A Funny Japanese Commercial

Pretty funny for an antihypertensive.

My Recent Book Recommendations

I have been through several books recently that I haven't mentioned yet, so here is list of my recent books that I have listened to with comments. They are listed in descending order of my strength of recommendation.


Highly recommended:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot - This was an excellent book about the woman who unknowingly provided the immortal HeLa Cells while she was being futily treated for an aggressive cervical cancer.

The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery, by D. T. Max - Its a terrific presentation of the history of research in the bizarre world of prion diseases including Fatal Familial Insomnia, Mad Cow Disease, Scrapie, Chronic Wasting Disease, CJD, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker Disease and the famous Kuru. The book gives a lot of background historical information and personal history of the researchers and victims involved.


Moderately Recommended:
iWoz, by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith - A great history of the development of the personal computer from the man himself. It was fun hearing how this history fit in with my vague memories of the coming of personal computing and my family's disastrous purchase of a 56k TRS 80 from Radio Shack.

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande - There were some good medical lessons which most physicians can find some way to relate to. He also wrote the book Better: A Surgeons Notes on Performance, which I think was a little better. I didn't realize at the time that I was reading them out of order going for the first book second.

Not really recommended, but not a bad way to pass the time:
A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick - A steamy novel about a wealthy man living in Wisconsin who finds a wife by placing an ad in a Chicago newspaper, but she comes to Wisconsin with a plan to kill her soon to be husband. It was a little too rich for my taste but it was okay.

Courage and Consequence, by Karl Rove - The second half was a little better when he started talking things in the past that were a little more familiar to me, but I am not really a politically oriented person so I just didn't love it. I listened to it mostly to satisfy Brad. The book was mainly an elaborate defense of Bush 43. I was persuaded a little but its just not my thing.

Drunk History: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr

I'm not sure how I came across this video but I did and it is quite funny. There are several in the series and some big stars are featured. For example this video contains Michael Cera of Superbad fame starring as Hamilton. This is a subject we at the CC have discussed in great detail and it serves as an entertaining refresher.

As I mentioned there are several in the series, even one with Jack Black. My second favorite is probably volume 4, William Henry Harrison. Enjoy.

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

I just finished the book Beat the Reaperby Josh Bazell. Apparently he is a physician and this is his debut novel. I think I downloaded it based on a recommendation from audible.com. The book is relatively short, just over six hours, but it packs a punch. To avoid spoiling the book, I won't tell too much of the story. The protagonist is a medical resident in an internal medicine program in a New York hospital, who got there as a result of his placement in the federal witness protection program due to his involvement with the mob in his earlier life. It is exciting, entertaining and especially poignant for someone who has gone through a medical residency. Even though my training program was not that similar to the hitman doctor's, so much of his experience still rings true. My only minor complaint is that many of the events are way over the top in terms of believability, but I expected that after reading the reviews on Audible. Its kind of like a mix between The Godfather, Rambo and House M.D. There is also a good deal of vulgarity (not a complaint, just a heads up).

The Galactic Pot Healer

I just finished "The Galactic Pot Healer". I really liked it. It was incredibly bizarre. While listening, I was struck by a statement - "The child is the father of the man." - and it lit me up for the rest of the day. I hoped that it was an original of Dick's, but I searched it and it's a quote from a poem of a well known individual. Without searching the webs do you know who this came from?

The Lick Fix - Sweet.

During the Republican national convention, Piper Palin gives baby brother Trig a spit shine hair-do. Mommy taught her well.

Actor Jack Dickson Dumps a Bucket of Water on a Dead Pig with Maggots

Its just funny thats all I can say.

Being of the "Boomer Gen" I feel I should know more about the music of the '60s and '70s. I amaze myself when I "discover" a "new" artist. But here it is I discovered Tom Waits on Rhapsody this morning and he is my "new" old favorite of the day.
I read about him on the web and could not understand how I did not know him. When my wife came strolling in for breakfast, I casually ask her if she knew Tom Waits and to my distress--she did. And now she claims she has "heard" of Beefheart.

Well, I guess my ongoing point is that Rhapsody is good and like the web, in general, it "leads" me down new avenues.

Top Reasons Why People Visit Our Blog

Periodically I will sort through the logs of the our hit counter to see what has brought most of our visitors to this site. Of course there are some direct links from other websites to various posts, but most of our hits come from search engines, mostly Google. Some topics have waxed and waned in their popularity, but 3 entries stand out as the biggest sources of referrals.

1. toddler fever with rash and various combinations - The picture and discussion of my kid with roseola at one year of age from back in October 2005 is the most popular. Judging by the search phrases, these hits mostly seem to come from worried parents of small children with rashes, as one might expect.

2. Scrotal bleeding/my scrotum won't stop bleeding - This subject has generated some of the best search phrases including my all time favorites "scrotums of fury". The cause of these inquiries leading to us stems from an early post by the Flash, Shorned scrotum -- a case study and a follow-up post by me, Causes of Scrotal Bleeding

3. How to shave pubs/why shave pubs? - These phrases get Googlers to our site because of Joe's admonition about pubic hair removal: Don't Shave Your PUBS!! This warning was incited by a recurring theme in our clinical conversations, abscesses/cellulitis/"spider bites". This also brings to mind the wonderful mythical methicorn, which still occasionally brings people our way and is of course a great source of personal pride.

The next few show up on the radar less often but are still worth mentioning.

4. Chiladiti's sign/syndrome - A good case presented by Joe with an excellent x-ray.

5. Pinworm picture/photo - Enterobius vermicularis in vivo.

6. Hypercalcemia/PTH/parathyroid tumor - My post with good pictures. You have to read the comments see that the point of the post is to illustrate the fact that in someone with hypercalcemia, a PTH in the "normal" reference range (especially high normal) doesn't rule out a parathyroid adenoma. When I say read the comments, I mean skip over Joe's initial confounding comments to make sense of this one.

"Mad German Doctor Guy" Demonstrates Cardiac Electrical Conduction and Arrhythmias

This is for all of you medical students learning the electrophysiology of the heart and various cardiac arrhythmias. I have no idea where the YouTube user got this video but it is hilarious and somewhat educational. The man in the video (a presumed phsyician or professor) moves his arms to represent the right and left atria and his legs to represent the ventricles. The dance gets better as the heart becomes more troubled. All this to the tune of 'Gonna Make You Sweat' By C+C Music Factory.

From Beck to The Dynamics

It has been over a year now since I have become a big fan of Beck, who is now one of my favorite artists. This is mostly because of his latest album, The Information, which I purchased from the iTunes store. Just recently, as a result of having made this purchase, the iTunes store recommended an album to me called Give Up by The Postal Service, while I was searching for new music in the electronica genre. I think this is an excellent album, and it really struck a nerve for me when I recognized the intro for the song, Such Great Heights as the music for the UPS Whiteboard Advertising Campaign, which had already caught my attention. After taking a new interest in The Postal Service, I did some research on the band and found that some of their other songs had infiltrated pop culture and several of their songs had been covered by other bands. Due to this finding, I went back to the iTunes store to sample some of their songs as performed by other groups, which is where I found the wonderful A cappella performance of Such Great Heights by The Dynamics. The Dyanamics is an A cappella group at UMASS Amherst and their first studio album is Crescendo. A performance by The Dynamics of Such Great Heights is available on YouTube which I have posted below and is the reason why I started this post in the first place. The video can give you and idea of the talent but it is no comparison to the studio version.