All Articles by Maria Goddard, MD
Dr. Goddard is a medical doctor who has worked in research for the last three years. Her interests include traditional and alternative medicine as well as the sociological implications of certain diseases in particular populations.
Is Your Doctor Happy or Burnt-Out?
Is your doctor happy? This is something that may have never crossed your mind: the idea that your personal physician may not be pleased with the current state of his or her life. Even if it has, perhaps you were of the opinion that it was not of minor importance if it did not affect the quality of medical care and attention which you received.The general public’s image of the lives that medical professionals face is colored by 50 minute sitcoms where problems related to the characters, both personal and professional, are often neatly resolved by the time the final credits roll.
Hope for Future Treatment Options for Lou Gehrig’s Disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurological disorder which always results in death. This condition is often called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the American baseball player Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig who died from disease complications in 1941 at the age of 37. In ALS nerve cells are damaged in a rapidly progressive fashion resulting in paralysis of all muscles. The usual cause of death is collapse of the respiratory system when these muscles become involved. Disease incidence peaks around the age of 60 and men are more commonly affected than women.
How Many Babies Is Too Many?
Like many of you, I have watched as the world has been captivated by the birth of the octuplets to Nadya Suleman. To say that this case has opened heated debates on the ethical and psychological issues related to in vitro fertilization (IVF) would be a gross understatement. What makes this case especially newsworthy is the fact that Ms. Suleman not only has a total of 14 children, all with the help of IVF, but is also single and unemployed.This is not the first octuplet birth to rock the medical community worldwide. In London 12 years ago the The Lancet produced an editorial on the story of Mandy Allwood. That case was also interesting for its many ethical questions: Ms. Allwood was secretly taking fertility drugs without medical supervision or informing her significant other.
The Memory of an Elephant
Are there days in your life that you would rather forget ever happened? Falling down the stairs in front or your entire class or an embarrassing fashion faux pas? By the same token, there are some occasions we wish could remain as fresh in our mind’s eye as the day they occurred -- whether it is a wedding day, the birth of a child or a graduation. Scientists have found 4 individuals who possess what is being referred to as “super-memory” -- the ability to recall in uncanny detail both private and world events that have taken place. Three of the individuals are male; the lone female was the first to be recognized.
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