Consequences of the War in Ukraine: Two Areas of Contention & mdash;Turkey and the Balkans
Turkey is navigating a narrow path between its NATO commitments and its relationship with Russia. The Western Balkans remain an arena of competition between pro-Russian and pro-Western elements. It ' s not clear how events might play out, but there are indications and track records. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - March 6, 2023 Category: Health Management Authors: Brian Michael Jenkins Source Type: blogs

Consequences of the War in Ukraine: Two Areas of Contention — Turkey and the Balkans
Turkey is navigating a narrow path between its NATO commitments and its relationship with Russia. The Western Balkans remain an arena of competition between pro-Russian and pro-Western elements. It ' s not clear how events might play out, but there are indications and track records. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - March 6, 2023 Category: Health Management Authors: Brian Michael Jenkins Source Type: blogs

Sunday Sermonette: More Groundhog Day
The story of Chapter 24 -- the repairs to the Temple and the apostasy of Joash after the death of Jehoiada-- is also told in 2 Kings. It ' s basically the same plot but the  text is different in many details, which I assume is just the usual result of repeated copying by hand -- every scribe is also an editor. Jehoiada living to 130 appears to be a regression to the absurd lifepans of the patriarchs in Genesis, but it ' s likely a copying error. Ancient Hebrew had no numerals, letters were used to represent numbers. The letter representing 100, quof, looks like this: ק The letter for 70, ayin, looks like this: ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 5, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Retirement planning: Understanding sequence of returns risk
Retirement planning should start at the onset of your professional career. Like many things in finance, the earlier, the better. Many residents and fellows can save into a retirement plan and receive matching contributions even during their training. Over the next 30-plus years as a medical provider, your investment returns will play a role in Read more… Retirement planning: Understanding sequence of returns risk originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 4, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Finance Practice Management Source Type: blogs

Our OMI Toolbox Application is out now !
We are happy to announce that our " OMI Toolbox " application has just released and ready for your use. As myocardial infarction (MI) and many other diagnoses (for example left ventricular hypertrophy, prior MI etc.) can cause ST-segment elevation (STE) on electrocardiogram (ECG), the distinction between them may be hard and complicated. Furthermore, some ECGs may not meet the STEMI criteria but may still be diagnostic for acute coronary occlusion (ACO). For this purpose, only one set of diagnostic or differentiating criteria (STEMI criteria) is not enough, therefore a bunch of different tools are needed to make a&nbs...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - March 3, 2023 Category: Cardiology Authors: Emre Aslanger Source Type: blogs

Alpha TAU Killing Tumors With Highly Targeted Alpha Radiation
Radiation is commonly employed in hospitals around the world to treat tumors, typically using gamma ray beams of high energy photons, with a relatively long range, that penetrate all the tissues on the way to and from the tumor. This leads to substantial damage to healthy tissues and too often results in poor outcomes. An alpha particle, consisting of two protons and two neutrons bound together and akin to a helium-4 nucleus, is much trickier to work with in medicine because it is extremely powerful, yet has a very short effective range. Ronen Segal We recently visited the offices of Alpha TAU, a company based in Jeru...
Source: Medgadget - March 2, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Exclusive Oncology Radiation Oncology TelAvivUni Source Type: blogs

How Can Health IT Help Reform the CDC?
This article summarizes their responses. Paths to Interoperability A recent article exposes the woeful silo-ing of public health: Data often has to be faxed and re-entered into new systems manually. I wonder whether the path to complete integration requires adopting a single, worldwide, FHIR-based standard (which is time-consuming and probably requires jettisoning old database systems) or programming these systems to translate data from one format to another. I heard details about problems with COVID-19 lab reporting at a state level from Dr. Paulo Pinho, vice president & medical director of innovation at Availity Clin...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - February 28, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Healthcare IT Regulations 21st Century Cures Act Amazon Amazon Healthcare Amazon S3 Availity Availity Clinical Solutions CDC Data Exchange Diameter Health EMPI FDA Gus Malezis Health Gorilla hl7 Imprivata Interoperability Source Type: blogs

ConFinement IV
“So Kelly, how was your weekend?” Glad you asked! Had the pleasure of spending the weekend at a small sci-fi con in Lebanon, TN called ConFinement, organized by Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker. Had a great time, participated in a few panels, told a few outrageous stories, and autographed a bunch of books. The ... (Source: A Day In the Life of An Ambulance Driver)
Source: A Day In the Life of An Ambulance Driver - February 28, 2023 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: ambulancedriverfiles Tags: Books Sci-fi/fantasy cons Sweet linky love Source Type: blogs

The Ohio Train Derailment, Safety Regulation, and the Historical Improvement in Rail Safety
David Kemp andPeter Van DorenEarlier this month, a Norfolk Southern freight trainderailed in East Palestine, Ohio, causing a large fire, releasing hazardous materials, and prompting emergency crews to conduct a controlled release and burn of toxic vinyl chloride. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but up to two thousand nearby residents were evacuated from their homes for nearly a week, and there are still concerns about pollution. Sober analysis is rarely welcomed after an accident like this. We believe it is worthwhile, however, to illuminate some journalistic errors and place the derailment in the context of increasing fr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 27, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: David Kemp, Peter Van Doren Source Type: blogs

SCOTUS Tackles Unconstitutional, and Unwise, Student Loan Cancelation
Clark Neily andNeal McCluskeyWhen President Bidenannounced that he would unilaterally cancel up to $20,000 of federal student debt for almost everyone holding any, he may have thought his action unstoppable. No one, he might have concluded, would have standing in court to block him. But the legal sailing hasn ’t been so smooth, with two courts finding that the plaintiffs had standing, and the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear their cases tomorrow. If the Supreme Court agrees that the plaintiffs have standing, Biden’s declaration is in big trouble, because it’s clearly unconstitutional.It ’s also terrible policy.Biden ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 27, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Clark Neily, Neal McCluskey Source Type: blogs

Sunday Sermonette: The distaff
In Chapter 22, a woman becomes the first (and last) queen of Israel. She accomplishes this by nefarious means and oesn ' t last long, but it prompted me to reflect on female characters in the Tanakh. It ' s a patriarchal society, obviously. Notable female characters are relatively scarce, and fewer still have much agency. Eve ' s only role in the plot is to succumb to the serpent ' s wiles and have three children, one of whom goes off to the land of Nod and finds a wife -- evidently somebody else was having his own creation there. Sarah is just Abraham ' s incestuous wife and half sister, who goes along for the ride. Lot '...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 26, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Two Years Later: Biden Has Finally Taken the First Step on Stopping Risky Arms Transfers
Jordan CohenPresident Joe Biden ’s administration just released itsConventional Arms Transfer policy, which dictates who can buy U.S. weapons and how the arms transfers process should function. These policies come directly from the White House; former President Donald Trump issued the last Conventional Arms Transfer policy in 2018, which was primarily focused on the economic benefits from weapons transfers.The Biden administration ’s Conventional Arms Transfer policy makes two notable changes. First, it adds text about norms and human rights. Specifically, it notes that the U.S. should “prevent arms transfers that ri...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 23, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jordan Cohen Source Type: blogs

Wednesday Bible Study: Major continuity error
Chapter 21 is the usual Groundhog Day story about the new king forsaking Yahweh and getting the shit beat out of him for it -- in this case literally. His bowels fall out. But. . . . In the Book of Kings, Elijah dies (actually he ascends into heaven in a chariot of fire) during the reign of Jehoshaphat. Now he ' s writing a letter to Jehoram, after Jehoshaphat ' s death.  Well, okay but for those people who claim the Tanakh has no concept of an afterlife, here you go. It does so, at least in the case of this particular prophet.21 Then Jehoshaphat rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 22, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

There Is Something About Trains, Indeed
BY KIM BELLARD Like many of you, when I heard about the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine (OH) on February 3, my heart went out to the people in that community. The train was carrying some hazardous materials, and no one was quite sure what was vented, especially when officials did a “controlled burn.”  Still, though, I didn’t think much about it; although I live in Ohio, I’m about as far away as one can be within the state. Yesterday my local water company shut off access to water from the Ohio River. “We are taking this preventative step to ensure the health, safety, and confidence ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 21, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Non-Health infrastructure demands Kim Bellard Palestine Trains Source Type: blogs

Sunday Sermonette: Human Life is Sacred
I ' ll just mention that somebody has apparently discovered these Biblical posts and has started emailing me PDFs of scholarly articles about the texts I ' m quoting and the archaeological context of the times. They ' re tracking with me so I don ' t think it ' s just computer generated. If it is, that ' s fairly remarkable. Anyway, to be honest, I haven ' t taken the time to read them so far, because I ' m busy with other things and this is a side project. The historical reality or lack thereof that may be associated with all this isn ' t that important to me. Not to say I won ' t take the time to read at some point, and ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 19, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs