palmd
Posts by this author
November 21, 2009
Opponents of science-based medicine like to accuse the rest of us of failing to be "holisitc", of failing to see the whole individual who comes to us for health care. I've argued many times that this is not only wrong, but that so-called alternative docs, by recommending unproven treatments and…
November 19, 2009
In November, the citizens of my home state approved a medical marijuana law. The very next day, I started getting calls from patients (often not may own) asking how they could get it. I'm not fan of draconian laws that imprison people for getting stoned, but when it comes to medical interventions…
November 19, 2009
Basing medical practice on science helps us avoid the pitfalls of relying on our own reasoning and experience. If I want to start a patient on a new medicine, the individual characteristics of the patient are important (Is the drug meant for their condition? Will it interact with other drugs they…
November 18, 2009
There are a couple of quotes circulating widely claiming that major players in flu vaccine development are "denouncing" the vaccine.
From (shudder!) mercola.com:
"Dr. Anthony Morris, a distinguished virologist and former Chief Vaccine Office at the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA), states…
November 18, 2009
In a piece written for health reporters, journalist Jane Allen gives some useful advice about covering alternative medicine, but there are some gaps that are are hard for a non-medical professional to recognize (and frankly, for many medical professionals as well). She quite rightly urges…
November 16, 2009
Hat tip to the incomparable, contentious, pain-in-the-ass-who-we-are-all-better-for-having-around scienceblogs regular becca for pointing out this site (from google of course) that helps locate flu shots in your area (in my area, everyone is "temporarily out of stock"). While you're visiting, check…
November 14, 2009
An easy way to kill a debate on health care policy is to use the "R" word. We saw this early in the HCR debate with overheated talk of "death panels" and other nonsense. But we ignore the real issue of rationing at our own peril. Those of us who favor real HCR must embrace rationing, coopt it,…
November 13, 2009
The resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases is a fascinating, if unwanted, phenomenon. Pertussis, measles, and now mumps are cropping up after long periods of quiescence. Mumps has been generally very well-controlled since the adoption of wide-spread vaccination, with no nation-wide outbreaks…
November 12, 2009
There's a number of dangers in carrying an analogy too far. One situation may be analogous to another without being identical, or they may not in fact be analogous at all. Forgetting this principle can get you into a wee bit of trouble.
To formalize it a bit, just because you think "A" resembles…
November 11, 2009
In medicine, theater can go a long way. The seemingly simple acts of laying hands on a patient, leaning in to listen to them, and giving them instructions to follow can be therapeutic. Sometimes this is labelled as part of the so-called placebo effect, but whatever we call it, physicians (and…
November 10, 2009
According to a Pew survey, 61% of Americans are getting health information online. The internet is now the third leading resource for health information after doctors and family/friends. At a recent session hosted by USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, I learned this and many…
November 9, 2009
I had a nice dinner last night with a group of medical bloggers and journalists (I don't recommend the scallops). One journalist, a veteran of many years, asked me, "is your goal to convince people, or are you preaching to the choir?"
It's a simple question, one that I probably should ask myself…
November 7, 2009
I'm told that mathematicians and physicists get a lot of mail from folks with "big discoveries". These discoveries are often of the "Einstein was wrong and I figured out the Theory of Everything" variety. Many of us refer to these folks as "cranks", a catch-all, derogatory term for people who,…
November 5, 2009
Some were surprised to read that after a pro basketball player swatted a bat out of the air, he had to have rabies vaccinations.
This is not a surprise to many medical folks who have had to give rabies prophylaxis after bat exposures. Most of the few human rabies cases in the U.S. are…
November 4, 2009
No matter how you feel about incarceration, it's a dangerous business. Inmates have high rates of serious transmissible diseases which aren't turned into the warden when they are released. Around 2.5 million people are held in American correctional facilities. HIV rates for imprisoned men 1.6%…
November 4, 2009
As I've written before, the placebo effect is a rather messy phenomenon. It usually refers to the difference in outcomes in a study that are not due to the intervention but to multiple other variables associated with being in a study. More colloquially, "placebo" often means a positive effect…
November 3, 2009
Thank you for polluting my in box with a hateful, lie-filled chain letter. It took me all of ten seconds on the internet to find the truth behind your lie and thereby discover what a tool you are. I'm sure it would have seemed natural to you that because we share an ethnic identity I would give…
November 3, 2009
The mainstream media is finally catching on to a disturbing story--the insertion of faith-healing and other non-scientific practices into health care reform. Health bloggers have been on this story for a while, showing us that Senate Bill 1679 currently contains language that would require support…
November 2, 2009
One of my dear readers just left the internet equivalent of a flaming bag of turd on my bloggy doorstep:
Everybody should read this article by Dr. Russell Blaylock http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/What-We-H…
These are the facts folks, all information is derived from…
November 2, 2009
This is not a normal flu season (if you hadn't heard). Normally, summer sees a return of flu cases to a low baseline, but not this year---this year we saw a bump in cases around April, with a consistent trickle of cases throughout the summer, and significant outbreaks at summer camps and military…
October 30, 2009
This is the penultimate day of our Donors Choose challenge to fund needy Michigan classrooms. We have fully funded 13 separate projects and scooped up matching funds from the Gates Foundation and Hewlett-Packard.
You have all been terribly generous, but I have to ask one final favor. A generous…
October 28, 2009
A hat-tip to my buddy Abel over at TerraSig for keeping this story alive and inspiring me to chime in. --PalMD
It's no secret that I find the anti-vaccination crowd to be abhorrent. The public's health is the first victim, followed closely by individual patients and parents struggling with…
October 27, 2009
The young resident presented the patient in the usual dry terms we use for such things.
"The patient is a 42 year old woman recently hospitalized for cirrhosis due to alcohol use. Her cirrhosis has been complicated by esophageal varices, encephalopathy, and refractory ascites."
In other words,…
October 27, 2009
You guys are great. Large donations continue to trickle in, but really, we can live quite well off of small donations. It would be really cool if we finished off the drive with a bunch of micro-donations, in the 1-10 dollar range. These small donations add up really quickly.
A Story to Tell is $…
October 26, 2009
When I see a patient at the office, I spend time developing trust, forming a therapeutic alliance, thinking through their physical complaints, examining them, and applying the best evidence to formulating a plan for maintaining their health. It's a lot of fun.
Less fun is the part where I try to…
October 26, 2009
We have some very generous readers. We've managed to fully fund 12 out of 14 proposals from needy Michigan classrooms. We can probably pull off funding the final two projects this week, and although our readers have been quite generous in the size of individual gifts, I'd love to see a bunch of…
October 25, 2009
My daughter handed my wife a hand-written Channukah wish-list which I will reproduce for you in its entirety:
Barbie remote corvette
Barbie camper
Ken doll
For real elephant
I'm not sure which one we will get her, but I have my biases.
October 25, 2009
I try not to overbook at my office. I have about 16 slots every morning for returning patients (fewer if I have new patients booked, which I usually do). I usually schedule, counting new and old patients, 12 patients every morning. If I were to cut my appointment slots down to 10 minutes instead…
October 25, 2009
My county health department released 10K doses of H1N1 vaccine yesterday and opened up two distribution centers for them. With all the anti-vaccination craziness out there, I was worried no one would show.
Turns out, no need to worry.
My friend went yesterday and waited for four hours with…