Shout Outs

Dr. Pullen  is the host for this week’s Grand Rounds. You can read this week’s edition here (photo credit).

I think I learned my lesson this time.  The first two times I hosted Grand Rounds many of the posts seemed to come from happy bloggers.  I think the lesson this time is don’t be a host when all the news is bad.  Maybe it’s the drought and heat wave in much of the U.S.  Or maybe using the words of Bill Clinton “It’s the economy, Stupid.”  For whatever the reason this week’s Grand Rounds is dominated by rants and whines from bloggers around the globe.  ………  To try to have some fun with emotions I decided to try to draw a sketch to give you an idea of the mood of the writer:

Dr Bates gets first position since she is hosting Grand Rounds next week.  She breaks the trend too in not being upset or angry.  She writes at Suture for a Living wondering How old is too old for cosmetic surgery?  Her answer?    ……….

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Interesting ethical question posed by the MedPage Today article by Mikaela Conley:  Harvesting Dead Girl's Eggs Raises Ethical Issues

An Israeli court has granted permission for family members to extract and freeze the eggs of its 17-year-old daughter, who died earlier this month in a car accident, according to the Israeli English-language website Haaretz.  ……..

"Ethically, the important issue is not whether the woman would have wanted children," said Rosamond Rhodes, director of bioethics education at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. …..

Instead, Rhodes said the critical issue is whether Chen would have wanted her biological children to come to life after she was dead.  ……….

The comments are interesting, also.  Personally (remember I don’t have any children, unable to get pregnant), I don’t think it would be a good idea.  I lost my father when I was 8.  I can’t imagine being a mother-less child.

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H/T to @Skepticscalpel for the tweet  which linked to this NY Times Health article -- “Beautifully written by a patient’  --  Opinion: I Won’t Have the Stomach for This

I AM a ravenous, ungraceful eater. I have been compared to a dog and a wolf, and have not infrequently been reminded to chew. I am always the first to finish what’s on my plate, and ever since I was a child at my mother’s table, have perfected the art of stealthily helping myself to seconds before anyone else has even touched fork to frog leg. My husband and I have been known to spend our rent money on the tasting menu at Jean Georges, our savings on caviar or wagyu tartare. We plan our vacations around food — the province of China known for its chicken feet, the village in Turkey that grows the sweetest figs, the town in northwest France with the very best raclette.

So it was a jarring experience when, a few months ago, at 36 years old, I learned I had stomach cancer.   ……….

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H/T to @EvidenceMatters for the link to another article on food and a human’s relationship to it (as EM put it: Read it: it probably isn't what you think.)  by @fatnutritionist:  If only poor people understood nutrition.

It seems like some people are constantly wringing their hands about how poor people eat (to wit: badly.) And the most popularly proposed solution is to teach them (“them”) more about nutrition! Or educate them in general.……….

Here comes the part where I bust up that nice, warm bubble bath. ……..

Because getting enough to eat is always our first priority.  …………….

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A nice post from @DrJenGunter: What is a menstrual cup and why should I use one? (photo credit)

A menstrual cup is exactly what you think it is: a cup to catch menstrual fluid. The concept has been around since the 1930’s, but has recently become more popular. Some cups are made of rubber, but allergies to latex and other components of rubber are increasingly more common so the best option is a cup made of medical grade silicone, which is hypoallergenic………….

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An informative post from @drfiala, PSB - the Orlando plastic surgery blog:   New side-effects from Propecia? (photo credit)

For those users of Propecia - used for hair loss in men, and Proscar - used for the treatment of benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) in men, here is a new concern raised by Health Canada, which is the Canadian version of the FDA.

Apparently, prescription drugs Propecia and Proscar seemed to be linked to rare cases of male breast cancer. ……….

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Isn’t this just an absolutely beautiful quilt?!!!  I don’t know much about it.  It was shared with me on Google+ by Alex Veronelli