A Nurse’s Story You know things are screwy if nurses can lose their jobs for talking to patients. A nurse I know at the main regional hospital has an excellent record, plus decades of experience on medical wards. She was admonished that she was “wasting” too much time talking to patients. “They told me to […]
Is Intermezzo the right kind of sleep medicine? (11/29/11)
Music for the Sleepless, or Disharmony? It’s not every day the FDA approves a new drug – especially a new sleeping pill. Intermezzo is a term that refers to a separate piece that plays in between acts – especially in a musical performance like opera. And now it’s being repositioned to name a “new” kind […]
Booze and sleeping pills – the wrong combination (11/16/11)
Alcohol and Pills for Sleep “Beer and valium, that’s how I sleep. Works every time, a perfect night’s sleep.” So said an actor friend of mine, who often had trouble “coming down” after a play and used this cocktail three or four times a week. Yet often alcohol plus sleeping pills do not “work.” Thirty […]
Does your sports team need a sleep doc? (11/2/11)
Hockey and Basketball and… The Vancouver Canucks have one. So now do the Calgary Flames. Dr. Charles Czeisler, head of sleep medicine at Harvard, is now a consultant to the NBA. He’s on record as recommending players get more than 8 hours of sleep a night in order to perform their best. Some teams are […]
Confessions of an air traffic controller (10/28/11)
Asleep in the Tower What caused a senior air traffic controller to fall asleep at Reagen Airport in Washington, D.C. this April, causing two planes to land unassisted and provoking a national transport scandal? Travel – his own. In a report by Rebecca Ruiz at MSNBC, the unnamed supervisor last remembered thinking he should splash […]