Quickies

Quickies: Gaslighting, Intravenous Vitamins, and Interesting Headstones

  • Excuse Me, Why Are You Wearing Those Surgical Scrubs Outside The Hospital? – “What I learned reassured me: People wearing scrubs in public places likely aren’t coming directly from an operating room. They probably aren’t violating any kind of policy, because it’s unlikely their facility has one. And yes, the scrubs probably have bacteria on them, but no, it probably won’t make me sick to be near them. Still, there is a lingering yuck factor.”
  • Here’s where ‘gaslighting’ got its name – “The term ‘gaslighting’ can be traced back to a 1938 play. British playwright Patrick Hamilton created ‘Gas Light,’ a mystery/thriller that premiered in London and played there for six months. But most folks familiar with the history of the term think back to the 1944 film adaptation of the play, ‘Gaslight.’ “
  • Scientists Are Growing New Hearts in the Shells of Old Ones – “These regenerated organs are not yet strong enough to be subbed in for the originals in the human body. But that’s the goal of this research: to be able to use a person’s own cells to grow new body parts that can replace broken ones.”
  • Is 20-Something Too Late For A Guy To Get The HPV Vaccine? – “So, for men like me who missed the vaccine, is it still worth it? The answer is complicated. In 2011, the CDC began recommending the vaccine for males ages 11 through 21 years old (26 for some high-risk groups). Despite my age, researchers I talked to said that the vaccine could still help—if I haven’t already been exposed.”
  • Why mammograms haven’t cut cancer deaths, explained in 500 words – “Despite widespread screening programs, incidences of metastatic cancers (or advanced-stage cancers that have already spread and are therefore more deadly) have remained stubbornly stable since 1975.”
  • Skeptics Question The Value Of Intravenous Fluids For The Healthy – “At at RestoreIV, the treatments cost from $150 to $200, and there’s an initial $35 fee to consult with the doctor. The business doesn’t accept health insurance; patients pay Hartman’s office directly.”
  • 28 Headstones That Defied Expectations – “To bury oneself under a headstone in the shape of a shark, say, or a palace-sized tomb carved out of a giant boulder, you’d have to be a little extraordinary. Often the stories that accompany these tombstones are larger than life. And death too, for that matter.”

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Mary

Mary Brock works as an Immunology scientist by day and takes care of a pink-loving princess child by night. She likes cloudy days, crafting, cooking, and Fall weather in New England.

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5 Comments

  1. Mary,

    “Scientists Are Growing New Hearts in the Shells of Old Ones”

    That’s great news. Hopefully this will mean the end of organ shortages worldwide.

  2. I stopped caring about bringing my uniform home the first time I ran into last week’s ARO isolation patient in the grocery store.

  3. The brother of one my great (multiple) grandfathers is buried in a pyramid in South Carolina. According to family lore, he had become obsessed with idea that the devil was going to come for him, so he is standing in the pyramid with a pistol in each hand crossed over his chest.

    The legend goes on to say that his slaves were given the offer of going free if they would stand guard over the grave with a rifle for one week. One slave took up the offer, but they F’d him and didn’t give him his freedom, so as far as I’m concerned the devil can have him. But I’d love to have those pistols.

  4. Mary, that breast cancer article fails to address the question of “why” at all.
    As usual, the primary source is behind a paywall and the abstract was not much more informative but I think the title is grossly misleading and I don’t think different sets of statistics can be smooshed together that way, not without a lot of pitfalls anyway.

    A lot depends on the followup time as ultimately all treatments are 100% futile.
    One possible explanation could be that not all metastatic breast cancers had breast cancer as the primary, considering that breast cancers are a minority of all cancers, but I confess to ignorance here.

    Thank goodness though my dear wife is one of the rare success stories, as 6 years later, no re-occurence! It was caught in the nick of time just before it had punched right thru to the lymph nodes. Thank goodness also for Herceptin treatment from one of the best health schemes in the world.

    Yet as we speak our health insurance piranhas are picking up on the latest in US sharp practice to follow hell bent the example of one of the world’s worst by excluding as many unprofitables as possible!

  5. The 1940 British version of ‘Gaslight’ is really, really worth seeing as well. Hollywood did its best to hide the existence of this earlier version. It occasionally showed up under the title ‘Angel Street’ on TV.

    Some striking differences. The policeman in 1940 is NOT a ‘leading man’ type at all, and the absence of a romantic sub-plot makes the evil husband’s machinations more shocking in a way.

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