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Medicine Surgery

Limiting physician trainees’ work hours and unintended consequences

I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for quite a while but never really found a reason to. Indeed, this one’s been floating around in the back of my mind for a long time. Perhaps one reason is that it’s hard for a surgeon to write about this topic without coming off sounding like […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

The price of anti-vaccine fanaticism

Welcome back. I hope you and yours who celebrate Christmas have had a happy one. Ours was kind of mixed and bittersweet for reasons that I don’t particularly feel like going into now, although sooner or later I will probably have to say something about it. In the meantime, as much as I hate to […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

“Licensing” faith healers?

Of all the forms of quackery out there, the “energy healing” methods and “faith healing” methods have to be the most ridiculous. After all, the claims of “healers” using such modalities, when boiled down to their very essence, are nothing less (and nothing more) than claiming the ability to do magic. Indeed, “energy healing” involves […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking Television

Run, don’t walk, away from these Doctors

I’m happy to say, I’ve never watched an episode of The Doctors, at least if the episode segment I’ve just been sent is any indication of the quality of the science and medicine discussed on the TV show. The episode, which aired on December 11, featured a segment on autism featuring an old “friend” of […]

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Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Battlefield acupuncture revisited: Only the thinnest of gruel will do

The zombie has arisen once again to eat the brains of the Air Force. I’m referring to so-called “battlefield acupuncture,” a topic that I wrote about last week for this very blog. I didn’t think there’d be a reason to revisit the subject again so soon, but I was wrong for three reasons. First, I […]