• 4 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: May 31st, 2023

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  • Lol. I can tell you if you asked doctors what the biggest problem in their clinic, it’s the EMR. I can say this myself, I’ve been in healthcare for a while in various roles, and i’m not to far off from graduating as a physician.

    To find out what happened overnight to a patient, I have to sift through pages of computer generated junk to find just a few things. It’s even worse in clinic, if I want to read what happened last time a patient was here, I have to sift through a note that is 50% auto generated lists of stuff to find what I really need to know: what the last doctor said the plan was for today.

    They mention inbasket messages, and that’s a huge issue. Now with the rise of patient portals, patients would message now for something that previously was a visit. Only recently has there been ways to recoup this cost (not that this is appealing to most patients, who see it as nickel and diming, though I empathize, I never can get to talk to a nurse/MA at my own family doc’s clinic either).

    Doctors are swamped, most of the day is charting, ultimately to appease insurance companies so that we get paid. If you’re slotted for a 15 minute visit, and I’m not out after 10 minutes, I’m going to be late to every appointment until lunch or close, then I’ll spend time at home finishing up notes and paperwork (prior auths, refilling meds, replying to messages from nurses and other clinic staff). Ultimately, for what good our regulation of healthcare has brought in the US, it remains that it is regulatory capture nonetheless. Healthcare orgs are quickly conglomerating, so the hospital, clinic, pharmacy, and insurance company are all owned by the same company. At the loss of good patient care, doctors are being removed from the equation, care is being fragmented and compartmentalized in a lot of aspects and less of our time in the day is available for patients.

    What they call burnout, really is moral injury. People who go into healthcare do it because at some level, they want to help people. It really sucks when you realize 90% of your day is screwing with a computer system that seems to be diametrically opposed to letting you do your job.



  • Ultimately this a definition issue, and is philosophical more than scientific. I have no doubt he’s a great neuroscientist, but it’s really not a great take. I think that the whole idea of neurochemistry cascading into the decisions we make doesn’t mean we don’t have the ability to choose within our neurochemical makeup. I think it definitely pushing a good point in that the root causes of our behavior, especially anti-social behavior, is possibly addressable in how we support and raise our kids.




  • While I can’t say much about the specifics of Japanese health and nutrition, I’d argue it confirms the general tenet of dietetics that restrictive dieting is largely not good for you (and isn’t easily maintained either).

    Eating too little (or unbalanced) taxes your metabolism to free up glucose from your organ stores and store what it has, plus running the risk of nutrition deficiencies too. Plus eating too much also has it’s obvious risks.

    I think in regards to keto, the risks of high fat diets are independent from the effects of ketosis. You still run the risk of CAD, obesity, high cholesterol and the issues those bring. (It raises LDLs but lowers triglycerides according to a paper from the ACC, they and the AAND are not convinced one way or another it seems on if keto should be recommended)



  • It sits on the edge of the concept of informed consent in the realm of things like SaaS and copyright. Obviously doctors wouldn’t hold her down and pull it out, but obviously it probably was not useful to leave in. I wonder if there was a contract stating it had to be removed upon demand, like at the end of a trial or the bankruptcy that occurred. It’s something that we’re going to likely see in the future, as medical technology starts using computers to actively treat disorders.



  • the issue you’ll run into is the rules and regulations on the finance industry. To prevent fraud, terrorism, or crime, there’s know-your-client and anti-money-laundering rules that most financial services follow that require you to identify yourself.

    Kofi lets you use a PayPal business account, or Stripe, which you set what is shown on the donors bank statement (so it’d show up as what you set it to, rather than a personal name/email). So that might be an option to protect you from being identified by donors, if that’s your worry.





  • I think this is an important finding to promote in regards to mental health. The mental health of men and boys is not really handled all that well (you either man up or get told to be more vulnerable/open/etc, without any real chance to handle it due to stigma and societal norms). I think one, it can help us spot teens who are having depressive thoughts, and give us a chance to help address it early. I think it also helps open up guys to better understand their emotions, which is the first step to managing depressive thoughts and treating depression. Given the article, I wouldn’t be surprised if men grow up with an idea of “i’m not depressed because i’m not sad, hopeless, etc.”, when their aggressive reactions are brought out by depressive thoughts (vs crying, loss of motivation, etc).





  • Exercise, weightlifting namely has done a lot for my mood and physical appearance(sadly nothing for motivation, I still gotta drag myself to the gym).

    I made a concerted effort to pick up a hobby so I’m not just sitting around watching YouTube or playing video games. Painting is pretty fun.

    Sleeping is a big one that lots of people mentioned, I’m not afraid to take a nap in the afternoon.

    Lastly, cognitive behavioral therapy. It gives me the insight to see my emotions and how they interact with my thoughts and actions. It’s done a lot for helping manage anxiety, which is a lot better than it used to be, where now I don’t feel ruled by my frets and fears. It sucks trying to find a good therapist, but it’s worth the struggle. I’m so much happier than I was before I started.



  • I think this is a good step given the climate on women’s reproductive health currently. I am apprehensive that it will be treated as a “lazy” contraceptive instead of getting combo OCPs and follow up with a physician. This type of drug is extremely narrow in dosing, in that you can get pregnant if you miss your dose by an hour or two. It also opens up the opportunity for a woman to taken it without needing a doctor, which is good for those who don’t have east access to a family doc or OB. However, given the stats in the article(that most women prefer OTC due to convenience), I think it further enables people to avoid developing a relationship with a physician for primary and preventative care. I worry we might see some accidental pregnancies and maybe some negative health outcomes secondary to people not seeing a doctor every so often for their birth control.



  • The New Yorker hosting of this article was posted over in c/Humanities. As for where it should go, it’s really a tossup. Articles about medicine can really fit the science or humanities category quite often as medicine is a bit of both.

    I’m going to paste my comment from that other post (there wasn’t really a ton of discussion over there). https://beehaw.org/post/791579

    The whole realm of manhood is plagued by the issues of size, sadly. I’ve always been skeptical about cosmetic surgery in general, because I feel lots of decisions are driven by dysphoria and dysmorphia, and sometimes with a lack of proper psychiatric counseling in such a way that consent for the procedure isn’t truly informed. Even in cases where someone may have a benefit from the procedure, I think the variance of outcomes, the side effects, and the rough healing process is often understated. Quite honestly, our technology in this area of plastic surgery isn’t all that good.

    That said, in regards to penis size in general, pornography (for the most part at least) has done a number on the male mindset on their size. Given the social equivalence for many men between size and masculinity, this causes a lot of grief for guys, leading to men who feel unable to conduct relationships due to their perceived lack of endowment. Then online, there’s many dangerous magic pills like jelqing, surgery, vacuums, etc. that take advantage of this loneliness and anxiety to extract money from them, often leaving them worse than where they started, in terms of physical ED, deformity, and pain.

    Culturally, I think there’s a lot of shaming of men’s bodies, in the same way that society holds expectations of women for their body characteristics, skin texture and color, personality, and dress. Innocent comments like “big dick energy” and insulting people we dislike by exclaiming that they are underendowed puts a notion that bigger is better, and men are most easily going to find comparison in a skewed dataset, that is, in the photos exhibited online in porn. Ultimately, Dr. Elist is taking advantage of his patient’s anxiety for his own gain, then convincing them the answer is “one more revision” or “it looks fine to me”, with animosity towards his patients who wish to speak freely with others about their experience, especially if it isn’t a glowing approval of him and his product.