Heal Spiel

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2012-05-01T00:09:54.234-07:00

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Pelvic exams are creepy and unnecessary when women...

2011-06-26T19:15:09.810-07:00

Pelvic exams are creepy and unnecessary when women do not have symptoms. Maybe you and your school should start questioning WHY you are promoting this type of CARE for women.

My cousin recommended this blog and she was totall...

2011-04-17T01:59:09.380-07:00

My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!

nolvadex

This might be a useful resource for some medical s...

2011-03-26T17:53:26.723-07:00

This might be a useful resource for some medical students who read your blog: http://lucidicus.org

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I had some problem with my first pregnancy, i want...

2010-08-27T12:56:29.562-07:00

I had some problem with my first pregnancy, i wanted to be pregnant and have my first baby, buy my husband had erectil dysfunction problem, so we decided to buy viagra and after that he turned very strong and could get powerful erection after this medical treatment. Thank to this i have two litle and beautiful girls.

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2010-04-23T03:14:33.401-07:00

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The main advantage of urology is that it can be used for both diagnostic and therapeutic (treatment) purposes. Hence endoscopy has become a mandatory investigation in Gastroenterology.

My name is Sharon Smith and I am the assistant edi...

2010-01-28T13:59:25.140-08:00

My name is Sharon Smith and I am the assistant editor of Gynecology.net. I am contacting you today in hopes of developing a relationship with your website; we have seen your site and think your content is great. Gynecology.net offer a free informational resource to both the general and professional public on several women health issues.

I hope you show some interest in building relationship, please contact me at sharon.gynecology.net@gmail.com.

So does civility require that people be allowed to...

2010-01-04T19:21:18.049-08:00

So does civility require that people be allowed to respond to their critics, or not? I've commented in this space several times. Those comments have never appeared. Your commenting policy says "I will erase any that are patently abusive or spammish". Whatever you might think about my comments, they have not been patently abusive. So does this discourse of civility entail letting people respond to those who have criticized them, or not?

Good day !. might , perhaps curious to know how on...

2009-12-14T07:17:35.577-08:00

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Good day !. You re, I guess , probably curious to ...

2009-12-10T10:17:58.134-08:00

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#2 is totally dependent on the student. If you ca...

2009-11-25T16:40:46.851-08:00

#2 is totally dependent on the student. If you can be top 10% at an elite university vs being top 10% in a state school, why not choose the former?

Not to mention, a lot of the top schools have some of the top med schools attached to them so it gives you an opportunity to interface with med school faculty and perhaps do a research project or shadow with a faculty member.

You have great post that really interests to many ...

2009-11-12T00:23:08.417-08:00

You have great post that really interests to many readers especially in the medical field. I really appreciate your work

Haha, guess he really did plan to put a fork in so...

2009-10-12T23:57:57.415-07:00

Haha, guess he really did plan to put a fork in someone! Great to see you posting again! :)

Is this meant to point out that the admissions sys...

2009-10-06T09:00:08.217-07:00

Is this meant to point out that the admissions system is broken? Because reading this that's more or less the impression I get.

Hi Kaleb. I wrote a post in answer to your questio...

2009-10-04T14:58:01.338-07:00

Hi Kaleb. I wrote a post in answer to your question. Good luck!

Hey I'm a premed freshman any advice? I'll...

2009-10-01T18:00:37.364-07:00

Hey I'm a premed freshman any advice? I'll be reading.

Hi Jacob and Joshua! Sorry for the delayed respons...

2009-09-30T21:42:15.270-07:00

Hi Jacob and Joshua!
Sorry for the delayed response.

Jacob, thank you for pointing me to Caplan's article. I am sympathetic to a lot of Caplan's arguments, such as argument that it does not make much sense for mental illness to be categorized, and that human behavior is better reflected by a spectrum, rather than via cutoffs.

And I agree with you that exempting widespread (if false) beliefs from the diagnostic criteria for delusions is arbitrary, and probably unjustified.

Additionally, as a libertarian, I obviously share many of Caplan's objections and concerns about forced institutionalization.

However, I think that Caplan conflates two issues in his article. One question is whether or not people with severe delusions and hallucinations ought to be labelled within a separate category called "mentally ill." The other is whether or not mentally ill people ought to be hospitalized against their will.
Caplan believes that psychiatric disorders are overdiagnosed, and that such categorization perhaps ought not to exist at all. He also argues against forced hospitalization of the mentally ill. However, I don't think that he adequately acknowledges that people are not hospitalized simply for being mentally ill. In fact, people need not have any sort of "diagnosis" to be hospitalized against their will, at least in California. People can only be held involuntarily in the psychiatric unit if they exhibit 1) Significant harm to self (i.e. a suicide attempt or suicidal ideation with a clear plan). Most people who just say "I don't want to live anymore" but don't have a plan or means are discharged. 2) Harm to others (i.e. homicidal ideation with plan) and 3) Inability to care for self (this means that the person cannot self-feed, go to the bathroom by themselves, etc. It does not simply mean that the person will be homeless while mentally ill).
People may not like the vagueness of some of these criteria, or even the principle. But it is important to note that, just because someone is deemed as mentally ill, does not mean that he or she can automatically be forcibly held. Again, I do think that forced holds are a matter of concern for people who champion liberty, but it's important to know what situations we're dealing with. I'm not convinced by Caplan's argument that people are not helped by forced holds. I've seen too many people who have voices telling them to kill themselves or others, and who end up thankful to be alive. My main concern, however, is whether or not forced holds are justified, even if they do save lives.

Joshua, I agree with you that one of the flaws in adherence to Bayesian updates, is that we can be very poor at quantifying "how sure" we are. I believe that Tyler Cowen once participated in a bloggingheads with Robin Hanson, in which Cowen expressed his opposition to quantifying beliefs as such.
Additionally, I agree that sometimes, until people are actually pressured to clarify their beliefs via certain circumstances, no one can know if they mean what they say. To use your example, if someone says that abortion is murder, we're not really sure if they mean it, until the person is given the option to save two fetuses versus one living human. And, of course, we all are more likely to believe things that are good for our egos. Maybe it's an evolutionary coping strategy that isn't all bad.

This post brings up a lot of different issues. O...

2009-09-17T21:03:03.182-07:00

This post brings up a lot of different issues.

One serious issue is that humans don't estimate numbers well. So when someone says that they think something has a 5% or a 20% chance of being true it isn't clear that they mean that in the sense that you or I would.

Moreover, there may be an issue of how the belief changes over time. If 95% percent of the day there is zero belief in a harmful idea X but in the remaining 5% of the day they are completely certain of X then that's still has potential to be incredibly harmful.

Regarding conspiracy theories held commonly by people. Part of the issue there seems to be general human complacency. A potentially offensive but possibly useful comparison is to people who say that they are absolutely certain that abortion is murder. If they believe that, they should if they are at all moral people go out and spend all their time leading a resistance movement against the terrible genocide going on. Thankfully in this case human moral complacency is acting as a good thing.

There's a related issue which is that sometimes people subscribe to beliefs that they haven't really thought a lot about. This seems for example to be true with a lot of the lower key people who believe that 9/11 was an inside job or who think the Moon landings were hoaxed. They heard something about it a few times that sounded vaguely convincing. But they don't really strongly believe in the ideas.

There's another related issue that you briefly touch upon and that is not seriously discussed enough:
The medical definition of delusion is extremely culturally dependent. A a person labeled delusional one year but a decade later have their beliefs count as part of some wider cultural or religious system. Moreover, it isn't a priori clear why such beliefs shouldn't be considered delusional when they are obviously false to any rational individual. The issue here seems to be that as long as they are using a standard form of epistemology (in this case, what peers say is true) then they are more or less functioning like normal humans.

But yet, such beliefs can still be incredibly harmful to both the people possessing the beliefs and to others (examples include HIV-AIDS denial, people who believe that vaccines cause autism, and a variety of the more extreme alt-med beliefs). But simple harmful false beliefs don't seem to be within the purview psychiatry.

I guess the upshot is that these issues are pretty complicated.

I will need to remember the anecdote about the patient and the CIA. Aside from amusement value it does raise some very good points.

I assume you're thinking of Bryan Caplan's article on "The Economics of Szasz" when you mention criticism of psychiatry based on widespread irrationality among "normal" people?

Anyway, I think it's hilarious how the DSM-IV bluntly excuses false religious beliefs from the definition of "delusion" without the slightest attempt at making epistemic excuses. It is, of course, precisely those false beliefs which are most widespread that are most compatible with ordinary social functioning, and which the medical profession therefore chooses not to involve itself with.

I'm still unclear why it was wrong for me to c...

2009-09-13T13:27:30.309-07:00

I'm still unclear why it was wrong for me to criticize a professional, public writer whose work I have disagreements with, when I never made anything resembling personal remarks. Why am I not allowed to "mess with" a public, professional writer if I think that what they are writing is inadequate?

At any rate, I liked some of the vadlo mouse cartoons!

At least medics in the US still speak proper Engli...

2009-04-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

At least medics in the US still speak proper English.

Here in the UK medics have set about altering the language.

Examples are:

The use of the pronunciation UM-BEE-LIE-E-CAL for the word UM-BILL-E-CAL.

Using SER-VIE-E-CAL for SER-VICK-AL (from the Latin word cervix - pronounced as it looks).

The use of KEEMO-THERAPY instead of KEM-O-THERAPY. Probably because it uses those new scientific keemicals from a keemist as opposed to the old fashioned chemicals from a chemist.

There are more but my blood is boi-e-ling.