Without Care If you’re psychotic and you don’t want treatment it’s no problem. At least until you harm or kill somebody. Navy veteran and computer contractor Aaron Alexis killed twelve people at the Washington Navy Yard. By all evidence he had been psychotic for weeks or months. He told his friends and neighbors that their […]
To Sleep – Perchance to Drive (8/26/13)
Safe to Drive? The FDA has recently requested sleeping pill manufacturers conduct more “morning after” driving tests. Getting sleep is important, but remaining sleepy while operating a vehicle is another story. They should have spoken to the police in New Zealand. Recently police in Hamilton received an odd call. A woman called about her friend. […]
Medical Overuse (8/12/13)
Three Trillion a Year How did American health care come to cost nearly three trillion dollars a year? One place to look is at procedures – diagnostic tests and therapeutic treatments. In terms of costs, “procedures” can be as simple as a red blood cell count or as complicated as a liver transplant. Hospitals, drug […]
What You Don’t Know (8/5/13)
Stumped We didn’t know what was causing his death. When we walked on to the medicine wards of the San Diego VA many years ago, most interns were pretty ignorant. Yet we believed someone else knew what to do. As in what was causing the large stock of misery before us. In VA medical wards […]
Losing Everything (7/15/13)
Standing Out Maybe you knew him. He didn’t stand out in a crowd. A hardworking guy, in his mid-fifties, he long worked a steady job. Proudly he raised a family. Then the bust came. He got downsized. The losses came like dominos. First the job. Unemployment insurance went on for a while, but there was […]