Doctors and the Truth

Doctors Badmouthing Other Doctors - NYTimes.com: comment - "THIS ARTICLE IS VERY DISTURBING The idea that physicians are being encouraged to be less critical of each other is one of the most disturbing things I have ever read. As a member of another profession that is also very reluctant to criticize its own, law, I think this article has it wrong. God bless those physicians courageous enough to testify when one of their "own" has negligently hurt a patient. There are many instances of where such heroes have had revenge taken on them by their peers.. . " (read more at link above)

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Skull Surgery: Perils and Potential

Skull Surgery Offers Perils and Potential - NYTimes.com: " . . . “All of us have seen miracles in people we’ve done this on, but the truth is we’re also probably creating a larger population of patients who are significantly disabled,” said Dr. Karin M. Muraszko, the chairwoman of the neurosurgery department at the University of Michigan. It is difficult for surgeons to know which patients might recover and which are likely to be left barely functional. But the decision must be made under unyielding time pressure, in emergency rooms and intensive-care units and battlefield hospitals. “We don’t want to save lives if we’re saving people to a state where they can’t function,” said Dr. S. Andrew Josephson, a neurologist and the chairman of the ethics committee at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. Skull removal to address cerebral swelling for traumatic brain injury and severe stroke first became widespread in the 1970s. Over the years, surgeons have refined the technique to the point where death is averted in about half the cases. . . ." (read more at link above)

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Possible Cancer Toll of CT Scans

The Possible Cancer Toll of CT Scans - NYTimes.com: "Each year more than four million CT scans are performed on children, and they are increasing the risk for future cancer, a new study suggests. Researchers writing online last month in JAMA Pediatrics counted the number of CT scans performed on children under 15 from 1996 to 2010 in seven American health care systems, and calculated the average dose of radiation delivered to the head, abdomen, chest or spine. . . ."

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Getting Enough Sleep?

Failing to get enough sleep night after night can compromise your health and may even shorten your life--

Cheating Ourselves of Sleep - NYTimes.com: "Think you do just fine on five or six hours of shut-eye? Chances are, you are among the many millions who unwittingly shortchange themselves on sleep. Research shows that most people require seven or eight hours of sleep to function optimally. Failing to get enough sleep night after night can compromise your health and may even shorten your life. From infancy to old age, the effects of inadequate sleep can profoundly affect memory, learning, creativity, productivity and emotional stability, as well as your physical health." (read more at link above)

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Overcoming Your Negativity Bias

Overcoming Your Negativity Bias - NYTimes.com: " . . . . I decided to interrupt my snowballing reverie. Saccharine as it may sound, I began to write down everything I was feeling grateful for in that moment. I got on a roll, and after just a couple of minutes, I was not only feeling remarkably better, but also far more able to concentrate on the task at hand. It’s a simple concept: we construct our internal reality – our experience of the world — in large part by where we put our attention. More often than we recognize, we can make that choice consciously and intentionally. Doing so influences not just how we feel, but also how we perform, individually and collaboratively. It turns out that cultivating positive emotions such as joy, contentment, interest, pride and love pays huge dividends. . . ." (read more at link above)

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What Does Your Doctor or Hospital Cost? Hard to Tell

Hospitals do not have to tell you their prices, and often they keep them secret -- until they send the bill--little transparency, failure to disclose, obstructions for patients

What Does Birth Cost? Hard to Tell - NYTimes.com: "“Every single person in government tells people, ‘Oh, you’ve got to make good choices,’ ” he said in an interview. “But patients have their hands tied. They can’t get costs and they can’t find out about quality.” If that bill were law, Therese’s problem would be solved. But for now, she needed some extra help to find out what those two hospitals were allowed to charge. So I e-mailed Donald McLeod, a Medicare spokesman, and asked for assistance. . . ." (read more at link above)

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Kids on Speed

Pieter Cohen and Nicolas Rasmussen: A Nation of Kids on Speed - WSJ.com: " . . . . We still do not have a single randomized trial to help determine if starting stimulants as an adolescent or adult further increases the risk of future substance abuse, although the long and checkered history of medical stimulants would suggest it does. Certainly, the risks from recreationally using stimulants are already well-documented. In 2010, Adderall was second only in popularity to the painkiller Vicodin as a prescription drug of abuse among high-school seniors, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Adolescents often perceive prescription drugs as safer than illicit ones, but abusing prescription amphetamines can lead to seizures, psychosis and life-threatening heart disease. . . ." (read more at link above)

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Technology Alone Will Not Save Health Care

Technology Alone Will Not Save Health Care - Forbes: " . . . The business system of health care is profoundly inefficient, and the market is broken (or never existed). This means that resources are allocated to the wrong activities and consumers and plan sponsors pay too much for services they buy, and hence their finite money does not buy all the care they need. The result in the U.S. has historically been average outcomes at 2x the cost level of peer countries. In the future, now that money is becoming scarce and we are less able to pay twice what the other developed countries pay, the result will probably be sub-par care . . ."

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Whitbread PLC launches new brand 'hub' by Premier Inn

Whitbread PLC launches new brand 'hub by Premier Inn' - YouTube: Whitbread PLC, the UK's largest hotel group announced the launch of its new hotel concept, 'hub by Premier Inn'. The new concept will target major UK city centres such as London and Edinburgh, with the first 'hub by Premier Inn' to open on St. Martin's Lane in London in summer 2014. 'hub by Premier Inn' is a new generation of compact, city centre hotel with ingenious, contemporary room design and excellent connectivity that will offer good value for money and appeal to customers who value price, location and design over space. At 11.4 sq.m a 'hub' room is compact, and thanks to its innovative design every centimetre is optimised with a desk that folds into the Hypnos pocket-sprung bed, luggage storage under the bed, an en suite bathroom with power shower, free wifi and a 40" inch smart screen TV.  'hub by Premier Inn' will be the UK's first hotel with its own app, letting customers control their hotel experience. The 'hub' app means customers can book and check in online, as well as pre-select their room temperature and light settings. They can even choose which TV or radio channel they want playing in their room when they arrive and stream content from their phone or tablet direct to their TV.

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How Aspirin Stems Cancer

How Aspirin Might Stem Cancer - NYTimes.com: "The use of aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs significantly reduces the risk for cancer, but no one has been able to explain why. Now researchers have found that these drugs slow the accumulation of a type of DNA change called somatic genome abnormalities, or S.G.A.’s, that lead to uncontrolled cell growth. . . ." (read more at link above)

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ObamaCare and Dysfunctional Healthcare

Jenkins: The Young Won't Buy ObamaCare - WSJ.com: "Independent websites like Edmunds.com, AutoTrader.com and Kelley Blue Book publish detailed pricing information for consumers and do so for free. Why? The answer is obvious. Consumers want such information and businesses see opportunity in providing it, even for free, in order to attract eyeballs for advertising. Such information doesn't exist in health care because consumers don't demand it, because somebody else is almost always paying for our health care. Those of us who aren't subsidized directly by Medicaid, Medicare and the Veterans Administration are subsidized through the tax code to channel all our aches and pains through a third-party payment mill, disguised as employer-provided "insurance." Not being able to analyze "why" also leads to all kinds of anomalous conclusions." (read more at link above)

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Minimalist Workout

The Rise of the Minimalist Workout - NYTimes.com: "  . . .The most recent research suggests that a few minutes per week of strenuous exercise can improve aerobic fitness, generally more quickly than moderate activity does. In a representative study, which I wrote about this week, Norwegian scientists found that three four-minute runs a week — at a pace equivalent to 90 percent of a person’s maximal heart rate, an intensity that will feel, frankly, unpleasant — improved volunteers’ endurance capacity by about 10 percent after 10 weeks. . . ." (read more at link above)

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Why Men are Boycotting Marriage (video)

Video - Opinion Journal: Why Men are Boycotting Marriage - WSJ.com: "Why Men are Boycotting Marriage Author Helen Smith on why men are boycotting marriage, fatherhood and the American Dream."

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