Recently I heard about a patient who was involved in a motor vehicle accident. He suffered a major pelvic injury and required surgery to fix his pelvis. His only other medical history was that he suffered from significant anxiety and panic disorder. A few days after his surgery he became very agitated... Read more →

Here’s an interesting Google statistic. I searched on “psychotherapy innovation” and “engineering innovation.” Here are the hits: 1,210,000 for psychotherapy innovation, which is under 1% of 136,000,000 for engineering innovation. But I estimate that there are 45% as many... Read more →

In my last post, I talked about the motivations behind the way many physicians practice medicine and the importance as a patient to understand the economic dynamics behind your doctor’s practice. In essence, your physician needs to make a living while helping people get better. He really is not... Read more →

While Bidil’s patent for general use runs out in 2007, its FDA approval for “selective” use on people of African origin runs out in 2020. Despite being hailed by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2005 as a step towards the “promise of personalized medicine,” the question... Read more →

Earlier this week, I attended the annual general meeting at the Canadian Mental Health Association (Vancouver - Burnaby branch). As always, people who have used the CMHA’s services over the years stood up and told their stories. What remained most with me was one person mentioning that at a certain... Read more →

The U.S. Senate declared September 19th to be ADD Awareness Day. To celebrate, I’m going to lose my car keys. What a Shame About Me Perhaps the biggest problem with attention deficit disorder (ADD or ADHD or AD/HD or ADD/ADHD), is that superstitious and stereotyped social attitudes keep people... Read more →

Just when I was complaining that the hypothetical stress-cancer link is still controversial, a new study takes a new approach to look at this question. Researchers at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Yahatanishi-ku, Kitakyushu, Japan, looked at a variety of psychosocial stressors... Read more →

Welcome to the seventeenth edition of Brain Blogging — a semi-monthly blog carnival that aims to review posts “related to the brain and mind that go beyond the basic sciences into a more human and multidimensional perspective.” Read more →  Read More →

I’m am more than occasionally approached by a friend or associate with complaints about how their doctor does not give the medical care they feel they deserve. The most common complaints are that the doctor does not spend enough time with the patient during office visits, does not address all of... Read more →

The human genome is on everyone’s mind with recent advances by Craig Venter’s team. Let’s look at how reducing mental and other stress may be especially important for a genetic group of which you just might be a member. Research into cancer has shown that oxidative stress affects DNA,... Read more →

As Michael Moore ventures deeper and deeper into politics, his film-making abilities are getting better and better. I enjoyed Sicko for its slick cinematography and the powerful use of disturbing images and stories. Since its release in June 29, 2007, it is clear that it will be overwhelmingly successful... Read more →