Bogus awards dot com
So, I received an unsolicited mailing from a prestigious sounding “Consumers’ Research Council of America.”
“Congratulations on your prestigious recognition in the ‘Guide to America’s Top Emergency Medicine Physicians’ “
Too bad it looks like a sham. It is pretty suspicious when they immediately want to sell me a $200 plaque. It seems that they do this for various medical fields, but relatively recently they made the mistake of also trying to bilk financial planners… resulting in the following article from Forbes.com.
“Consumers’ Research appears to be trying to create the image of a quality, beholden-to-no-one research organization like, say, Consumers Union, the similarly sounding nonprofit publisher of highly reputable Consumer Reports. But Consumers’ Research looks more like a stalking horse for S L D Industries, which also sells a wide range of traditional trophies and corporate awards.”
In that respect, I have to admit the plaques look pretty nice, and it isn’t a bad way to make a practice look respectable. I’m sure they get a decent amount of business from medical professionals. Honestly, how is a patient supposed to be able to tell?
Scanned letters below the break:
A Budget of Dumb Asses: Rubor, Dolor, Calor, Tumor
Mark Crislip, MD, Infectious Diseases, 08:40PM Sep 7, 2009
Flu season is here, kinda sorta, it never really went away thanks to H1N1. I was rounding today, lucky me with the three day weekend, when one of my colleagues mentioned a post I had written a year ago at the old blog about the flu vaccine. It was printed and put up in the break room, and he saw it, took it home to his wife, who promptly mailed it to a colleague that is a proud “I never get the flu vaccine” kind of guy.
It is like people who are proud of being ignorant of science. I never understand why people brag about being ignorant or stupid. You would think they would be embarrassed, but then they are probably a… well, let us just see.
Adding any commentary is like distracting chatter during a poetry reading. Just click through and read.
minimal design » articles » iPhone vs. Palm Pre Review – Confession of an Apple Fanboy
A review written by a self-described apple fanboy. I think it is fair, and he brings up concerns about the build quality which I think are valid concerns (even if he hadn’t had any problems). The iPhone just feels solid. However, when discussing the OS:
WebOS
Simply put: it blows the iPhone out of the water. It rips it apart into little shreds… And even though most apps are better on the iPhone when taken individually, it doesn’t matter because the overall experience on the Pre is light years ahead. Apple painted itself in a corner with its strategy or lack thereof towards multitasking. And now that Palm is showing us how it’s done, Apple looks pretty silly. iPhone users who say “but the app starts right where I left off” are delusional. You can’t even compare although I just did. Ho well, they’re not in the same league.
And the service:
Service
I was careful not to mention this until now because I wanted to make a somewhat “fair” comparison. But it’s time to switch to the “real life” mode. Apple is stuck with those blood sucking con artists disguised as a telecommunication company called AT&T. So, as great as the iPhone is, it really doesn’t matter. I don’t claim to have any proofs of what I’m about to say, this is just my opinion based on personal experience (aka. “common sense”). I’m just exercising my freedom of speech when I say that (gotta be careful these days) AT&T is knowingly overselling its 3G network. They’re lucky they don’t sell Apple… pies, because if people could see the size of the slice they’re getting for a $100/month, they’d be burning AT&T flags on the streets.
Last week, before I switched to Sprint, every single phone call I made got dropped. Since I often use my cell for business, I had to switch carrier. On the Pre, using the web browser and google map works like in the Apple TV ads. You know the one I’m talking about, when the guy looks for “seafood” and it loads in less than 15 minutes. With Sprint, Google Map is almost instantaneous, sending emails works every time, no dropped calls, clear sound… I actually get to use the features available on my phone all the time now, and enjoy doing it!
I know this depends on where you live, this chart can help you get an idea of exactly how much you’re getting screwed by AT&T in your area. If you live in NYC though, don’t even hesitate one second. Yeah, AT&T is supposed to upgrade their network, blah blah blah… Bottom line: the iPhone in NY sucks because of AT&T. Right now, the experience on the Pre in Manhattan and Brooklyn is incomparable. It’s a no-brainer to switch to Sprint if you can, and see what you’ve been missing…
Is the iPhone better than the Pre? I think so. Is the Pre WAY better than an iPhone in NYC? I don’t have a single doubt about it.
I’ve been trying to illustrate this for a while. Just saying.
Originally got he link from: Precentral.net
edwinleap.com | Sunday morning in the ER
The whole post is a good read, but the following caught my eye:
A reflection: Is our national medical obsession with chest pain a manifestation of our national anxiety and fear of uncertainty? Of our national terror of death, or our collective unease even in the face of relative security and prosperity? Is it because we’ve subsituted faith for pharmaceuticals?
via edwinleap.com | Sunday morning in the ER.
My answer: yes. More specifically, we have substituted Science as the religion, humanity as supreme, and have found both sorely lacking.
AT&T Is A Big, Steaming Heap Of Failure
The evidence has been mounting for some time, and people are starting to notice. TechCrunch recently posted about the problems with AT&T, and the article is also a good collection of references:
Since I switched to AT&T from Verizon just over 2 years ago to get the iPhone (which, of course, AT&T has exclusively in the U.S.), there have been no shortage of shortcomings by AT&T. But as of late, I’ve been noticing things getting much, much worse. And I’m hardly the only one. And so it’s time to call out AT&T on those failures. And plead with Apple not to renew its exclusive contract with AT&T when it expires next year.
LeBron James, and the Tale of the Never Seen Dunk – Ball Don’t Lie – NBA – Yahoo! Sports
This is almost old news already, but I think it deserves some attention, as well as a permanent (relatively) spot on the web. When did Lebron turn into a big baby? Between his playoff run-and-hide and now this, where he can’t handle someone dunking on him.
This is absolutely no fun, and it falls right in line with a batch of childish behavior from LeBron James recently. And I’m not in line with those who are letting James slide for this or James’ refusal to meet the media or congratulate the Orlando Magic last month because “he hasn’t done anything wrong yet.”
They’re confusing “not doing anything wrong” with “meeting and far exceeding the hype that preceded his NBA career.” We should applaud his game, but to applaud him for merely not being a dingle berry doorknob is ridiculous. Nearly as ridiculous as substituting “dingle berry doorknob” for a curse word.
via LeBron James, and the Tale of the Never Seen Dunk – Ball Don’t Lie – NBA – Yahoo! Sports.
Everyone was willing to make an excuse of the playoff thing, but this is just dumb. I know Nike has made some statement amount “no videos” or something like that, but many witnesses say that they had no problem with the filming until Lebron got dunked on.
I really don’t get it. Lebron certainly appears to be more relaxed and fun-loving this. Is he getting uptight? Maybe this just shows that maybe NBA players should go to college and mature a little.
Essay – A Doctor by Choice, a Businessman by Necessity – NYTimes.com
An essay column in the New York Times discusses a personal reflection on money aspect of practicing medicine by Dr Sandeep Jalhar:
To meet the expenses of my growing family, I recently started moonlighting at a private medical practice in Queens. On Saturday mornings, I drive past Chinese takeout places and storefronts advertising cheap divorces to a white-shingled office building in a middle-class neighborhood.
I often reflect on how different this job is from my regular one, at an academic medical center on Long Island. For it forces me, again and again, to think about how much money my practice is generating.
via Essay – A Doctor by Choice, a Businessman by Necessity – NYTimes.com.
I sympathize with the feeling that one may have entered medicine hoping to not worry about money. Unfortunately, those days are gone… the age where doctor’s are paid enough so that they can just practice and not worry about money have been gone for a couple decades now.
I do think that the current fee-for-service system is sick, and really needs to be fixed. I know HMO’s got a bad name in the late 80s, early 90s, but I do feel that they are a much better financial structure than the system we have now. Obviously, I’m a little biased.
I’m pretty sure doctors in general will be happier that way. I know that there was a survey of Canadian doctors which showed surprisingly high satisfaction scores when compared to their salary. I’ll need to dig up to reference, I’ll update this post when I find it.
Testing Evolution’s Role in Finding a Mate – NYTimes.com
An article trying to interpret behavior while speed dating and making evolutionary interpretations. The epidemiologist part of me just cringes at the statement below. The method (randomization) is meaningless unless you have some grasp of the inclusion criteria and the potential biases introduced there. Specifically, are the type of men and women who speed-date different from the general population?
I think it is fair to say that most people have never speed-dated in their lives. If I could hazard a guess, I would also say that men who go speed-dating tend to be more shy, and women who speed-date tend to me more extroverted than average. (I know someone is going to hate me for making generalizations). I don’t know if these assumptions are true, but any report on science should at least acknowledge that the study has very little to do with “evolution” and is more something that is limited to speed-dating behavioral dynamics.
In recent years, the emergence of speed dating has given psychologists, economists and political scientists new ways to test this and other hypotheses about mating. Because participants can be randomly assigned to groups and have no prior information about other participants, three-minute speed-dating sessions are about as close to a controlled experiment as researchers are likely to get.
via Testing Evolution’s Role in Finding a Mate – NYTimes.com.
Well – Reasons Not to Panic Over a Painkiller – NYTimes.com
Some well reasoned advise regarding the recent federal advisory committee report on acetaminophen published in the New York Times health blog. I think the key points include the very low level of incidence, and the comparitively high level of side effects (although still low compared to how much it is used) of NSAIDs and Aspirin.
Few drugs are more ubiquitous than acetaminophen, the pain reliever found in numerous over-the-counter cold remedies and the headache drug Tylenol.
But last week, a federal advisory committee raised concerns about liver damage that can occur with overuse of acetaminophen, and the panel even recommended that the Food and Drug Administration ban two popular prescription drugs, Vicodin and Percocet, because they contain it.
The news left many consumers confused and alarmed. Could regular use of acetaminophen for pain relief put them at risk for long-term liver damage?
via Well – Reasons Not to Panic Over a Painkiller – NYTimes.com.
Science moves from the stacks to the Web; print too pricey – Ars Technica
Article from Ars Technica, discussing the move to digital archiving. Personally, I would love it if people would stop sending me dead trees and just give me an option for online subscriptions for my journals…
Last week, the head of the US branch of Oxford University Press noted an event that was striking, if unsurprising. When grading an assigned paper, a Columbia University professor found that the majority of his students had cited an obscure work of literary criticism that was roughly a century old. The reason? Because the work was in Google Book Search, while much other (more recent) work was not.
The relative invisibility of offline information has an impact on almost all areas of life, but it’s felt especially acutely in the academic world, where work builds on the existing body of knowledge. Getting all of that dead-tree information onto the Internet (or into archives like J-Stor) would be of tremendous utility to scholars and students, but convenience isn’t the only reason for digital distribution of academic work. A recent decision by a prominent academic publisher to switch to digital-only distribution was apparently motivated by simple economics: print no longer made financial sense.
via Science moves from the stacks to the Web; print too pricey – Ars Technica.
