palmd | March 20, 2009My recent post on head trauma got me thinking. The practice of trepanation (the drilling of holes in the head) is thousands of years old. While looking up information on the practice I came upon this woodcut.
The engraving is, I believe, from 16th century England. Over at wikipedia, editors were discussing whether or not this diagram actually showed trepanation, or some other surgical procedure (neither of which I would wish to undergo). Either way, the picture is quite revealing. According to the good folks at wikipedia, the original caption states:
This instrumente is for to worke…
palmd | March 19, 2009I 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. I made her cry.
You see, today is my father-in-law's birthday. He was born 70-odd years ago today. He died less than three months ago. It's not going to be an easy day. I apologized and worked on getting my daughter ready.
My daughter has, like most children, traits from both of her parents. From her…
palmd | March 19, 2009That 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 end of the funds? By having you click onto her site. She'll donate any site revenue to the scholarship, so go now and go often---and while you're there, read her excellent writing.
palmd | March 18, 2009I 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 Rights), and an educational arm. In fact, the more I learn about these wackos, the scarier (and funnier) they seem. You see, it turns out that these folks have a lot of front organizations. Unlike more traditional religions, that are happy to…
palmd | March 18, 2009How 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 supply is kept relatively separate from the rest of the body (the "blood-brain barrier"). This separation helps keep out toxins and micro-organisms (but is imperfect). Just beneath the skull is a tough, leathery layer called the dura mater. This picture shows the skull cut…
palmd | March 18, 2009A 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 up that little inconsistency regarding the matter of whether or not there is a professional obligation to provide elective services. Or is it just physicians, but not pharmacists or other healthcare professionals, who have rights of conscience?
OK, I'll clarify it for you. It's not that…
palmd | March 17, 2009I'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, "... it was all the stress that caused this."
I'm not nearly as surprised as Mr. Imus. Prostate cancer is the malignancy most closely correlated with age (and of course, gender) and estimates are that between 14-70 % of men his age may have prostate cancer (occult or…
palmd | March 17, 2009Apparently 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.
palmd | March 16, 2009Over 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 it was time to dust off this little bit on Scientology and mental illness, rework them a bit, and share them with you again.
The problem
Depression, in the medical sense, is not a mood...it is a severe
disorder originating in the brain, and affecting the entire body. Major…
palmd | March 16, 2009I 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 be disappointed. Our kitchen is no more, having been fatally wounded earlier by water damage, and now having been completely removed in preparation for rebuilding. As a consequence, I have nowhere to grind and brew my coffee. Not to be deterred, I brought PalKid her breakfast and took off for the…
palmd | March 16, 2009Thankfully, 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 of times, and Dr. Novella has a very good summary of the controversy at one of his other blogs. Since we've discussed this so many times, I won't be reviewing the entire controversy, but looking at this particular blog post to examine how our personal experiences…
palmd | March 15, 2009OK, folks, PalCast #8 is up and ready...it's the "road edition"...just listen and you'll see what I mean. Once again, thank you Isis for the name. Remember that the feedburner site allows you to subscribe on iTunes as well as your favorite feed reader.
Feel free to c'mon back here to discuss the 'cast.
palmd | March 13, 2009I hate this topic. I really do. But Abel started it this time. Over at Terra Sig, the good pharmacologist brought up the issue of pharmacists behaving badly. I've dealt with the ethical implications of conscience clauses ad nauseum but Abel's discussion raised some important points.
A brief recap: a patient with a valid prescription for morphine was denied her medication by a pharmacist. The reason given was "that [the patient] should find some alternative pain relief", presumably one that does not involve opioid analgesics. I won't bother with my usual rant about the responsibility…
palmd | March 12, 2009An interesting article was recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the journal of the American College of Physicians (my professional organization). It has been noted in previous studies that there are differences in outcomes between African Americans and whites who are diagnosed with a heart attack. What hasn't been clear is the reason for these differences.
There are known disparities in access to health care, and there is sometimes a stated distrust in the medical system by minorities (not just due to such atrocities as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study). Many of us who…
palmd | March 12, 2009Mrs. Pal registered the kiddo for kindergarten this week. What a kick in the gut. The first time she went to a pre-school class without us, I cried, so what's going to happen when she gets on the bus?
The other day we were watching TV, and she said, "You know that Jonas brother with the straight hair? I love him! He's. So. HANDSOME!"
Ugh.
Of course, she still insists that I cuddle her at night. What do you do with this kind of love? The other day I told her, "I'm so happy we're having so much fun this weekend. What about you?"
"Me too, Daddy, cuz we never see each other during the…
palmd | March 11, 2009It's not like we haven't had this discussion before. I have, on previous blogs, written about the fantasy that is reiki, as have my colleagues. In fact, the very same colleague turned me on to a recent news piece out of Cleveland. Here's my problem with reiki---it's bullshit, pure and simple.
"But how can you be so dismissive?," a credulous reader might ask. My answer comes in two parts.
Absurdist ridiculousity
OK, so I made up that phrase---which is exactly what I have in common with the founder of reiki. In 1922 Mikao Usui (JSG) fasted on a mountaintop in Japan and "received" the…
palmd | March 11, 2009This is a piece from last year that is kinda resonating today, so I'm gonna share it with you. --PalMD
As
I've written before, I love my work. You really have to love medicine
to do it, because, contrary to popular belief, it's a lousy way to get
rich. I'm not starving or anything, but there are dozens of easier ways
to make a much better living...
I'm sitting here in my robe, drinking coffee, getting ready to go
out for a birthday party. I'm drinking coffee because at 2:38 a.m., the
E.R. called me to tell me a patient of mine was being admitted--to
oncology.
"So, why are you calling me?" I…
palmd | March 10, 2009As the term of President B. Hussein Obama begins its transformation of American democracy into a socialist state, one guy saw early indications of his minority-led red revolution.
"He spent his childhood in a Mohammadean country," the guy said, "they could easily have started his indoctrination at that time."
Citing no sources, but using flawless reasoning, the guy reported that the clues are everywhere.
"Do you see how he can't go anywhere without a teleprompter? What better way to feed him the party line? This way, his handlers can feed him lines in real time, and they can be safely…
palmd | March 10, 2009So, I was exploring the twittersphere and noticed that one of my followers was an advocate of "EFT". This sounded familiar, so I dug through the old blog archive and found this piece from early last year.
Once again, by way of Mercola.com, I've learned of a whole new woo. He touts this one for the treatment of fibromyalgia. According to Joe:
EFT is a procedure that borrows from the much-heralded discoveries of Albert Einstein (everything, including your body, is composed of energy) AND from the ancient wisdom of Chinese acupuncture.
Of course I had to follow that link. Anyone who can…
palmd | March 10, 2009Just some reminders:
In case the Underground has not yet sufficiently infiltrated your online life, I'm on twitter, facebook, and friendfeed. It's all great fun, but I'm still not sure what to make of all these media. Still, I'm trying them out, and we'll see what shakes out.