I would like to think of myself as a visual person; certainly, having a good sense of spatial relationships helps as a surgeon, and as an amateur photographer, like the blind squirrel, I can occasionally find a nut. But then there are the real deals.
“When I first saw the inside of a quinoa seed with the microscope, I was absolutely stunned by the starch granules, which look almost like soccer balls. And then the leaf itself has these phenomenal trichome structures that are so gorgeous and surprising, and you’d never know about them if you didn’t look closely. The backstory of that one is that a researcher came from Rwanda. As a child he had been in refugee camps where he nearly starved. He came and got his Ph.D. at the research station in Washington state where I took that quinoa image. He brought that quinoa back to Rwanda and introduced it to farmers all over East Africa. Things like that are mind blowing. Not just the absolute beauty of what we’re looking at, but also the human consequences of studying and sharing that kind of resource.”
It is an amazing set of images combining plants at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. Truly awesome. From the photographer Robert Dash, by way of Nautil.us, The hidden beauty of plants that feed the world.
As a lapsed surgeon, I no longer order any testing. Even as an active physician, I ordered a small range of diagnostic or confirmatory tests.
“But illness is rarely clear cut, and when the answer isn’t obvious it can take a lot of time to thoroughly understand the patient’s experience. Because time is something doctors don’t have a lot of, we compensate by ordering a battery of tests.”
Of course, ordering too many tests must be countered by the fact that many malpractice cases hinge on not ordering enough, or well, more appropriate tests. From Nautil.us, Why Doctors Test Too Much
I am not only a lapsed surgeon but an old one. Much as I have aged out on knowing any of the Grammy winners, I no longer really understand what draws the current generations to medicine. I am not alone in that confusion as several of my peers have chastised the young people about seeing their role as work – of course, with the rise of the employed physician, that is not such a great leap.
"In my day, it was a privilege to be a doctor," to "My demanding job is a means to earn a living and pay my debts, and life is what happens outside of work."
From Medpage, Is Medicine a Job or a Calling?
Telehealth is the rage for those more obsessed with convenience than genuine care.
“HIMs is now doing business in a world where a concept such as “Make America healthy again” has rapidly migrated from a fringe political movement to the center of government. And although MAHA purists might shun pharmaceutical solutions, some potential customers might be sympathetic to HIMs’s claim of being an ally against “the system.” The one-note, full-volume message in the HIMs Super Bowl spot is that everything is rigged against you—keeping you overweight, making you unhealthy—and that you’re right to be mad about that.”
This is more of one of the established versions of a grift that seeks to appease the aggrieved walking well, with supplements and pills. From The Atlantic, What Is HIMs Actually Selling?
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
