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Resistant Organisms
I’m not sure that patients are any smarter than they used to be, but they certainly come pre-loaded with more facts. Sometimes these are relevant, often they are contextually unrelated to the reason for their visit. Contiguous, perhaps, yet only distantly attached –second cousins once-removed. Sometimes they seem to be variations on a word, a…
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The Polarization Bias
Okay, I have to admit to living an unbeknownst lie –unbeknownst to me, at any rate. Sometimes it is easy to coast, to accept help where it is offered and feel almost foolishly grateful for suggestions that foster the dependence. Advice is seductive, guidance addictive. But more importantly, it is insidious. Critical thinking -critical analysis-…
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The Medical Student
She was not old for a medical student I suppose, although her face spoke of experience far beyond her years. But how do you measure age in a profession that cherishes the wisdom and equanimity that so often accompany Time’s passage? No, she was not old, but nor did she possess the naïveté that so…
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The Tail and the Dog: Cause and Effect in Medicine
Does the tail ever wag the dog? Is an issue ever so compelling that cause and effect are reversed? Or at least suspended..? Sorry, I wonder about such things. I remember reading a book many years ago by the British philospher A.J. Ayer called The Problem of Knowledge. In it he discusses a religious sect…
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Nudging Childhood Obesity
When I was a kid, obesity was not the norm. Admittedly, this was a long time ago, and no doubt I only remember brief and highly selective snippets of the time –modified, no doubt, to serve whatever demands are required in the present. But in these unexpurgated, sketches, I have memories of labeling the occasional…
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Menstruation and Sports
Okay, time to cross the line again. I’ve written about this before (see Menstrual Taboos https://musingsonwomenshealth.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/menstrual-taboos/ ) but the issue keeps popping up. In the recent 2015 Australian Open, the top ranking female tennis player in Britain, Heather Watson, suffered a first round defeat. In the subsequent interview, as she was being grilled about what might…
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The Peanut Trap
You know, there are times when the cart should precede the horse and not follow blindly behind it along the same old paths. We are too often seduced by the roads that others have made simply because we know where they go and what we might reasonably expect to encounter along the way. The problem,…
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