Points of Interest, #38

It’s that time again, when yours truly scours the internet from one end to the other, in a tireless search for all things mind, soul and body.  Today I have not-so-random noise, QBs and their IQs, fabulous fatigue, the human body baked in bread, Mecca moderated Muslims, Lupus vanquished on American Idol, Barack Obama keeping cool, Christmas trees, Christmas paintings, and even a live interview with the Jolly Old Elf, himself.  So without any more delay, I present the absolute best of the internet to come across my screen-

Science and Salesmanship

Medicine often finds itself in a quandary as a profession.  Like any profession, it offers an important service.  In a sense, patients are customers and consumers.  Physicians do compete to some extent with naturopaths, homeopaths, nutritionists, acupuncturists and all who hawk their latest miracle cure or millennia old natural remedy on late night television infomercials.  We try to separate ourselves out from these with science, evidence base, and therefore increased credibility.  While this credibility is very important to patients, the truth is they just want to feel better.   The conflict is this, as a scientists, doctors are trained to be skeptical of all medical claims so they can be rigorously evaluated.  Yet, as healers, it is critically important to believe that what you are doing is, in fact, best for the patient, as the patient needs to believe in the treatment for it to have any effect as well.  In a very important sense, we have to sell what our recommendation is to the patient.  

Points of Interest #26

Well, well, well, welcome to Mind, Soul and Body’s 100th post.  I guess that makes my collection of gems found surfing the internet just over a quarter of my posts.  Most blogs have about a three month lifespan and I am happy to have surpassed that.  I wonder if that means I am in this for the long haul, at least for the rest of residency, which is coming up on the end of one long, long road.  This week was a very strong one on the medicine, brain, and soul internet and I had to leave out an unusual number of posts.  Without futher delay I present only the best of the blogosphere (IMHO)- 

Points of Interest, #16

Welcome, welcome to another edition of the very best stuff to come to my attention online this week. There is something for everyone here, whether you want to laugh, cry, learn, or ponder life’s mysteries, have a seat and dig in.

Points of interest 5/3

Okay, I think I have the obsessive dopamine circuit running in my head, because try as I might, I just couldn’t stop myself from putting together my collection of the posts, videos, and other good stuff on the internet. So rejoice in my neuroses and share in its abundance.

Placebos and the mind-body connection

One thing that consistently amazes me about the human mind is its intricate relationship to our health and well being. In anxiety, your muscles remain constantly tense and flexed, burning your energy supply, leaving you exhausted. Panic attacks can feel identical to heart attacks, as your body is flooded with stress hormones.

Every specialty has their own somatoform disorder. These are real physical symptoms that occur as a result of an outside stressor. They can include headache, irritable bowel syndrome, wheezing and trouble breathing, nonepileptic seizures, paralysis, chest pain, rashes or a host of other symptoms. Despite the tendency to claim, “It’s all in your head,”all of these conditions are very real and lead to the consumption of a lot of physician’s time.
Unfortunately because they are intricately related to the mind, they tend to be written off by doctors. We tend to see conditions as either physical or mental when the truth with any disease is that there are always strong components of both.

So where does this prejudice stem from? Oddly enough, I think it is rooted in our scientifically useful proof of the mind body connection, the placebo.