Prosopagnosia: On Becoming a Doctor

This is a news website article about a scientific finding | Martin Robbins | Science | guardian.co.uk

2010-09-27T22:18:00.000-04:00

This is a news website article about a scientific finding | Martin Robbins | Science | guardian.co.uk

Ideas as history changers

2010-09-19T22:29:00.000-04:00

Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Honor Code shows how honor drives moral progress. - By Paul Berman - Slate MagazineA book which has the rare temerity to suggest that ideas -- in this case, of honor -- have driven moral progress. It has always struck me as odd that universities, for which ideas constitute their major product, have, for a generation, denigrated mere ideas as agents of history, seeing,

Frank Kermode, 1919-2010, RIP

2010-08-28T03:42:00.000-04:00

Frank Kermode, 1919-2010, exemplified an ideal that is dying. - By Adam Kirsch - Slate MagazineAn exemplar of the style of criticism to which I once aspired, and whose desuetude made me leave the academy. Cheers to (another) fine Manxman.

Sometimes, the system works

2010-08-22T18:34:00.000-04:00

Time trends in outcome of subarachnoid hemorrhage: Population-based study and systematic review -- Lovelock et al. 74 (19): 1494 -- NeurologyIt's an assumption that the high cost of intensive care, technology development and delivery results in improved care for patients. It's one of the features of all health care systems that I most admire: taking seemingly insurmountable and devastating

Spinal-Fluid Test Is Found to Predict Alzheimer’s - NYTimes.com

2010-08-10T04:23:00.000-04:00

Spinal-Fluid Test Is Found to Predict Alzheimer’s - NYTimes.comReport in Archives of Neurology. 'Particularly interesting: the protein in the spinal fluid may predate clinical Alzheimer's, meaning that, while this blog has been always quite conservative regarding any discovery resulting in the development of a treatment, suggests a road towards developing a new research program for one.Could be a

Palliative Care in the ER

2010-08-08T20:29:00.000-04:00

Slate has a piece on palliative care in the ER. The problem of overtreatment has at least two prongs. The first leans toward dry policy discussions: the fee for service system may simply be the worst system except for all the others. The second, however, is a very wet kind of problem. Decisions about when to end treatment are rarely clear or easy. There is the old policy chestnut that 90% of

Peter vs Chris Hitchens on God

2010-08-01T19:54:00.001-04:00

New York Times review of Peter Hitchens book, written in response to his (more famous) brother's book. Probably goes under 'books I had meant to write, but have been too lazy to do so'. In it he defends (according to the review) Christianity, and religion generally, not as a means to personal revelation, but as a cultural preservative. It is, of course, C.Hitchens contention that the opposite is

In the Trenches versus the Bird's Eye

2010-07-27T02:29:00.001-04:00

Timothy Noah likes to state as a fact that the Veterans' Affairs Hospitals are unequivocably superior to conventional hospitals, in particular citing this NEJM article. Yet it is a doctors' truism that the VA Hospitals provide the worst patient care. They joke about the poorly trained, heavily organized nurses ("What's the difference between a VA nurse and a bullet? A bullet can be fired, a

Return from hiatus?

2010-07-13T18:27:00.002-04:00

I promised myself that I would start posting again once I finished a brutal year of rotations, which is now over. So this is notice that the odds of a post next week are astronomically higher than say, a post last week. Just serving notice. Watch this space.

Can you really be "addicted" to shopping or using the Internet? - By Vaughan Bell - Slate Magazine

2009-12-21T00:06:00.001-05:00

Can you really be "addicted" to shopping or using the Internet? - By Vaughan Bell - Slate MagazineOne of these "thank God some one wrote this, because I have been too lazy to do so" articles.

Solzhenitsyn on Malpractice

2009-11-22T17:19:00.002-05:00

From Cancer Ward, Solzhenitsyn's novel depicting life on an oncology unit in Stalin's USSR, a surgeon's diatribe:'I went to the trial yesterday ... A child suffering from volvulus and twisted bowels was operated on. He lived several days after it was done. He even started going out and playing games... Then his bowels got partially twisted again and he died. The wretched surgeon had to put up

Relatively cheerful

2009-11-08T23:29:00.002-05:00

I saw, ahead of me, one of the best physicians I know, a general surgery resident - sharp in his clinical acumen as well as his wit - walking, shoulders slumped, head down. I caught up to him, and he was clearly feeling down.'I have to present at Mortality and Morbidity conference tomorrow' - a weekly conference where the entire surgical body meets to review all of the cases with poor outcomes

Happy that

2009-11-08T23:06:00.002-05:00

the phrase "pre-existing conditions' will become extinct. Recently, an insurance company, on the day of brain surgery for a family that had traveled internationally, called to say they wouldn't be covering the operation because they had recently discovered the procedure was for a pre-existing condition. Which was true ... since the large cyst compressing the child's brain was, in fact, congenital

The most accurate television show about the medical profession? Scrubs. - By Joanna Weiss - Slate Magazine

2009-09-18T02:31:00.001-04:00

The most accurate television show about the medical profession? Scrubs. - By Joanna Weiss - Slate MagazineAs many of you know, I have long maintained that Scrubs is the most accurate medical show on television. For once, people agree with me.

Relative value and public health

2009-09-05T21:37:00.001-04:00

Dr Thomas Bodenheimer explains the importance of the RVU (the 'relative value unit') to the finances of American health care. It is probably the number one reason we don't have good primary care: the federal government does not value it.The RVU is the basis of physician reimbursement. A committee of physicians determines, by a 2/3 majority, based on the difficulty, the expense, and the

LRB � Walter Benn Michaels: What Matters

2009-08-26T00:13:00.000-04:00

LRB � Walter Benn Michaels: What Matters.A review of an essay collection, Who Cares about the White Working Class? edited by Kjartan Páll Sveinsson. A nice analysis of how race politics and class politics work at loggerheads.One of my pet peeves has been the prominence of increasing opportunities to different races, rather than increasing opportunities to different classes. While the upper

Fat Man turns 30.

2009-08-19T22:43:00.007-04:00

It's the 30th anniversary of House of God, a book every doctor has read or pretended to. I reviewed it here and referenced it here. Whatever its artistic failings, it captures the working conditions of residents well. Yes, things have been reformed (and I've argued, at times, that they've gone the wrong way), but the gestalt is more or less the same.I don't think most people, even our close

More Girard Movie Reviews

2009-08-11T12:08:00.002-04:00

Courtesy of rbnmrny's twitter feed.Feel free to create your own, my one other reader besides Mr Moroney.

A Titular Philosopher

2009-08-10T23:14:00.003-04:00

If a philosopher were only judged by the qualities of the titles of his books, none, I think, would surpass Rene Girard:Resurrection from the UndergroundThings Hidden since the Foundation of the WorldThe ScapegoatI See Satan Fall Like Lightning(Having read only one of the above, I will still say the brilliance of the title is reflected off every page. )I can't think of any author - in any field -

NHS physicians: Vocation to Vacation

2009-08-01T17:09:00.004-04:00

The NHS has reduced work hours for junior doctors again - to 48 hours per week. Frankly, it is impossible to even imagine how this could adequately train anyone. Other professionals (e.g., politicians, lawyers, financial analysts, CEOs, scientists, engineers, etc) routinely work more hours. Anything important takes a lot of time. I wouldn't trust a financial planner who spent 48 hours a week in

The critic's ad dilemma

2009-07-29T01:01:00.002-04:00

I started posting ads, mostly for amusement, on my derelict blog. Funnily, Google's content search has determined that naturopaths, holists, etc -- the people I have been criticizing in not merely a few posts -- are the ideal advertisers for this site. So far, they have earned me $0.08.

On the Harpist who Volunteers her Time in the Hospital

2009-07-18T12:47:00.003-04:00

Said my attending: "Is a harp really the best thing to hear when waking up from brain surgery?"

Obsession

2009-02-28T02:02:00.003-05:00

I am beginning to feel the obsession. A couple of nights ago, I stayed to do a late case - a suboccipital craniectomy for a brainstem cavernous malformation. It's one of the most elegant surgeries, operating in perhaps the most difficult part of the body. Most neurosurgeons will not operate there, as the complications are both frequent and devastating: double vision, paralysis, numbness,

Death viewed from a dark place

2009-02-07T04:46:00.003-05:00

Something I wrote during a particularly grisly month of work:I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death. To grasp it, uncloak it, and see it eye to eye, unblinking. Neurosurgery attracted me as much for its intertwining of brain and consciousness as for its intertwining of life and death. I had thought that a life spent in the twilight between the two would grant not merely a stage

The physicians' paradox

2009-01-28T01:08:00.002-05:00

Medicine is, in one sense, an analogue to episteme as surgical is totechne. Medicine requires the marshalling of huge amounts of knowledge, or, at least, the following of complex algorithms: abstraction upon abstraction. Surgery requires the honing of technique, the immediate engagement with flesh and blood.Psychologically, however, medicine, at least in its ideal, is about engaging with the

18 months down, 66 to go.

2009-01-27T01:48:00.003-05:00

Neurosurgical residency takes a long goddamned time. (but there's little else I'd rather do)

The clock is ticking ...

2008-06-21T01:59:00.003-04:00

The day before I started as an intern, a resident finished orienting me by saying: "Remember, they can always hurt you more ... but they can't stop the clock."The clock is ticking down on my internship; my vacation starts in a few hours. As much as I didn't want it to happen, I found myself turning into the Fat Man from House of God, dispensing worn mottos spun from wearying experiences.The

Obligatory Ted Kennedy Post

2008-05-25T18:31:00.005-04:00

Here is one of the more informative news stories about Sen Kennedy's unfortunate diagnosis. He has either a stage III or stage IV glioma. My hunch is that it's a grade IV (also known as glioblastoma multiforme or GBM). Historical data suggests that, without surgery, patients with GBMs die within two months. But recent advances in chemotherapy ( Temodar and, most recently, Avastin) might extend

Don't Take Zetia

2008-01-15T10:51:00.000-05:00

... and sell your Schering stocks.

The Moral Instinct

2008-01-15T10:47:00.001-05:00

Steven Pinker, in The Moral Instinct, is less glib than usual and offers a decent summary of the whole biology/evolution/morality picture. In his description, at times, the moral instinct is like other instincts, say, the sexual instinct: a trait that is necessary for the propagation of the species and a central feature of human experience. But he also describes judgments as a kind of moral

"Changing horses in mid-ocean."

2008-01-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

"The grass is always greener."Obviously, I love clichés. They so neatly condense our conflicted thoughts and emotions into a trite little package. I too often sympathize with one of Stockton's earlier statements, "being an intern is more or less like a regular office job," you're "bored, tired and frustrated with paperwork." That was from a neurosurgical intern; on his worst days, he's still

Halfway through the night

2008-01-08T04:06:00.000-05:00

... and things are slow enough to blog.Articles- describing how the zeitgeist has passed over professionalism for creativity.-Stanley Fish arguing the humanities are useless: "they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them. To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever." He contrasts his view with Tony

Take up your helmet and walk

2008-01-07T17:50:00.000-05:00

The first feature on the 'miraculous' recovery of Kevin Everett, the NFL player who broke his neck early this season but is now walking around.Dr. Barth Green, a neurosurgeon who heads the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, advocates the use of cold saline in spine injury. Everett's comically-named orthopedist, Dr Cappuchino, had recently heard a lecture by Green's chief scientist on using

I am about to be a problem

2008-01-07T17:18:00.000-05:00

Before residency, I believed that work-hours restrictions were obvious improvements. Tired doctor = bad care. But in shortening hours, drawbacks emerge. One is the 'shift-worker' mentality: if I can keep this patient's problem underwraps until 5 pm, it's not my problem. This worsens a second problem: transfer of care. Sure, when doctors are tired, they don't think as clearly. But the other

AIDS Patients Face Downside of Living Longer

2008-01-06T13:31:00.000-05:00

NYT: AIDS Patients Face Downside of Living Longer. A reminder that major illness is major. I've heard doctors lament the 'antibiotic' model of medicine:Day 1. you feel fine.Day 2. you feel sick.Day 3. you take some pills.Day 4. you feel fine.That this has become the expectation of medical care is more a testament to antibiotics than medicine generally. Most never see Day 4. Heidegger's

Surgeon who took penis photo 'no longer practicing' at Mayo

2008-01-03T22:46:00.000-05:00

A surgical resident who took a photo of a patient's penis that was tattooed "Hot Rod" got fired.Here are the weird parts of the story:1. The tattoo itself2. The resident took & showed the photo to a few other staff3. An employee leaked the patient's name and story4. The paper published the patient's name and story5. ... and the resident is fired for violating patient privacy.Now the resident was

Glassbooth: computers for democracy

2008-01-03T22:18:00.000-05:00

Glassbooth is a website which has a clever and simple way to help you understand whom to vote for. It asks you to rank issues, then constructs a weighted quiz based on your concerns, and matches up your answers to candidate platforms, voting records and quotations. The site is heavily hyperlinked, so you can educate yourself on the issues as well as the candidates' positions.My issues were broad,

Worse than alternative medicine is ...

2007-12-09T20:03:00.000-05:00

the use of pseudoscience to replace common-sense knowledge. This describes the most extreme example in a while, but there's plenty, even, alas, in mainstream cognitive science.This reminds me of advice I received while applying for my English graduate studies from my former English advisor, after reading my application essay about the groundless aesthetics of modernism, remarked that I should '

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman (Reviews)

2007-12-02T01:08:00.000-05:00

Prof. Rothman reviews How Doctors Think, highlighting one of the flashpoints of modern medicine that I started harping about before slogging into alt.medicine: following evidence-based algorithms vs actual individuals actually thinking. Dr Groopman champions the latter position; Prof. Rothman the former. I'd say we need both, and more of it.

Trephination: alternative medicine?

2007-11-30T00:10:00.000-05:00

Trephination is my new perfect example of why "alternative medicine" in and of itself isn't a justification for anything. Trephination (or trepanation) is a traditional healing practice with anecdotal reports attesting to its utility. It is, more specifically, drilling a hole in your skull for treating depression/fatigue/etc., - the stuff most alternative therapies purport to treat. While I am a

The Second Amendment, explained. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

2007-11-26T00:13:00.000-05:00

The Second Amendment, explained.In light of the Supreme Court's decision to review the 2nd amendment, here are some talking points for your water cooler conversation.

Is it better for the environment to be a vegan or a vegetarian? - By Brendan I. Koerner - Slate Magazine

2007-10-25T00:59:00.000-04:00

Is it better for the environment to be a vegan or a vegetarian? - By Brendan I. Koerner - Slate MagazineA little piece on my (erstwhile) diet -- back when I wouldn't have cheese on pizza, but would, if locally raised on grasses (not grains), throw on some sausage; where I wouldn't eat cream cheese on a bagel, but would slather on lox (if Alaskan).Moderate carnivores who eat only responsibly

What's right with alt.medicine.

2007-10-20T19:57:00.000-04:00

Now that I've alienated my one reader, it's time to point that for being someone who criticizes the limits of science frequently, it might seem strange for me to bash alternative medicine. What I'm really bashing, though, is the (non-)scientific theory behind alternative medicine - not its specific practice.The practices of alternative medicine, overall, do not cause problems. Even if they are

What's wrong with alt.medicine, pt 2.

2007-10-17T21:42:00.000-04:00

"having found the NCCAM website, it seems much broader than the farther out there therapies you highlighted in your post (it includes topics on depression, arthritis, herbal remedies). Unless scientists know now that studying these things further is a waste of time, it would seem important to study them - Anonymous'Dear Anonymous,You are right that alternative medicine is a heterogenous group of

What's wrong with alternative medicine?

2007-10-11T15:10:00.000-04:00

One surgeon argues that it's because the evidence is inductive, or anecdotal:"The process of collecting observations in defence of a hypothesis is known as inductivism. Inductive logic was considered ‘science’ up until the eighteenth century, when the Scottish philosopher David Hume finally illustrated the poverty of the process. Perhaps the best way of illustrating the poverty of inductivism as

Diet of a Brain Surgeon, Part II

2007-09-25T22:38:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the neurosurgery diet, I am a new man! In just 3 months, I've dropped 2 collar sizes and 3 pant sizes! It's so easy: Wake up sometime between 4 and 5 am, feel nauseous, take Tums, go to work, work until somewhere between 7 and 9 pm, go home, eat steak/burger/pizza, go to sleep. I've ditched the Tums and started taking Pepcid to make the diet even easier. Also because I probably have

Death

2007-09-06T00:44:00.000-04:00

A patient died this past weekend. As I piled through the paperwork, her ghost sidled next to me and whispered, "Death, too, is a discharge."

Diet of a Brain Surgeon

2007-09-02T21:17:00.000-04:00

The primary evidence that working 39 hours in a row is bad for your health: I came home and, despite my intense dedication to cooking a vegetable risotto for dinner and working on a paper, I drank a Bud Lite and ate half a tiramisu while watching Top Chef.(Right now I am drinking a Bud Lite and watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent)

Number one

2007-08-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

I am usually bored, tired and frustrated with paperwork. Being an intern is more or less like a regular office job. Some days a lot less. I lost my first patient on Tuesday. He was a 76 yo little black man who was the healthiest fella on our service. At his autopsy, the pathologist was shocked to learn his age: 'He has the organs of a 50 year old'. He had been admitted for constipation from a

Internship: Practice makes ... less bad.

2007-07-15T17:50:00.000-04:00

Last week, our troupe of doctors manque practiced medicine on mannequins. Surgical education used to be on the fly, lessons learned at the bedside under instruction of a senior resident. However, perhaps because senior residents are limited by the 80 hour work week, we interns are usually left alone to handle our patients. And that, certainly, is not good for the patient. So last week I performed

House Rules

2007-07-04T20:23:00.000-04:00

The last thing the outgoing intern said to us before we started: "Remember Rule VIII: They can always hurt you more."Then he added: "...but they can't stop the clock."That's as hopeful as it gets, at times.

4 days down, 2,553 to go.

2007-06-25T00:10:00.000-04:00

Internship started four days, or more exactly, 83 hours, ago. Of those, I've worked 61 hours, not even counting time at home returning pages from the hospital or dictating notes. I'm too tired to complain or explain: about the challenges, both spurring and crushing, the patients, even the rare joy.I'm off next Sunday, so I'll say more then. For now: the Army was wrong - this must be the toughest

Richard Rorty, RIP

2007-06-13T04:27:00.000-04:00

New York Times obit of one of my greatest influences.He achieved a few more things than being my professor.UPDATE: Rorty remembered by various people. One nice Rorty quote: "My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law." He was an atheist (but was married to a Mormon). This quote,

TB scare: scary

2007-06-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

Was the TB thing as big a deal as it was made out to be? The answer is, for once, yes. XDR-TB is generally lethal and highly contagious (unlike bird flu). It’s sort of like if HIV/AIDS were transmitted through coughing. This might be the last thing that you’d want in your population.This raises the question: where did he get it? He has good health care and no traditional avenues of exposure (e.g.

Americans Doubt Theory of Evolution

2007-06-11T20:43:00.000-04:00

Dawkins et al. overestimate, radically, the dark side of religion.That doesn't mean I don't underestimate it.Again: these people need to be stopped. Unfortunately "these people" includes over 40% of Americans. The sensible Christian-science synthesis needs vocal representation .... now.

What's wrong with the Democratic Party

2007-05-27T18:35:00.000-04:00

Shrum and Dumber reviews the new memoir of the most famously unsucessful Democratic political consultant of the last several decades. The reviewer nicely dissects the book and reveals the fatal flaw of the Democratic Party: following polls, not principles. While that's not novel, the review cites a few specific anecdotes which are convincing (e.g., Kerry & Edwards wanted to vote against the Iraq

Creation Museum

2007-05-26T11:23:00.000-04:00

These people have to be stopped.Hat tip: Street Prophets, a liberal religious blog. These are the people we need representing Christians in the media.

Prescribed Reading

2007-05-15T14:22:00.000-04:00

Dr Groopman discusses literature, the Bible and medicine's existential mysteries, apparently to combine all the themes of this blog in a short essay.

Unconditional Adoption

2007-05-15T13:44:00.000-04:00

The NYT presents a story of a young mother who adopts a Chinese infant. Everything goes to pieces: she has a scar on her spine, and doesn't look well. The couple had checked off on their application that they only felt capable of dealing with minor medical problems. They take their new 1 y.o. daughter for a check-up, which results in a hospital visit, revealing that their daughter had a spinal

Illiberality of selective abortion emerges

2007-05-11T14:21:00.000-04:00

Clinic to weed out embryos with squint, reports Telegraph. While that's too glib, one of the difficulties of our very strong protection of private values becomes clear here. Abortion is "a personal choice," and we don't like to judge why someone has an abortion. One large category is the conditions of conception: rape, orthe woman is too poor to afford a child, or she's a college student who

ABC represents God with idiots.

2007-05-11T00:30:00.000-04:00

Kirk Cameron argues for God & against crocodile-ducks. Religion, like politics, has become the domain of idiotic talking heads. I say again: moderate and intelligent Christians, rise up!

Doctors' MRI kickbacks.

2007-05-10T11:52:00.000-04:00

Doctors in Chicago were receiving kickbacks for MRI referrals. I'm not saying some doctors aren't bad people. Some doctors are bad, some with respect to professional ethics, some with respect to competence, some both.The lines between right and wrong can be surprisingly thin. But not so much in this case.

Religion as poetry

2007-05-10T11:30:00.000-04:00

Margriet de Moor: Alarm bells in Muslim hearts: "Religion is as beautiful and dangerous as poetry. It forges a direct connection with a sphere that the average sceptical West European is only prepared to enter with great reservation. The poetic dimension of religion, beautiful for its unrestrained and rapturous qualities, has always remained attractive: a world in which human reason has little to

Anemic Wallets or Anemic Patients?

2007-05-10T00:53:00.000-04:00

NYT reports Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs.Oncologists received rebates from manufacturers for using a specific drug, EPO, which increases the number of red blood cells. Unlike most drugs, doctors don't simply prescribe EPO; they purchase from the manufacturers and administer it themselves, and then are reimbursed by insurers. (I know, the medical market is weird).The article, from its

How Mainstream is Christian Fundamentalism?

2007-05-06T22:30:00.000-04:00

Three Republican presidential candidates do not believe in evolution. This sort of thing makes me more sympathetic to Dawkins. (But then I actually read him.) All in all, I think moderate Christians can no longer be quiet.

Slate's special issue on the brain.

2007-04-29T17:25:00.000-04:00

Slate's special issue on the brain.Plenty worth reading here.

The Farm Bill?

2007-04-23T10:32:00.000-04:00

For my first post, I have decided to write about a somewhat unlikely topic: the U.S. Farm Bill. Earlier this month, Hercules wrote about the soaring obesity rates in America. As medical students we have seen the effects of this trend every day in the hospital. I argue that the Farm Bill is one of its major causes.Until recently considered the province of a few Midwestern Congressman, the Farm

Welcome to Lafayette & Doc Holiday.

2007-04-19T21:20:00.000-04:00

As you can see, we've added two new bloggers to the site, to bolster and broaden the content: one will enter primary care medicine with a wonk's love of public health, the other, a combined medicine/pediatrics program with a keen sense of the absurd. My idiosyncratic interests will persist, joined with some new ones. In this space, the three of us, in very different programs, in very different

Doctors' Reading List

2007-04-18T02:10:00.000-04:00

Two interesting points from a conversation I had with Dr. Howard Spiro:1) On the decline of primary care: Medical students are trained to be scientists, when clinical medicine is more about caring for suffering strangers than about solving intellectual puzzles, more hand-holding than diagnosing.2) On training physicians (the main point of this post): Dr Spiro believes literature is the best

The discovery of a fat gene?

2007-04-18T01:57:00.000-04:00

At Slate, a Yale doc makes way too much of the the discovery of a gene associated with obesity, again showing that even (especially?) doctors can totally misunderstand science's implications for being human.My probably-too-ornery response, also on Slate's Fray:Dr. Spiesel's conclusion that association with a gene "establishes unequivocally that obesity is rooted in one's biology, not one's morals

Vacation Time: Back in May

2007-04-17T21:25:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all of you who regularly visit this site, apparently almost 100 people from around the world (and by "people", I think I mean "spam-bots"). I'll be away on a vacation for the next 2 weeks, so will be away from the internet until May. I'll be posting on a few harrowing stories of life on the neurosurgical ward from the past year, from the 130 hour weeks to the patients I met, watched get

F.D.A.: Merck, Talk to the Hand

2007-04-12T20:14:00.000-04:00

NYT: F.D.A. Panel Rejects Merck Pain Pill in 20-1 Vote: "a potential public health disaster".. Ouch.

Egalitarian nature?

2007-04-11T17:05:00.000-04:00

A study in Nature