WeirdMedical™

The good news was it was not cancer…the bad news was they had to operate anyway.

What was that greenish blue mass? Read on…

Japanese patient’s ‘tumour’ turns out to be 25-year-old towel

Amazing, an actual website produced by the federal government that exposes those federally funded agencies’ programs that are at the extremes of the spectrum…either strong performers or huge disappointments.

The agency that ranks these programs is the U.S. OMB (Office of Management and Budget).

Net findings by the OMB? –> “20% of Federal programs are Not Performing.” see ExpectMore.gov

Our solution –> let’s shut down these programs immediately and create accountable programs that effectively fund education, infrastructure development, healthcare efficiency programs and comparative effectiveness research.

A few of our favorite poor performers:

1) Health Information Technology Research (AHRQ) -> Read more…

2) Office on Women’s Health -> Read more…

3) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology -> Read more…

…and these are just three out of 30 major poor performing programs managed by the Dept of Health & Human Service.

No wonder our U.S. healthcare system is bloated and ineffective. Where is the accountability?

Welcome home to our Atlantis Space Shuttle and and the STS-132 mission crew!

Just over 10 hours ago Atlantis touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL, concluding its 32nd and last voyage as a space workhorse. According to NASA it went as “smooth as silk.”

Upon the routine arrival inspection, the shuttle is reported by NASA engineers to be in fine repair, after 25 years reported to have the capacity to easily double the miles it has already logged – 120 million miles. [Seattle PI.]

Space Shuttle Atlantis The Space Shuttle Atlantis is towed back to the Orbiter Processing Facility after landing on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Click picture.

This fact makes it all the more difficult to fathom. It is beyond weird that our space shuttle era is coming to a close, retiring Atlantis first, then Discovery and finally Endeavour at the end of this year.

These spacecraft, their mission teams and crews have allowed us to dream we are astronauts, exploring one of our last frontiers, or engineers, enabling that exploration.

Let our medical industry salute NASA’s vast team of astronauts, engineers, aerospace professionals and its supporting industry suppliers as the STS program winds down.

…and let’s give one more pitch to President Obama – to rethink retiring this program to wait until the mid-2030′s for the Mars program, else the loss of  yet anther critical national treasure further tarnishes our nation’s hope for the future.

Now this is a good use of our federal tax dollars…

In the northwestern reaches of Washington (D.C. that is) sits a museum that is a “must see” if you like the slightly off-taste, arcane, twisted and in some cases, down-right gross medical oddities. Visit the bricks and mortar “Roadside America of American medicine,” the National Museum of Health and Medicine, America’s oldest taxpayer-funded Cabinet of Curiosities near Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

A row of little skeletons.

At the National Museum of Health and Medicine you can see precariously displayed and disturbingly barely described:

• hanging display of a complete brain and spine, suspended in liquid in an eerily lit glass cylinder
• girl’s head preserved in arsenic
• well-preserved hairball from the stomach of a 12-year old girl who compulsively ate her own hair
• skull with a huge civil war bullet buried in its frontal lobe
• and the list goes on…

To visit…virtually go to the RoadsideAmerica.com Team Field Reporters or National Museum of Health and Medicine, or in real life visit:

6900 Georgia Avenue, Washington, DC

Hours:     M-F 10 am – 5:30 pm, Sa, Su, Hol call ahead

No kidding. This is for real – so when you go to the NMHM in D.C., tell them you want your tax dollars’ worth!

Did you ever wonder what the first x-ray image looked like or how we are mathematically engineered?

Look no further than “Science and Technology in Medicine: An Illustrated Account Based on Ninety-Nine Landmark Publications from Five Centuries.” Author, Andras Gedeon, has researched major advanced technologies of today back to their roots. Nearly 100 technologies are captured in his book on medical therapies and diagnostic equipment dating back to the early 1500′s.

“A most fascinating read,” says Armchair Interviews who gives it five stars, “The visual effect evokes one’s curiosity at a fundamental level, making it an excellent source for inspiring further learning.”

Humane Blood

This books is fascinating in that it respectfully shows very graphic illustrations, images and in later years, pictures, of more primitive applications of science to the art of early experimental medicine. It is available in:

English & German

Any of us who have a fascination with medicine as it converges with science will cherish this book.  For Armchair Interviews’ review…read on…

Remember what your dad always told you about grilling in the great outdoors?…thoroughly dowsing the new coals with lighter fluid BEFORE setting them ablaze?

Clearly principles of  physics apply…if you apply more lighter fluid AFTERWARDS the flame can travel up the stream of lighter fluid and set your can (of lighter fluid that is) ablaze as well.

Well, the same applies to urinating on a live electrical wire…it is an unfortunate lesson for all of us. We are saddened for this family’s loss and send them our sympathy – read on.

In the immortal words of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young:

“Teach your children well…” that applies to physics and physiology.