Just taking a break from blogging for a couple of weeks. If you want something to read need I remind you, oh my regular readers as well as those who have accidentally arrived at my blog after a fruitless Google search for “stuffed panda bears” or “panda bear mating habits,” that my archives, seldom visited according to my site counter, offer rich provender, almost limitless grazing, even to those who are not obsessed with the insane goat-rodeo-cum-cluster-fuck we call medical training.
I mean, I’ve got, like, 206 articles and about a thousand pages of content. It should keep you busy. I even have some of it categorized…which is kind of the problem. I think I have nothing much more to say about most things and I lack the dedication to carefully research and footnote lengthy articles on health care policy where I prove, using other’s opinions, my particular point of view although the internet is good for that. In fact, other than expanding the frontiers of pornography, the principle function of the internet is to act as an echo chamber where isolated minds can prove that black is white, up is down, and, despite all evidence to the contrary, the government is going to do a fantastic job managing all the medical care in this country.
So stand by. I think Complementary and Alternative Medicine at least still has a little stuffing left to beat out. I had a fascinating conversation with a chiropractor the other day that I might tell you about. He asked me what kind of doctor I was and when I said, with tongue in cheek of course, that I was the kind who proves Darwin wrong every day he took this as a signal that I did not believe in evolution and, with this entre, what followed was the most bizarre diatribe against science, modern medicine, vaccinations, the Pope, the Queen of England, and President Bush that I have ever heard. He professed membership in a cult (Scientology), was taking a correspondence course in Naturopathy (although he already incorporated it into his practice), and bragged that his proudest achievement was adjusting the medication lists of his elderly patients, often removing ten or twelve drugs from their regimen…all without the benefit of any formal training in medicine (A laudable effort, no doubt, but replacing them with Ginkgo Biloba and Foxglove tea is criminal).
Then he tried to recruit me into a multilevel marketing scam.
Absolutely beautiful.
Here’s a fun one to spark some well-deserved ridicule:
Families alleging vaccine-autism link go to court today
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5771486.html
Yeah, I would like to hear about autism and vaccines. Your posts are helpful for directing the laity towards when they see something false in the news and immediately believe it.
I check your blog almost every day (sometimes more than once). Please don’t stop. I’ve read all the old entries.
“goat-rodeo-cum-cluster-fuck”
Somehow I feel this phrase will get you more wandering Googlers than “stuffed panda bears.”
Keep on truckin’ PB
I can’t wait for the full article on that conversation- I’ve heard every MLM scheme in the book!
Please don’t stop blogging! I think I’ve gone through your archives already-
MLM….
Classic!!
I had the pleasure of sitting at the table next to a chiropractor having dinner with a celebrity physical trainer. They commiserated about how they needed to “do due diligence on MDs” before sending their patients to them, since physicians don’t truly CARE about their patients and won’t take the time to figure out what their REAL problem is. They talked about how MDs don’t appreciate [enter weird modality here] and the chiro said to the trainer that he “doesn’t bother trying to sell herbs” to MDs anymore because they are too fixated on science and don’t like multi-level marketing. I wish I could capture the conversation better. It was classic.
Panda, you crack me up. Please tell me that next time you’ll make sure to strap a recorder onto yourself before having any more conversations with Chiropractors. We all need a good laugh.
Panda, I will be emotionally devastated if you stop blogging. Who’s going to keep us whiny Liberals who want Universal Health Care in line if you go away and amuse yourself in your spare time?
Speaking of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, I screwed up my shoulder with a rotator cuff injury and am currently taking physical therapy (at gunpoint) for it. My therapist cheerfully told me yesterday “Oh, I want to try the laser on you!”
Me: “What’s ‘The laser’?”
Her: “It’s so cool! It energizes your mitochondria!”
Me: (silence)
Her: “Lotsa people say it relieves their back pain, their knee pain, their shoulder pain… you know, with the TENS and stuff, most people say they can’t really tell if it’s helping or not, but with the laser, about half the people say right away that it helps! (perky smile) It energizes the mitochondria!”
Me: “Yeah, you said that before. The ‘Powerhouse of the Cell’, huh?”
Her: Oh, you remember that from school? How cute! Yeah, it powers up the mitochondria and half the people say it takes the pain right away!”
Me: What do the other half say?
Her: Well, we try the ultrasound on them…”
I was going to ask her if a snakeoil rub beforehand would improve the effect, but my time was up. I was more than a little skeptical about this “powering up the mitochondria” business, so I looked up physical therapy modalities, and read: “Low-level laser therapy acts via absorption of photon radiation, thereby affecting cellular oxidative metabolism and reducing concentrations of prostaglandin E2.” Sounds like I could get the same effect from a suntan and some aspirin.
This PT has a 4 year Masters in Physical Therapy and was going for her Doctorate, a 6 year degree. Do I have the right to feel pissed off that she tried to sell me on “powering up my mitochondria”?
Don’t ever change. 🙂
I remember talking with a homeopath about some random thing while on a train one day and getting a whole diatribe about how herbs can cure anything. What really made it sad was this idiot had an MD and believed that herbs and what ever else he and his wife could push was much better than anything in western medicine. His arguments held as much water as a sieve in my opinion, the logic was just not there. I love how diluting something to “30X”, ie dilted to 10 to the 30th power was more effective and “water has memory of the molecule that was dissolved in it”. Then he went on to tell me about how he took a guy off all his asthma medications because they were useless and had him on herbs to control asthma and other herbals to treat any infections the guy got. I never got the whole idea of if alot of a substance causes harm/symptoms, then a little of it will cure it. Yeah there are some cases where it seems to prove the fact but alot of others are completely bunk.
There is a book out titled Alternative Medicine for Dummies. I found it in my local library.
A patient’s relative interrogated me about whether we had been taught alternative + complementary medicine in medical school. She then ranted about the general incompetence of doctors in that particular field, which was (surprise surprise) her specialty. Then she asked me about what training I’d had in nutrition and ranted about how doctors “knew nothing” about that as well. I managed to bite my tongue and avoid telling her that indeed we’d had an entire course entitled BIOCHEMISTRY on that very subject.
Then she tried to convince me that her father’s statin had caused his brain tumor. Gotta love the ignorant. Fortunately I’m at the level where I can still smile and nod. Ugh.