Medic Facility blog on health

Ready for some more interesting, fascinating, unusual, strange, and even bizarre news…

Pay patients to go to the doctor? - in England, Health Service Managers are looking at ways to get people in unhealthy people in the lower social economic rankings to visit the doctor. The thinking is that if you can get people to the doctor earlier, before chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease set in, the government health system would save money. It makes sort of makes sense. But the idea is getting flack from politicans and medical experts alike who say that the government shouldn’t be bribing people to stay healthy.

‘World’s Fattest Man’ to Marry After Massive Diet - after two years of dieting, Manuel Uribe, the world’s heaviest man and his girlfriend are set to wed this month. Originally weighing in a couple of years ago at 1,235 pounds, the 43 year old Manual has shed around 700 pounds.

Something of a celebrity, Manual has been giving telephone advice to Jose Luis Garza, another determined dieter who weighs in at around 990 pounds.

Discover the surgical tools of Ancient Rome at the Historical Collections & Services of the Health Sciences Library, University sof Virginia. Excavated from the House of the Surgeon at Pompeii, looking at this collection of instruments makes you realize how far medical science has come (and how lucky we are that it has advanced so far).

As for the bizarre, how about this cookbook by a Russian chef called ‘Cooking with Balls’. Featuring testicle pizza, battered testicles and barbecued testicles with giblets recipes made from the sex organs of ostriches, bulls, pigs, turkeys and stallions, this e-book is definitely ‘one of a kind’ and not for the faint hearted.

And that’s it for this week’s Monday Sidebar…

Tags: bizarre, Healthbolt, Medical History, monday sidebar, strange, unusual

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When you have diabetes, it is easy to remember appointments with the endocrinologist and the ophthalmologist.  Podiatrists, dietitians, and cardiologists may also be part of the diabetes care plan.  Yet when it comes to an annual physical and/or a well…

Remember the old quite smoking ads? The ones that said the more times you try to quit, the more likely you are to be successful the next time you try.

Let’s think about that for a minute.

The more times you try, the more likely you are to be successful. Why does that that only have to be associated with smoking? Why not Weight loss? Or learning to use "the potty" (can you tell I have a 3 year old?) Really, if we think about it, it applies to everything we want to do in this life. It’s not that different then the old adage of if you don’t first succeed try, try again. Which, I guess I could have made this weekend’s quote, but instead I chose one from Thomas Edison,

I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

This is such a great way to think and it supports my point on mindset. It is really easy for us to accept failure and let it defeat us. It’s much harder to change your perspective and look at failure as just an attempt that didn’t work. The one thing we have in this life is how we approach situations. Do we give up after one try? Do we accept defeat? Do we wallow if our own self pity?

You know I normally write posts for myself but try to make them relative to everyone, right? For some reason that inspires me. It makes me look outside of myself and approach what I’m going through from another perspective. Hopefully making myself a better person in the process and inspiring you along the way. That’s really my intention when I write for the blog.

Well I’ve been in a funk all day. I can’t believe how much not getting that call back affected me. I don’t know what I expected to happen. Maybe to be "discovered" on the spot? For them to tell me "I’ve made it through the next round" after a 5 minute conversation? Nothing is that easy. The weight loss wasn’t. Maintaining sure isn’t. You guys just gave me a big head with all your fabulously supportive and flattering comments! :~P

I’m not sure where this leaves me. But I’m not going to be down about it anymore. AND I’m sure not going to be seeking any more comfort in food! I actually dug in the pantry and pulled out a bag of chocolate chips just for a "happy fix". Yikes!

I’m over it and you know what? I’m going to do an audition video and send it in to the Food Network. They aren’t going to get rid of me THAT easy! I just have to find another way that works. ;~)

I almost forgot I had this video waiting in the wings. I recorded over a week ago! I seem to be having audio issues again, the volume and the syncing seems off. Sorry about that. I figured out the audio thing but after I recorded, of course!

I get a little nutty in this one, showing my arm "wing" and talking about relationships! I even got a little too honest about my opinion on the American diet.

Topics in this video include…

• Obsessed with Points
• Staying Motivated
• Loose skin on arms and inner thighs
• Relationship Advice?!?
• Another Veggie Hater

Links mentioned in the video or that you may be interested in…

• Matter of Motivation
• Weight Training and Body Image
• 7 secrets to a long — and happy marriage
• Video with "hate vegetables" answer.

Embedded video from CNN Video
Gupta: Everyone in our group got altitude sickness

“While on assignment in the mountains of Peru, Dr. Sanjay Gupta experienced the dangers of altitude sickness firsthand. After ten minutes of pure oxygen treatments, he felt much better and returned to work reporting on a dangerous public health threat in a nearby village.”

I’m not a good "waiter". I hate waiting. Especially when what I’m waiting for is out of my control. I guess you can call that impatience. :~)

If you haven’t figured it out, this impatience is being caused by the casting call yesterday. I am SO glad I went! It was fun to take the train into the "city". I hopped on the metro, and arrived about an hour early. There weren’t many people there and I was relived I wouldn’t be on an American Idol style line! I really had no idea what to expect.

People started trickling in and I started to realize everyone was just as nervous as I. I also realized most people there were very similar to me. They weren’t trained chefs or best selling cookbook authors, most were every day "folk" who cooked for fun and wanted to take a shot. There were a few professionals, of course but I didn’t feel outnumbered or like I didn’t belong.

I even showed GreenLiteBites to a few of my casting call buddies and they seemed impressed. Of course more impressed by the toddler but hey, he’s got cuteness on his side. :~)

So after waiting about an hour they started to call us in one by one. No one knew what to expect and no one came back after being called to give us an inside scoop. While waiting I had some great conversations and met some awesome people. Even brushing shoulders with internet celebrity with Jolene. We had an awesome conversation about the internet and "she" gave me some great advice.

I also met Amy from EatingLow.com. She was awesome and gave me a lot of pointers on the cookbook front. Plus she is also a weight loss success story so we had a special bond. :~)

With all these great conversations the time flew by and all of sudden MY name was being called. Boy was I nervous. I handed over my application got a picture snapped and then I was introduced to "the interviewer". Yes, yes, I forgot her name (I’m SO bad at that, ESPECIALLY when I’m nevous) so she will now be known as the interviewer. :~)

The first words out of my mouth were, "ohhh this isn’t too bad, I thought it would be way more intimidating". To which the interviewer replied, "Everyone says that!".

We then proceeded to have a nice conversation. I told her about GreenLiteBites and Roni’s Weigh. I showed her my latest video and a few food photos and then the big question came…

DUN DUN DUN

Why do you want to be the Next Food Network Star?

You’d think I’d have my answer ready, right? I was so focused on my "culinary point of view" that for the last 2 days I didn’t even think WHY I wanted to do this. I just did it! LOL

My response was along the lines of inspiring people to eat healthier, showing them that it’s not impossible to cook healthy meals for their families with a busy schedule. I want to share all the ideas swimming in my head because there’s tons of stuff in there and I just want to get it out! LMAO. Again she seemed mildly impressed, interested in what I had to say but not giving me any insight into whether or not I was doing well.

It literally seemed like I was only in there for 2 minutes when another women popped her head in to tell us we were over time. Good sign? Bad sign? I DO NOT know.

I shook the interviewers hand, she told me they would be doing call back that night or Saturday morning and I was on my way.

That was it. Now I’m WAITING! and it SUCKS! :~)

I tried, I had fun and I AM glad I went. I’m just not getting my hopes up especially considering I didn’t get a call last night. I’m going to try and get out of my food Network day dream and get on with this yard sale, which I am completely unprepared for! I gotta RUN!

I will twitter IF I get call. I promise.

Hey all!I’ve been happily drowning in life lately and haven’t been able to get online much.  Hoping to catch up soon!I know this is terrible short notice, but the details didn’t come together until just now.  Drea from Drea and…

Like me, you may be one of the 70 million people who watched Joe Biden debate Sarah Palin last night. Did any of you notice the weird way Senator Biden’s eyebrows moved? The inner eyebrows moved very little, whereas the outer part of the brow would often dramatically move upward, creating a ’sinister’ look. His central forehead was also devoid of wrinkles. Has he had Botox injections?

This is quite often how a Botox’d forehead looks and acts. However, with all the media scrutiny on him, how on earth could he go to a plastic surgeon and have Botox without everyone finding out? Well… the effects of Botox last 3-4 months on average. It’s possible that he had the treatment prior to being chosen as Obama’s running mate, when there were less cameras following him. If that’s the case, the Botox should wear off over the next couple months and the central forehead wrinkles should return (unless he has it done again).

As an aside, many people have speculated that he had hair transplants back in the ’80s. He does have a somewhat unusual hairline at the temple, which may be a sign of this.

For my analysis on the other candidates, click here for Sarah Palin, here for John McCain, and here for Cindy McCain. Sorry, there will not be a post on Barack Obama, since I don’t think he’s had anything done.

Thanks for reading.
Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Please don’t blame me, but the newly-made word “apomediation” comes to my mind when looking at the cartoon above. I greatly respect Gunther Eysenbach for his work on the Medicine 2.0 congress but I still find it somewhat difficult to endorse the creation of a new word to describe the use of Web 2.0 services in medicine.

According to Gunther, “traditional media intermediaries are replaced by apomediaries — tools and peers standing by to guide consumers to trustworthy information, or adding credibility to information.”

References:
Announcement: Conference on Web 2.0 in Medicine in Toronto, September 2008. What is “Apomediation”?
Image source: Fiction Rule of Thumb, xkcd.com, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

How could I have missed the Ig Nobel Prizes for the past 18 years ? Not sure what the Ig stands for, these ‘nobel prizes’, which parody the more serious and respected Nobel Peace Prizes, are handed out every October for the ten achievements that ‘first make people laugh, and then make them think’.

So without further ado, here are this year’s recepients…

Chemistry: Sheree Umpierre, Joseph Hill, and Deborah Anderson for finding that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide. On the other hand, C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu and B.N. Chiang proved that it was not.

Nutrition: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence for proving that food tastes better when it sounds good. Focusing on potato chips, they discoverd that crunchier sounding chips tasted better. Their research has already been put to good use, with the world famous Fat Duck Restaurant in England providing diners who purchase a seafood dish with an iPod that plays ocean sounds while they eat.

Peace: The Swiss, with the help of the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.

Biology: Marie-Christine Cadergues, Christel Joubert and Michel Franc for the discovery that fleas living on dogs are able to jump higher that fleas living on cats.

Medicine: Dan Ariely for proving that expensive fake medicine is more effective that cheap fake medicine.

Archaeology: Astolfo Gomes de Mello Araujo and Jose Carlos Marcelino for discovering that armadillos are archaeology digs are capable of moving artifacts all around the site.

Literature: David Sims who studied and authored ‘You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation Within Organizations.’

Economics: Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber and Brent Jordan for proving that exotic dancers are able to earn more when at their peak fertility.

Bizarre but true….

For the infinitely curious, you can find out the winners of the last 17 Ig Nobel Prizes here at wikipedia.

(source)

Tags: coke as spermicide, Ig Nobel Prizes, improbable research, strange but true

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Watching what’s happening on Wall Street and following the politicians as they try to bailout what they are calling a crisis that could have catastrophic results for all Americans and the world, I am starting to have a recurrent dream of living out my ‘golden years’ as a bag lady sleeping under an apple tree.

Retirement might just become a thing of the past. But for some, retirement has never been an option.

Why?

Because they love their jobs too much to give them up.

Case in point - Mildred Heath. She’s 100 years old and still working in a career that she started in 1923 at the age of 15.

And she has no intention of retiring. Working as a journalist what she does and who she is. Commuting the one block from her apartment to the office on an electric scooter, she takes classified ads, files photographs, and seeks out local news. Even at a big gathering to celebrate her 100th birthday, Mrs. Heath kept a notepad and pen handy to gather news for that week’s paper.

An inspiration for people of all ages, Mildred was recently named by Experience Works, the nation’s largest provider of training and employment services for older workers, as America’s Oldest Worker for 2008.

Here’s Mildred in her own words…

I wonder how many more Mildred’s are out there…

(source)

Tags: age, age and agility, age and health, Healthbolt, Mental Health, mildred heath, oldest worker

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I finally replaced my Nike+ after losing it in the rain. It’s amazing how I missed it. I just love knowing how far I ran, how fast I was and most importantly how I’m progressing. Today I ran 2 miles with less then a 10 minute pace! I don’t think I ever did that before!

So I snuck this run in as the next few days promise to be a whirlwind. Tomorrow is the casting call. I spent a better part of the day preparing the application, printing pictures and figuring out the best way to get into DC. I’m excited and looking forward to seeing what it’s all about. I can’t promise updates when I’m there but I’m bringing the laptop! At the latest I’ll blog about it tomorrow night.

This weekend promises to be just as exciting (ok, well, not really ;~) Saturday I try to sell all my old junk at a yard sale and Sunday I’m planning on my first 60 minute run.

OK, so I’m totally distracted by the debate, and my big day tomorrow. I did totally forget I had another video session recorded, so I hope to prep that and get it up this weekend. Other then I’m signing off for tonight!

Table provided by Roni’s Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

It’s hard to believe (at least for me) that there is just about a month left until my due date.  Our baby girl is almost ready to make her debut and we couldn’t be more excited.  Nervous, yes.  But I…

I’m slightly distracted this Thursday morning with thoughts of a certain reality show swimming in my head but there was no way I was missing Thursday Thoughts! Now, don’t get impatient and scroll to the bottom, I have some good link this Thursday!

• First of all since becoming (feeling more and more comfortable saying this) a runner I’ve been obsessed with finding new routes. My community is getting boring and frankly it’s too short (ok, I never thought i’d say that!) So I’ve turned to two website for helps. Run.com and MapMyRun.com both use google maps to allow you to search and enter routes. I was surprised to see all the entered routes in my area!
• On the dieting front, I don’t remember how I found this article but boy is great! MORNING AFTER DIET CRASH addresses the feelings of guilt when "bingeing" with a great story about two wolves, guilt and forgiveness.
• OK, this one is just funny. A few days ago the husband and I took the toddler to Barnes & Nobel and somehow got on the discussion of, ummm, well to put in toddler terms "going potty". We were laughing about how the need to go (or at least ‘let one rip’) always seems to correspond with being in a bookstore. Well, the next day I was searching google (don’t even ASK what I was looking for) and I happen to come across this forum discussion! The husband and I laughed so hard we have tears coming down our faces.
• With this Weeks Question I asked you what plan you follow and why. I also mentioned that finding the the plan that will work for you depends on your personality and learning style. Well Forbes addressed this subject in a bit more depth. Check out the article How To Choose A Diet That Works
• Alright, getting a bit more personal and site news like, my bio is up on the BlogHer site and I’m getting ready for the conference! I’m super excited to meet other bloggers. Since quitting my full time job, I feel like no one "gets" what I’m doing. It’s always nice to surround yourself with those in the same field now and again. I’m hoping to learn a few things and help some new bloggers out!
• On GreenLiteBites I eased back a bit on some new ideas and I’ve been focusing on gathering for the book. I did, however, post an old idea for Big Chocolate Cupcakes, My Mushroom, Pea & Chicken Casserole idea,and this weeks video where I make turkey burgers after the gym. :~)
• And finally, the Next Food Network Star casting call thing. I’M GOING TO DO IT!! The husband and I talked about it, the toddler thinks it’s cool and I can’t escape the "you only love once" mentality. Yes I’m busy but one of the reasons why I quit my full time faculty position at the college was to be able to pursue the opportunities that my sites would present. This is one of them. I’m not going in with high hopes but I will kick my self in the ass later if I don’t at least try and see what it’s all about. Your comments were ALL appreciated. My online friends are the BEST and I’m very thankful to have such a support system! As for the concerns about the toddler, he is the reason I have this opportunity in the first place, everything I do is for him. I’ve always worked and balanced my life as a wife, professional and mommy. IF, and OMG that is a THE BIGGEST IF I EVER WROTE, anything comes from this I’ll cross all those bridges when the time is right. But I refuse not to try, experience and learn just because I’m a mom. The toddlers in preschool during the casting call time anyway! ;~P

I’m on off! I have a 12 page application to fill out and a I need to find a photograph of myself!! As always, I’ll keep you posted!

P.S. Emails are pouring in and my hosting company can’t keep up! (this is why I’m moving) Just be warned I may not receive them! I hate to think you emailed, I didn’t get it and then you though I didn’t respond! That’s like my worst fear!

Dean Giustini posted a good summary of why maintaining a wiki is hard work. The top 5 reasons are listed below along with my comments on how this relates to maintaining a blog. The comments come from my personal experience of keeping up with 3 blogs since 2005.

Five reasons why wiki’ing is hard work:

1. Content creation
I use 2 approaches:
- comment on medical news stories, journal articles, blog posts and Twitter (this post is an example)
- write original posts

Writing blog posts takes time but is an excellent way to keep up with the new developments and to create a personal archive available from any Internet-connected device.

2. Wiki spam
Deleting spam comments is part of the blog maintenance. I use Blogger.com word verification and all comments are emailed to me the moment they are posted. In general, spam comments are deleted within a few minutes.

3. Updating entries
I often update old posts whenever new information is available. The new links are added at the bottom of the post in the “related reading” section and the date of the update is recorded. Often, I prefer to update an old post rather than write a new one.

4. Authority
My blogs clearly list who is responsible for the content and what their credentials are. The readers may decide for themselves whether a particular author is authoritative or not.

5. Minimal use
Most visitors to my blogs come from Google, read 1-2 pages and stay only a few seconds. This pattern is the same across most medical blogs that allow open access to their SiteMeter statistics. However, there are quite a few visitors (mostly from .edu domains) who read more than 30-50 pages and stay up to one hour on the site. I work for the second group.

Wikis Explained in Plain English

References:
Five Reasons Why Wiki’ing is Hard Work. UBC Academic Search - Google Scholar Blog.
Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.