Month: January 2008
-
Don’t fall asleep during the Sarah Connor Chronicles
For the benefit of Teresa and her son, here’s a description of a day in the life. This may not be all medstudents on the surgical rotation, but at the moment it’s what I’m doing. I wake up around 4AM, put on scrubs (usually, but on clinic day you dress nice), and go to work.…
-
Surgeons have cool tools
Surely no one can be pissed at me for pointing out that surgeons have some of the coolest tools, so I think I’ll describe a few of them that I’ve seen used a great deal in general surgery. The one most frequently in use is referred to simply as “the Bovie” and it is used…
-
Finally, an explanation for my sneezing
Here I thought I was the only one but apparently photic sneezing has received enough attention to get researchers interested in it. Apparently it’s an ancient problem: Aristotle mused about why one sneezes more after looking at the sun in The Book of Problems: “Why does the heat of the sun provoke sneezing?” He surmised…
-
2007 Holiday Card, A Bit Late
Those of you on my snail mail list receive holiday cards from me every December, but this year was so hectic that I never got to one. So, today (really tomorrow), I’m mailing my MLK Day cards, which will include A is for Abandonable, Chris’ Abecedarium of Dysphemisms (PDF). Use these words liberally to spice…
-
Medical Credit Stores: Sorry, You Only Qualify for Subprime Medical Care
Bob Sullivan reports at MSNBC on the early developments of a medical privacy score by Fair Issac, the same company that invented the credit score for lenders. This is somewhat scary, because the entire point of credit scores is to make decision making easier, so easy that people very low on the totem pole can…
-
Back in the Summer of ’72
I’m willing to bet that you weren’t at Explo ’72, the “Christian Woodstock,” which received an encomium in today’s Journal by John Turner: In 1972, Mike Huckabee — still in high school — followed the example of thousands of other young Americans. He went to a weeklong festival, waded through mud and listened to rock…
-
Bibliolatrists: Quickly Dial 911! That Woman Has Been Shunned!
The Wall Street Journal’s Alexandra Alter reports on the newest reason not to spend your money and time at church: shunning has returned, meaning that years of devotion to your religious institution can be cut off if you do something like gossip or dare to question the grand panjandrum: On a quiet Sunday morning in…
-
Skeptics’ Circle Number 78 – The Skeptical Surfer
This week’s circle is at skeptical surfer’s blog. Although I think Christian has made an error or two in his evaluation of the latest NHANES studies and what they say about obesity. For one, obesity has always been 30+ BMI, overweight was changed from 27 to 25 by one government agency responsible for surveillance of…
-
Wounds!
Despite the best attempts of the New York Times Wellness Blog to get me fired, I’m still here and doing fine. Somehow a post about how impressed I was with surgery, the professionals that practice it, and how many of my preconceptions about surgeons were incorrect, got all turned around into some “peak behind the…