Digital Maps Help Fight Epidemics
Have you ever thought that it would be possible to monitor drug overdoses, Zika cases or the spread of the flu in real time? Have you ever imagined that satellites wouldbe able to tell how and where a malaria epidemic will happen months before the actual outbreak? It is mind-blowing how, in the last years, digital maps developed to a level where they serve as effective tools for evaluating, monitoring and even predicting health events. That’s why I decided to give a comprehensive overview of digital maps in healthcare.
John Snow, cholera and the revolution of maps in healthcare
Before Game of Thrones monopolized John Sn...
Source: The Medical Futurist - October 12, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Future of Medicine Healthcare Design Mobile Health digital health digital technology epidemics epidemiology gc4 Innovation interactive maps Source Type: blogs
Ada Lovelace Day: Nature Research editors celebrate leaders in their fields – Part 2
You can read part 1 of this blog series here and read more about Ada Lovelace’s legacy here.
Mary Elizabeth Sutherland, Associate Editor, Nature Communications
Brenda Milner was 89 years old when I started my PhD at McGill University, and now, ten years later, she is still actively contributing to our understanding of how the human brain shapes cognition.
This field, neuropsychology, became widely recognized mainly because of Brenda’s work with a patient known as HM. Due temporal lobe surgery (to cure his epilepsy), HM had lost the ability to convert short-term memories into long-term memories.
Through her ex...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - October 12, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: Davy Falkner Tags: Publishing Ada Lovelace Day Source Type: blogs
The money shows it is a man ’s world – how can we reduce the difference?
The “leaky pipeline” is a commonly used metaphor describing how there are fewer women at senior levels in academia, even when they dominate in certain subject areas at undergraduate level. For example, there are more female than male undergraduate medical students, and at the early-career researcher level of academia, the gender split is probably roughly even. There are, however, far fewer women than men in senior posts at universities in the UK.
But there is also a “leaky funding pipeline”, with more funding going to men than to women. My own research has previously covered the amount of research funding awarded t...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - October 10, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: Dr Michael Head Tags: Uncategorized Ada Lovelace Day Gender bias science funding Source Type: blogs
My Husband Outlived His Brain Tumor Prognosis by 12 Years: How His Experience Could Help John McCain and Others
In conclusion, I would never advise John McCain and his family, or any other GBM patient, as to which of these treatments—or which combination of treatments—they should use. I hope they will learn about all of them, and decide on their own which one or ones they would like to try. I would also encourage them to do their own research, or to hire a researcher with experience in finding sensible, science-based, cutting-edge treatments.
I am very worried that they will not know about these treatments, and others like them, and will just use the standard of care. That would be a shame. It might also be a death sentence. (S...
Source: HONEST MEDICINE: My Dream for the Future - September 22, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: JuliaS1573 at aol.com (Julia Schopick) Source Type: blogs
In this era of increased globalization, infectious diseases show no boundaries
Devastating. That alone cannot fully describe the extent of the destruction of property, the displacement of tens of thousands of residents, the injuries and loss of life in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. As Americans, our hearts ache for those affected by the flooding. As a medical student, former international development worker in Afghanistan and EMT in South Africa, I also lay awake thinking about the many infectious diseases that take hold in disaster and flood settings.
In major floods and other natural disasters, rising water levels and damage to sewage treatment plants lead to contaminated water supplies, ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 21, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/sarah-lawrence" rel="tag" > Sarah Lawrence < /a > Tags: Conditions Infectious Disease Primary Care Public Health & Policy Source Type: blogs
The Shame of US Health Care Dysfunction: Hookworm Returns to Alabama
ConclusionsAs we have noted endlessly, the US spends more per capita on health care than any other developed country. US politicians used to make the claim that the country has the best health care system in the world, often to ward off any attempts at true health care reform. However, US rankings on various measures - some of which may be disputed - of health care processes and outcomes have been decidedly mediocre. (See for example the latest Commonwealth Fund studyhere.)The new study of hookworm prevalence was not based on a big, systematic, or geographically diverse sample. However it is strikin...
Source: Health Care Renewal - September 7, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: government health care foundations public health Source Type: blogs
Building Self-Sustainable Health Care in Uganda
BY JK FALLIN, MDI had the opportunity to travel an extraordinarily long distance to Uganda last year on a mission with One World Heath, a nonprofit that aims to provide affordable health care to communities in need. The trip had a rather disjointed start because Delta forgot that they needed a computer to fly their airplane. After this minor hiccup, we embarked on our journey across the Atlantic, then Europe and Africa before landing in Entebbe, Uganda.Entebbe is about 20 miles southwest of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, but there is in reality little demarcation between the two towns. It's located along beauti...
Source: Going Global - August 9, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Doctors Do Know Best. Exhibit A: The Charlie Gard Case.
By SAURABH JHA, MD
For American conservatives, Britain’s NHS is an antiquated Orwellian dystopia. For Brits, even those who don’t love the NHS, American conservatives are better suited to spaghetti westerns, such as Fistful of Dollars, than reality.
The twain is unlikely to meet after the recent press surrounding Charlie Gard the infant, now deceased, with a rare, fatal mitochondrial disorder in which mitochondrial DNA is depleted – mitochondrial depletion disorder (MDD). In this condition, the cells lose their power supply and tissues, notably in the brain, die progressively and rapidly.
The courts forbade Charlie...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 31, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: at RogueRad Tags: OP-ED Patients Source Type: blogs
Tough Hydrogel Swells in Stomach for Drug Delivery
In this study, which was recently published in Nature Communications, researchers designed tough hydrogels that can be loaded with a drug. When hydrated, the hydrogels exist as a tough Jell-o-like material. When dehydrated, they are small enough to be swallowed comfortably. However, upon absorbing fluid in the stomach they swell, becoming too large to pass through the stomach into the intestine. The result is that the gels reside in the stomach for up to 9 days, and release a drug in a sustained way before passing through the body harmlessly.
To withstand the compression forces in the stomach, the hydrogels are really toug...
Source: Medgadget - July 26, 2017 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: News Source Type: blogs
Top Companies in Genomics
From portable genome sequencers until genetic tests revealing distant relations with Thomas Jefferson, genomics represents a fascinatingly innovative area of healthcare. As the price of genome sequencing has been in free fall for years, the start-up scene is bursting from transformative power. Let’s look at some of the most amazing ventures in genomics!
The amazing journey of genome sequencing
Genome sequencing has been on an amazing scientific as well as economic journey for the last three decades. The Human Genome Project began in 1990 with the aim of mapping the whole structure of the human genome and sequencing it. ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - May 30, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Genomics Personalized Medicine AI artificial intelligence bioinformatics cancer DNA dna testing DTC gc3 genetic disorders genetics genome sequencing personal genomics precision medicine Source Type: blogs
Malaria is not just a tropical disease
Nearly 30 years ago, I attended the labor of a Vietnamese woman on an island off the coast of Thailand. The woman had malaria. She died a few hours after giving birth to her stillborn child.
That experience has never left me. It has fueled in me a passion for global health, and especially for alleviating suffering and death from tropical diseases such as malaria.
It is also worth remembering, however, that malaria isn’t just a disease that happens in faraway places. It happens here in the United States as well.
Continue reading ...
Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A soc...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 15, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/patricia-walker" rel="tag" > Patricia Walker, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Infectious disease Source Type: blogs
New services to support open research
Researchers tell us they are motivated to share data to progress research, to receive more credit and visibility for their work and to comply with funder policies. But researchers also tell us that they sometimes lack the time, resources, or technical knowledge of where or how to share research data. Publishers have an important role in increasing these motivations, and overcoming these barriers, to make research data more accessible.
To enable Springer Nature authors and journals to follow good practice in sharing and archiving of research data, we’re developing a range of Data Support Services and from today are piloti...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - April 27, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Iain Hrynaszkiewicz Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
