Diet and Nutrition. Natural Health, and Healthy Living

The History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine (HMD, NLM) is looking for two US-based graduate students to present their work in its seminar series in August 2010.

Seminars can be on any subject in the histories of health, medicine and the biomedical sciences. Speakers should plan to talk for up to 45 minutes, with an additional 30 minutes for questions. Please send a title, short abstract (200 words max), short CV, and contact details to David Cantor at the address below (email attachment preferred).

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Hello everyone…………..I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Apart from having a rotten cold I had a wonderful time with the family but at this point I have to be honest and say …………..thank goodness it’s all over for another year.I do like Christmas, it’s just that the lead-up to it is so stressful. [...]

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We've had some significant growth over the last while and that's enabled (and motiviated) us to look at how we can provide the most opportunity to our physician community.

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For some reason when new medical spas find this site their first reaction it to post a bunch of spam comments. Skintology in NY is one of these. Someone there just left a bunch of spam comments on the site. (Of course I've added a 'nofollow' tag to that link so there's no Google Juice going their way.)

This happens when someone doesn't understand how the web actually works and thinks that comment spamming will drive traffic to their site.

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Treating Hyperhydoris of the hands with Botox.

John L. Abraham, MD

With the palms of the hand being particularly sensitive and with administering multiple injections I apply a topical anesthetic and leave it on for about 20 minutes. This does a decent job numbing the area.

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It's Christmas Eve and the Senate just passed a major health reform bill. Personally I think the reforms in it are relatively minor, but the passage of the bill itself is a screaming big deal. When I say minor, what I mean is that we’re leaving in place the inefficient employment-based health benefits system, and we’re expanding insurance mostly by putting more people into the separate but equal Medicaid program.

But this bill is a statement, and an important one.

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Is there anyone left, on either side of the political spectrum, who wants the Senate health care bill to pass?

Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour had this to say about the Senate bill last week, “This health care plan is like mackerel in the moonlight. Longer that it's out there, the more that it stinks.”

And yesterday, MoveOn said this about the Senate Democratic health care bill in an email to its members, "America needs real health care reform—not a massive giveaway to the insurance companies. Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives should block this bill until it's fixed."

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I finally gotaround to reading Atul Gawande's New Yorker piece on why the current reform bill mirrors early 20th century agriculture. I learned lots about the role of the Department of Agriculture in teaching farmers what to do. In post-war Britain the radio soap opera The Archers did much the same thing.

I was actually encouraged to remember that in almost every industrialization process, intelligence, leadership, and usually money, from the government was a key factor.

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Atrium, which is one of the very best open-access ethics & medical humanities journals out there, has issueda call for submissions for Issue 8 (Summer 2010). Here is the Call:

ATRIUM Call for Proposals (Theme: "Happy")
Deadline for proposals: February 1, 2010
Article deadline for accepted proposals: March 15, 2010

The theme for Issue 8 (Summer 2010) is "Happy." ATRIUM encourages potential authors to think creatively about broad interpretations of theme. For example: Does the concept of happiness have any relevance to medicine? How is pleasure a factor in medicine, illness, bioethics, or medical humanities? What's the role of emotion, affect, or the presentation of self? How should we define "patient satisfaction"? Are our students happy? Does it matter? What do you love about your work, where's the joy in medicine today? If you're not happy, what needs to change?

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