It’s a funny thing, being diagnosed with a mental disease. As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, instead of a scientific tests, most mental illness diagnoses are made after you’ve talked to someone, answered specific questions, even completed a questionnaire. I know that someday diagnosing... Read more →

I’m never surprised at the power big pharma has over the media, especially media directed at physicians. For once, I’d like to talk back. Here’s a perfect opportunity! I’m going to talk back at an article recently posted to MedScape.com — a source of very informative, thoughtful,... Read more →

Should doctors be able to turn patients away if they disagree with their lifestyle choice? The article reads like many pregnancy stories. The happy couple finally become pregnant against all odds and eagerly anticipates the birth of their first child. This story, however, takes a twist that many people,... Read more →

We often see advertisements on television for some type of medication — usually one involved in a large-market disease and the commercial is sponsored by a big pharmaceutical company. This is called direct to consumer (DTC) advertising, and doctors would prefer they did not exist. Since 1997, when... Read more →

Our series on Medicine and the Law continues. Previously, I wrote about what is necessary for a physician-patient relationship to exist — contract and consent. Then I went on to discuss medical malpractice and that a legitimate grievance from a patient must show that the physician has a duty to... Read more →

Welcome to the thirty-third edition of Brain Blogging. In this round, we cover a range of topics from personality disorders, crying men, mastering self-control, total body detoxification, and working out your brain to Martian invasions. If you were left out, just leave a comment with your blog entry.... Read more →

Adult attention deficit disorder or AADD is characterized as a condition causing inattentiveness, organization problems, procrastination and difficulty completing work. It is believed that adults can see an onset of AADD later in life maybe as a carryover from childhood, but in order to receive a diagnosis... Read more →

Parkinson’s disease is a disorder that affects the central nervous system and causes an impairment of speech and motor skills. Parkinson’s disease affects 1 in 100 people that are over 60 years of age and has a nearly equal incidence rate in women and men. It is second only to Alzheimer’s... Read more →

Executive function has big implications for the design of domestic violence programs. It is important to know the subtypes of batterers because different subtypes have different needs for treatment, and different levels of intervention that are necessary to ensure safety. I’ll refer to some very... Read more →

How do thoughts, emotions and social environment influence people diagnosed with breast cancer? A report by Falagas and his colleagues looked at and compared 46 studies investigating psychological and social factors that affect breast cancer survival rates. The results are not entirely conclusive. The... Read more →

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has a bad reputation, due in part to the graphic media portrayals we see in films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Beautiful Mind, and probably also in part to an innate distaste for the idea of receiving electrical shocks to the brain. Despite the popular... Read more →