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Browse published articles attributed to Estelle Goldstein, with full-archive search.
I don’t care if Dylan Thomas was drinking himself to death while that was being written. It is a sentiment close to my heart, and undoubtedly the stanza of poetry I quote most often. Do not go gentle into that good nightr Old age should burn and rage at close of dayr Rage, rage against the dying of the light. I will not accept the allegedly inevitable “cognitive loss of age.”
Wait a sec … there are more women applying to college than men, and more women in college than men, so we have to attract more men and women have tougher admissions standards, and nobody seems very worried about this? I think sometimes anonymity is a damned good idea, especially when you are selecting for intelligence, which is not a terribly bad idea in higher education.
I first learned that I was a “receptacle personality” in Baltimore, Maryland. I was serving our fine country in the US Army Medical Corps as psychiatrist to the 82nd Airbo e Division in Ft. Bragg. NC There was some sort of a training group there that all of the other active duty psychiatrists seemed to have attended. The Army – in its wisdom – had decided to take me – a trained neurosurgeon – and make me a psychiatrist. Our country needed me (in this position, at least) and I obeyed, like a good soldier.
The current rate of suicide among soldiers should make us angry, maybe enough to destroy our computers or, heaven forbid, write to congress or even try to stop war. I checked out this institution¸ the National Center for Veterans Studies, the best I could. I am not sure why the Department of Defense and the Department of the Air Force seem to have a love affair with this division of the University of Utah.
I was in my specialty training when I read Peter D.Kramer’s “Listening to Prozac.” I remember thinking he was articulate and observant and all kinds of wonderful things, riding the cusp of a great change in psychiatry, doubting him to be a “real” scientist who would hang out at a meeting of the Society for Biological Psychiatry as I once did. I was wondering what to do with the result of his observation that certain character traits, such as “rejection sensitivity,” could be somehow changed for the better with psycho-pharmacology.
Okay, so you don’t care. You tell me you don’t have sex too much and that is kind of like birth control. It isn’t. It might be if it took having sex five times to have a kid, but it only takes one, so you are very likely to get pregnant. Once you get pregnant, the child is your responsibility for life. This should be taken seriously — it isn’t always a bundle of joy and not all “moms” are equipped to handle the stress. If you try to murder the kid you are in worse trouble — yes I have seen girls who have tried that one. Sometimes the baby-daddy will marry you.
So who is or is not going to pay for contraception under Obamacare? And this is a religious question? The truth of the matter is that even though the United States has promised religious freedom from the very start, they have not done a very good job, historically, of delivering on this promise.
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, that old Dylan Thomas poem, is a favorite of many mature adults, including me. Do not go gentle into that good night Rage, Rage against the dying of the light Let’s face it — none of us is getting any younger. And as we age, we’ve got to choose – will we rage, or will we just go gently.
To paraphrase some recent political campaigns, the FDA was against Qnexa before they were for it. I’ve written about this diet drug compound before – HERE And HERE. Last time I wrote about this “drug,” I thought it was down for the count. Aauugghh!!!! Like a scene from “Night Of The Living Diet Drugs” – it is back from the grave.
Humans are … well, strange. A fixed problem can become unfixed. First, let’s take it on good authority this problem really has been fixed. It has been fixed with vaccination. Nobody wants problems. So why? Why is the number of measles cases suddenly rising? People seem to propelled by beliefs. They are the hardest thing in the world to change. Nobody will go for a spontaneous “makeover.” Few people understand the danger of anything well enough to make marketing prevention easy, but let’s start with this single outstanding example.
We are in an era when all reporting — wire services, networks, whatever — looks the way tabloid reporting did when I was small. Aggressive, emotional, mostly verbal renderings of disasters that are meant to strike terror into the heart of the reader. Sometimes, something miraculous or near miraculous. Once in a while in this constellation of stories there is something “inspiring.” We all need inspiration. It is tough to define and highly individualistic. I actually like this definition more than others: That “feeling of enthusiasm” that makes you “do” or “create” something.
When human lives are at stake, there is simply no room for emotional decisions based on pseudo-science. But since when does anybody listen to anything I have to say?
I have spent as little time as possible on the staff of hospitals. The interface between doctors and administrators has always seemed to be dominated by petty politics. People are interested in money, and secondary to that, some vague sort of reputation or power. A large and prestigious Midweste hospital used to have a certain kind of meeting every few months. This hospital had only the vaguest of University associations — just enough to make it look academic and research oriented. I knew perfectly well it was neither.
Most of my early drafts of blog posts start with “I was minding my own business, surfing the net….” That is something I often do; “surf the net,” I mean. Not “minding my own business,” something which my Mother-of-Blessed-Memory would attest I haven’t done since the beginning of high school.
If I haven’t convinced everyone yet, I don’t know how. I have written on this before. Vaccination keeps kids alive. Kids who could die dead as door nails from preventable diseases. Vaccination has very few side effects. All kids should get them (except for specific and quite rare medical counter indications endorsed by a physician). So now I am finding out a little more of the story. Previously, an alleged outbreak of measles was traced to non-vaccination. Now we know that non-vaccination can happen because–children are going to non-public schools.
I grew up with the Reader’s Digest, although I do not think that was what my parents had in mind. I was a very early reader. I had the activity pretty much nailed by the time I was three. I could even do phonetic “sounding out” of words, as well as the obsessional “dictionary searching” that I now do on line. I also had an obsessional interest in books intended for “bigs.”r
Every professional deserves fair compensation for his/her level of experience and expertise. But most have no idea how to calculate a fair rate. I've just completed a series of free lessons on how to evaluate and adjust your professional rates so that they are fair to the patient and fair to the ...
Marketing for healers? I'll bet you have trouble even reading those words! Somebody taught you somewhere that these are God given gifts that you have, healing others, and you should not even think of them as a way of making money. My first medical textbook said I was so lucky to be becoming a ...
Warning: Daily use of aspirin can lead to side effects which may include total loss of impulse control, man boobs, toe hair, and third nipples. Please consult your doctor before taking this and other over the counter medicine.
Turns out, while most veterans appreciate a stranger saying “thank you” for their service, it can also be a bit uncomfortable. I wonder how these same guys feel about the “Have you thanked a veteran today?” bumper stickers.
Like many others, I am of the type who has been made to feel less. Less than healthy, less than human; whatever, the kind of feeling that sells diet food and diet plans.
I do surf the web — I do not do so aimlessly. I was impressed by an article published by AARP on things people should not do after 50. Despite the fact that I absolutely abhor anyone telling me “laws” about what to do or not to do, I checked it out. I decided most of them were so stupid they should never be done by anybody. For instance, a Frenchman told me many years ago that nobody should ever drink champagne out of a woman’s slipper, mainly because it tastes rotten.
As it turns out, this whole bit about the use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry is a complex issue. It’s well beyond anything that anyone would guess at first blush. The best online summary is the position paper put out by Food Marketing Institute. Curiously enough, it doesn’t have a year on it. Based on the references, I’d guess it was probably around 2005.
Cutting back on football practice during excessive heat in order to diminish death can only be a good idea.
I enjoy having friends, like just about everyone does. But that’s not why I’m in this business. When a patient needs help, I will do my best for them every single time. And if a few colleagues get bruised egos along the way, so be it.
I don’t think I know anyone who can say they’ve never had a headache. And some have them often enough that they’re given about as much attention as a hiccup or a sneeze. But sometimes, a headache can be more than a headache. I was in Minneapolis doing a rotation in neurology through a university headache clinic. A lot of people were referred through primary care physicians and some even from other neurologists. They were strange headaches to them, but headaches that were frequently seen by these university neurologists in Minneapolis.
Maybe the folks who continue to argue against stem cell research are just afraid their own stem cells could beat them at a game of checkers. Listen, I want to live forever. Not like in the song “Fame,” but like in the way that most of us would do anything to live. Or like the guy who had to leave the country to get life-saving treatment for cancer of the trachea. Now he is alive when everyone thought he wouldn’t be. It’s a treatment he couldn’t get in the States. In the States, stem cell benefits are masked by misinformation and fear.
In the National World War II museum, it is easy and even triumphant and pride-generating to look back and see some of the scientific advances made during World War II. There’s no doubt that science is advancing. But I wonder if our ethics can keep pace.
Strange, that the meningitis-tainted steroids in Tennessee make me think of the chocolate bar case from Oklahoma. Two young, and it seemed to me, perfectly honest if somewhat histrionic young women who found worms in their Hershey bars — the hard way. Both were unemployed and mothers of several children each, and one was pregnant. They were enjoying their chocolate bars in a dark room by the light of the TV set when one noticed something funny.