It has been almost a full century since Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic. They have been in wide use since the 1940s, radically changing the course of modern medicine in the process. As researcher C. Lee Ventola puts it, “Antibiotics have not only saved patients’ lives, they have played a pivotal role in
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Can Good Relationships Decrease Your Risk of Getting Sued?
I have, for several years now, visited with a primary care physician who is a family friend. She was the first doctor that was referred to my wife and I when we lost our first child shortly after birth. Whatever else she has offered in the way of diagnosis, she has always gone out of
READ MORECan a Brain Training App Help Your ADHD?
If you do a quick web search for brain training apps, you’ll see multiple top ten lists designed for various cohorts. Are you aging and worried about memory loss? Or finding it hard to knuckle down and study for the MCATs? Are you suffering from ADD, ADHD, OCD, ABCD? An app is out there
READ MOREHBO’s New Documentary Sheds Light on Medical Error
A new documentary appearing on HBO is now shedding light on a pervasive public healthcare crisis: medical error. The documentary, entitled Bleed Out, follows the documentarian, Steve Burrows, on a personal journey through his mother Judie’s debilitating illness. The movie follows a staggering 10-year saga through what HBO’s website calls “an endless cycle of medical
READ MORECould a 3-D Printer Replicate Human Organs?
3-D Printing’s Past and Present If you had a 3-D printer (which you could in 2-3 days, and for under $300), you could now 3-D print an entire office around it. You could print a desk, a pen and pencil holder, even a chess set for when you get bored. 3-D printing has exploded since
READ MORECan DNA Analysis Reveal Medical Malpractice?
The Case of Kelli Rowlette When Kelli Rowlette submitted her DNA test kit for Ancestry.com, there was no reason to suspect her parentage. Probably she was like many of us, and just wanted to see if she was related to someone famous. When the test revealed a separate father from her own, she wrote it
READ MOREIngestible Technology
If wearable medical technology wasn’t enough to throw your imagination into the blender, we may now be seeing the rise of ingestible medical technologies. In other words, swallowing tiny mechanical objects is no longer The Magic School Bus territory. Instead it’s a real-life medical industry that has just begun to explore its potential. What
READ MOREThe Blood Test that Can Detect Cancer with 99% Accuracy
Slate published an article a few years ago entitled “Where Do the Millions of Cancer Research Dollars Go Every Year?” The article was an oncologist’s response to the question posed by the title, which was originally posed by a user on Quora. The article points out the staggering amount of cancer detection research dollars spent
READ MORERobotic Surgery a Reality
Believe it or not, surgery has been performed by robots since March of 1997. The robot’s name was Mona, after the Mona Lisa, and the surgery that she/it performed was a gallbladder operation. 21 years later, and progress has been strangely slow. As cited by General Surgery Today, experts blame this slowness on a number
READ MORECould 2019 be the Year of Intermittent Fasting?
Medical News Today noted in its recent 2018 roundup, one of the site’s most popular topics was intermittent fasting diets. For those who are unfamiliar, an intermittent fasting diet is a diet that includes a regular fasting protocol, where the dieter abstains from all but fluids during a set period of time. And dieters are
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