The fact that Cicely D. Williams, our next “most influential doctor of all time”, ended up a female prisoner of war should have been enough to make her renowned; but, …
being the DISCOVERER:
of the most deadly disease of an era and…
that it was being treated all wrong, and…
that the corrupt business practices of the Nestlé Corporation were causing thousands of children’s deaths each year,
cinched the deal for Dr. Cicely D. Williams—a true doctor’s doctor!
The red and white tulip is the symbol for fighting Parkinson’s Disease.
Although April 11th is World Parkinson’s Disease (PD) Day, the entire month of April is Parkinson’s Disease Month with activities highlighting the progress against this debilitating disease robbing, at the very least, every one-hundredth child of their parent or grandparent.
Some time ago I did a series of posts about medical proverbs but deliberately left one out: The Sleep Habits to be “Healthy Wealthy and Wise.” It deserved an entire post of its own.
We (and Wiki and Google) usually associate this aphorism with Benjamin Franklin and his “Poor Richard’s Almanack”—a collection of maxims published in the early 18-hundreds. But it sounds mighty Hippocratean or Socratean to me. Read more →
This is part two of an article designed to complete my previous two article series: Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and puberty. In both of them I seemed to have left out one salient feature: when hyperactivity meets puberty.Read more →
I’m actually quite proud of how the series of articles I wrote on Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) turned out; until recently that is, when it dawned on me that it wasn’t over yet. I had left out an important issue: when hyperactivity meets puberty.
The same holds true from my extensive series of articles about puberty—I didn’t mention how it is effected or even altered by hyperactivity.Read more →
We’ve already talked about medical proverbs such as “cold hands, warm heart,”“feed a cold, starve a fever,”“drink eight glasses of water a day,”“cigarettes will stunt your growth” and that “apple a day”… thing.
But there are some we left out because the list was getting a bit long for one sitting. I’m going to take another shot at listing a few more, some from the “dawn” of medicine and others which are beginning to hit up against the way doctors are practicing medicine these days! Read more →
If nothing else, doctors are a bit concrete. We love boxes, categories, lists and most of all… answers!
So, things a bit askew, catawampus, off kilter or out of place make the average physician a bit nauseous if not outright wonky and catapulted into a search for the rationale. You give us an aphorism and we’ll design a research study. Read more →
[I have to tell you, this article about boy’s underwear in puberty has been an interesting one to write. Mostly because I usually write about documented recommendations with scientific support and this topic is pretty much a collection of known, assumed and extrapolated suggestions from information in areas sometimes only tangentially related. Therefore it still leaves a lot of room for personal preference]
I answered a question of a 16 year-old patient who had been the subject of some school-girls’ highly personal and intrusive questioning: “What kind of Underwear do you wear? boxers, briefs or commando?” He wrote into an answer-line: “Which is best?” and I told him I’d think about it and see if there was an informed answer that covered all the Tanner Stages. Read more →
[An “almost 16” year old boy out on a church group date is set about by a girl he likes and a couple of her friends who ask him what type of underwear he wears, boxers, briefs or commando. Having a good relationship with his doctor’s office he texted their “answer-line” to see if there was a particular type that might be better. He really hasn’t given it too much thought and basically just picks “the top one out of the drawer that’s clean that still fits” out of many Christmas and Birthday gifts from the past.
His doctor, a friend of mine, was a bit perplexed about how to answer, so I offered to take a stab at it on the blog.] Read more→
Cicely Saunders, or as she would eventually be known: Dame Cicely, is a reaffirming and refreshingly different person entirely than the previous woman physician we listed in our quest through the top 50 most influential physicians of all time.
Both were born to privilege. Both had difficult, parentless upbringings. Both succeeded greatly against odds and difficulties. Both had altruistic desires; but, Dr. Saunder’s difficulties made her a person of great compassion and selflessness. Read more →
Parkinson’s Disease is a terribly UNDER-funded disease as far as research goes. One in a hundred people around the world over 60 have Parkinson’s disease; that was 9 million people in 2015—the last time they did a world census.
In 2015 one in eight people were over 60, by 2030 one in six will be. By 2030 there will be more people over 60 in the world than there will be children 0-9. In addition, for some as yet unknown reason the rate of Parkinson’s disease is increasing every year. This problem will only get worse, we’ve got to make some progress on this thing now.
The James Parkinson Tulip by J.W.S. Van der Wereld
In 1980, J.W.S. Van der Wereld, a Dutch horticulturalist with Parkinson’s disease (PD), developed a red and white tulip to honor Dr. James Parkinson. At the 9th World Parkinson’s Disease Day Conference in Luxembourg on April 11, 2005, the new red and white tulip was launched as the official symbol of PD.
The tulip is described in detail as the exterior being a glowing cardinal red, small feathered white edge, the outer base whitish; the inside, a currant-red to turkey-red, broad feathered white edge, anthers pale yellow”.
Not only did the tulip receive the Award of Merit that year from the Royal Horticultural Society in England, but it also was the recipient of the Trial Garden Award from the Royal General Bulb Growers of Holland.
Medicine has a lot of “fathers” of various things; and many of the “50 most influential physicians of all time” we’ve been talking about have been considered “fathers” of one thing or another.
Dr. David L. Sackett is no exception—A “father” of evidenced based medicine, number 30 on our list. Read more →
