Viraj's Weblog

Really good Frontline about the vaccine war.

Science Friday had a good episode about hospital infections. Here is a site with some steps to reduce infection.

Really interesting interview on Democracy Now about addiction. I will have to read some of his books. A quote:

Now, the hungry ghost realm, the creatures in it are depicted as people with large empty bellies, small mouths and scrawny thin necks. They can never get enough satisfaction. They can never fill their bellies. They’re always hungry, always empty, always seeking it from the outside. That speaks to a part of us that I have and everybody in our society has, where we want satisfaction from the outside, where we’re empty, where we want to be soothed by something in the short term, but we can never feel that or fulfill that insatiety from the outside. The addicts are in that realm all the time. Most of us are in that realm some of the time. And my point really is, is that there’s no clear distinction between the identified addict and the rest of us. There’s just a continuum in which we all may be found. They’re on it, because they’ve suffered a lot more than most of us.

Insurance companies require doctors to write codes for patients for reimbursement purposes. Turns out this medical coding occupation is set to grow enormously in the coming years.

This American Life had a good episode on the health industry and coding. Turns out there is a medical code for spacecraft injury too.

Excellent interview with Atul Gawande on improving health care. Having doctors go through a checklist decreases mortality by almost 50%. Such a simple strategy taken from the airline industry. A quote:

DR. ATUL GAWANDE: Well, in all of my writing, I’m interested in where the individual meets systems. And in medicine, what I’ve noticed as a surgeon is that we have become overwhelmed by complexity. We have trouble getting things right, because the volume of knowledge we’ve created in science has overwhelmed our ability as individuals to follow through. And we’ve seen ideas like “use a checklist” as a sign of weakness. We’ve not gone where aviation has gone in embracing these kinds of ideas. But for people on the receiving ends of care, they see the gaps, they see things falling through. And we’ve been slow to embrace some of these very simple ideas.

Here's a good interview with Michael Moore on his new movie Sicko.