Politics and Politicians
David Boaz
The New York Times, which wants politicians to run everything from our schools to our health care to our retirement, has lately been telling us just what kind of people it wants us to trust with our lives. People like mayoral candidate Bill Thompson:
As a first-time candidate for New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr. was feted at a downtown fund-raiser in 2001 by two luminaries of the black business world: the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and Mr. Simmons’s money manager, a veteran Wall Street financier who made his fortune promoting hybrid securities known as convertible bonds.
Speaking in betwe...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 3, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: David Boaz Source Type: blogs
We must demand a return to meaningful notes
I had a nice conversation with a dermatologist at a party recently. He started complaining about the notes he receives from other physicians. He used terms like piles and piles of junk.
Talk to any experienced physician and they will tell you that once upon a time our teachers taught us to write notes appropriate to the situation, not appropriate to the billing system.
Several years ago I ranted about the necessity for coding experts. What does that have to do with good medical care?
Continue reading ...
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find ou...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 30, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: Physician Health IT Primary care Residency Specialist Source Type: blogs
Does your doctor know ACLS? Does it matter?
Folks must think than all doctors know all things medical. I know this is true by the questions that I have been asked over the years. While my expertise spans hemorrhoids to heartburn, I am routinely queried on medical issues well beyond the specialty of gastroenterology. When I can’t answer questions about a new medicine for hypertension or if an MRI of the shoulder makes sense, folks look at me quizzically as if I must not be a real doctor.
Today, more than ever, physicians are highly specialized with a very narrow medical niche. There are ophthalmologists, for example, who only treat retinal disease. Perhaps, there a...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 26, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: Physician GI Heart Source Type: blogs
14 Great Apps for Getting Organized
Do you feel like you live in total chaos?
Do you have nine pairs of scissors because you keep losing them in the piles of junk in your home, then buying new ones?
Do you get stuck paying late fees on your credit cards because you forget to pay the bills on time?
If so, you need some serious organizing. Here are a few apps that can help to organize some the messier aspects of your life, like finances, clutter, appointments and shopping.
Read more » (Source: Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life)
Source: Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life - August 25, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: David Source Type: blogs
Problems with Federal Infrastructure
Chris Edwards
A new essay at Downsizing Government focuses on infrastructure investment. The essay discusses problems with federal infrastructure spending and the advantages of privatizing infrastructure to the full extent possible.
Unfortunately, the current administration’s infrastructure policy has been mainly focused on increasing spending on misguided activities such as high-speed rail. But here are some of the problems with such a federal-led approach to infrastructure:
Investment is misallocated. Federal investments are often based on political pork-barrel factors rather than actual marketplace demands. Amtr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 19, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Easier Decision-Making: Conduct Experiments
By Leo Babauta
A surprising amount of our day is filled with decisions: what to do with an email, what to do with clutter, opening paper mail, grocery shopping, whether to go out with friends or stay home, whether to add someone as a friend, whether to take a job, to move, to take a class, to go on a vacation, and so on.
And a good amount of stress can come about from all of those decisions, because many times we don’t have the information we need to make a good decision.
How can we make a choice when we don’t know the outcome of each choice?
If the choices had clear outcomes, we could just weigh them and d...
Source: Zen Habits - August 14, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Productivity & Organization Source Type: blogs
Everyday miracles: A day in the life of a special needs mom
Patience is passion tamed. (Lyman Abbott)My third daughter was born on a Monday, after a long and exhausting labor. Her appearance was a little shocking: she had large olive-colored eyes and a rug of dark blond hair sticking straight out from her head."Monday's child is fair of face." Yes, she was a little beauty and drew admiring remarks from many strangers as an infant. You could tell just by looking at her that she had a mind of her own - from the very day of her birth. As soon as I saw her, I thought there was something special about this baby. For three years, I marveled at her tenacity, her passion, and her precociou...
Source: Turquoise Gates - August 12, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: vaccine related encephalitis special needs mothering homeschool 1000 gifts learning Source Type: blogs
Ingenol: A Walk In The Park
The Baran group at Scripps has a whopper of a total synthesis out in Science. They have a route to the natural product ingenol, which is isolated from a Euphorbia species, a genus that produces a lot of funky diterpenoids. A synthetic ester of the compound as recently been approved to treat actinic keratosis, a precancerous skin condition brought on by exposure to sunlight.
The synthesis is 14 steps long, but that certainly doesn't qualify it for the "whopper" designation that I used. There are far, far longer total syntheses in the literature, but as organic chemists are well aware, a longer synthesis is not a better one...
Source: In the Pipeline - August 2, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Chemical News Source Type: blogs
Declutter Your Life
By Leo Babauta
There was a time, about 8 years ago, when my life was cluttered. I had too much stuff, and it kept coming in all the time. I had too much to do, and didn’t know how to simplify my schedule.
I was in need of some decluttering, and I knew it.
When I started to change my habits, from smoking to running to being more mindful, simplifying my life was near the top of the list.
The question became, how to go about it? How do you start when you’re facing a mountain of clutter, and another mountain of commitments, and piles of files and mail and email and other digital information?
The answer became ...
Source: Zen Habits - July 31, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: zenhabits Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Oh, say can you see…
I think it’s no secret that most of us use the backlights on our D-gear to find the bathroom at night, but so far as I know, the Snap is the first diabetes Swiss Army knife to come equipped with a genuine flashlight. A bright LED bulb is built into the controller, and is powered from the AAA battery that’s said to live inside the disposable body. If you turn on the flashlight from the main menu, it stays on for 15 seconds. How far from your bedroom is your bathroom? Of course you can turn the light on as many times as you want to, the down side being too much flashlight use eats up the battery.Uh…. Would that be...
Source: LifeAfterDx--The Guardian Chronicles - July 31, 2013 Category: Diabetes Authors: Wil Source Type: blogs
Crabby's Epic Adventure!
Yeah, this was supposed to be a post for Monday, and it was also supposed to be about health and fitness. Specifically, it was about consumer online genetic testing services. Then it was going to be about bicycling.
But instead, how about a tale of adventure, wanderlust and shocking surprises? There are lots and lots and lots of pictures (let's pretend that's a good thing), and even kinda a fitness angle!
Ok, so maybe not. But I rode my bike around while researching portions of this post. Does that count?
Work with me here, people.
Anyway, recently I got my DNA testing results from 23 and Me. And I thought I'd...
Source: Cranky Fitness - July 30, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Crabby McSlacker Source Type: blogs
Get Serious About Organizing Your Workspace! How to Organize your Home Office...What You Need...What You Don't Need.
Is your home office a disaster? Are you so buried under piles of paper that you can’t find the computer? Wading through all that mess is wasting your time, so maybe you should finally get serious about organizing your workspace.
Maybe you have the sort of job where you can do everything you need to do on a smartphone, but most of us require more than that. What you must have and what you can do without is personal, and you have to decide what is contributing to your productivity and what’s just taking up space.
Read more » (Source: Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life)
Source: Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life - July 13, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: David Source Type: blogs
Is your high blood pressure drug linked to cancer?
Learn the negative effects of your blood pressure medication and discover alternative solutions.
High blood pressure is one of the most life-threatening illnesses in our country today. This condition can cause heart attack, stroke and other health problems. Hypertension is not to be taken lightly and must be treated with great care.
What causes high blood pressure? Your doctor may not know.
As many as 95% of patients diagnosed with high blood pressure are given no cause for their high blood pressure. Doctors claim the disease is idiopathic (meaning it has no known cause) and rather than find the cause, they turn to prescri...
Source: Doctor Kalitenko antiaging blog - July 9, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: admin Source Type: blogs
We should require meaningful notes – attention CMS
Had a nice conversation with a dermologist at party last night. He started complaining about the notes he receives from other physicians. He used terms like piles and piles of junk.
Talk to any experienced physician and they will tell you that once upon a time our teachers taught us to write notes appropriate to the situation, not appropriate to the billing system.
Several years ago I ranted about the necessity for coding experts. What does that have to do with good medical care?
In 1973 we were taught to write SOAP notes. SOAP notes served me and my patients well throughout my internship, resident, and early years...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - July 5, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
