me an interesting post from her own blog. It's well-written, compelling, and betrays an exceptional intelligence. It's also completely wrong.
The piece is called, "Bias, Racism, and Alternative Medicine", an intriguing title. The first part tries to establish that "Western medicine" in one of many ways of understanding health and disease. She starts with some personal anecdotes---always interesting, rarely generalizable:
While receiving Western biomedical treatment for ADD, the side effects of my therapy convinced me that western medication alone would not provide a solution…
palmd | October 11, 2009Swine flu is not any nastier than the usual seasonal flu but young people are particularly susceptible to it. The mortality rate is quite low----even at it's worst, flu mortality rarely goes about 1-2%, as it did in the 1918 pandemic. But this flu is attacking a very large number of people; 1% of a large number is still a large number. For a low mortality rate to reflect large numbers, a disease has to hit a lot of people. If you can lower that number significantly, the mortality rate remains the same, but fewer cases will be reflected in fewer deaths. Since this flu tends to hit the…