Skeptical Scalpel

Not long ago, I tweeted a link to a very long story. Within 60 seconds, it received three retweets. Since the article would have taken at least 10 minutes to read, it is highly likely that those who retweeted it did not read it....

You may find this story hard to believe, but it’s true. A 75-year-old non-smoking man with no serious medical problems and a relatively low-risk family history [father, a life-long smoker, died of a stroke at age 76] has...

Here’s a story seemingly from the old days of surgical residency training, but it occurred this year. A 2014 graduate of Ohio State University’s urology training program is suing the department chairman, the program...

The astronauts are halfway to Mars when suddenly one of them develops abdominal pain and requires surgery. What will they do? According to NASA, a miniature robot capable of assisting in surgery has been developed, tested in...

According to a Bay Area television station’ s investigative exposé, California hospitals reported 6,282 adverse events to the state over the last 4 fiscal years combined. It sounds like a lot until you realize that there...

1. An article in Time magazine is headlined “It’s Not You, Doctors Are Just Rude.” The first sentence of the article is “Doctors-in-training are in need of a dose of compassion.” It describes a...

New York’s mayor signed into law lowering the speed limit in the city from 30 mph to 25 mph, assuming that this would result in fewer car crashes and pedestrian casualties. The change took place on November 7th. The city...

CHICAGO—Airline pilots should be rated by their passengers, says a prominent doctor group. The National Association of Doctors (NAD) feels that pilots should be judged on such metrics as friendliness, communication skills, and...

Journalists have had a good time with the Medicare data on payments to doctors. The most recent exposé is headlined “Taxpayers face big Medicare tab for unusual doctor billings” by the Wall Street Journal. Because of...

Let’s look at a few choices. Diet soda? There have always been questions about the possible negative effects of diet soda and sugar substitutes. A paper, “Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering...