palmd
Posts by this author
October 24, 2009
For some reason, me and the PalKid were watching Apollo 13 this morning. She was fascinated by the story, especially because it's a true story. During the lift off, the camera panned around the control room, and she said, "Daddy, how come there's only mens? Are girls not allowed in space?"
Those…
October 23, 2009
Technically, the Donors Choose challenge to help out needy kids doesn't end until the end of the month. But donations given by Sunday are going to be matched by Hewlett-Packard. There are two great projects I'd love to get funded by Sunday, and I can't see any reason why we can't do it. If…
October 23, 2009
I got home pretty late last night. The last week or two has seen a huge rise in influenza-like illness (ILI). Late in the evening, I began to get a scratchy throat and chills, but sometimes fatigue can feel like flu. I went home and had a nice dinner and a shower and felt a bit better.
At about…
October 22, 2009
As many of my readers are aware, most of us are going to need two flu shots this year: one for the seasonal flu, and one for the pandemic (swine) flu. I got my seasonal flu shot two weeks ago, and I'm taking the family to the community college up the street this weekend for our pandemic shots. It…
October 22, 2009
I've let you guys alone for a couple of days, but now it's crunch time. Hewlitt-Packard is going to match donation based on how much we are able to raise in the next few days. They have 200K to distribute, and who gets it will be based on how much we raise before Sunday. There are a couple of…
October 21, 2009
I get a lot of comments hostile to doctors, and I'm OK with that. Going to a doctor can be comforting, painful, humiliating, frightening, or all of the above. Doctors can be saints, assholes, and everything in between. But there are two phenomena I find puzzling. One is the act of "punishing"…
October 21, 2009
How may topics are there on which Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Arianna Huffington, Bill Maher, and now Louis Farrakhan can agree?
One, and one only: flu vaccination.
Let's give a run down of the "reasoning":
Glenn Beck: the safest option is doing the exact opposite of what the government…
October 20, 2009
Michigan has suffered enough. We've been devastated by economic and manufacturing changes, leading to mass unemployment, poverty, and poor education. That last one is really killing us.
According to news reports, more than half of Michiganders plan to forgo vaccination, mostly for reasons that…
October 20, 2009
Hewlett-Packard, the folks who made the computer I'm using at this very moment, are going to kick in more money to our project, and they're doing it on some sort of pro rated matching system that I don't understand. What I do understand is that as of today, HP is tracking how much we give, and…
October 19, 2009
Thanks 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.
October 19, 2009
A 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,…
October 19, 2009
The 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…
October 19, 2009
There 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…
October 18, 2009
Ahh, 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…
October 18, 2009
Dr. 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…
October 17, 2009
A 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…
October 17, 2009
Just 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…
October 16, 2009
Recent 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…
October 15, 2009
My 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,…
October 15, 2009
Update: 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---…
October 14, 2009
First 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…
October 14, 2009
The 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…
October 14, 2009
I'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…
October 13, 2009
Dr. 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…
October 13, 2009
My 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.…
October 13, 2009
Dear 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…
October 12, 2009
You 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…
October 12, 2009
A 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…
October 11, 2009
Swine 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…