DOES daily exposure to patients' tragedies harden doctors, causing their empathy to atrophy? When young surgeons have to make their first incisions, which patients are they most likely to practice on? Does doctors' archetypal dark humour belie a troubling truth about the emotional demands of medical practice? What is life without memory?
These questions and others are explored in Writer, M.D. - a collection of short stories, fiction and non-fiction, penned by doctors. Without exception, these previously published works provide food for thought - from Abraham Verghese's compelling piece on the need for physicians to remember the art of the physical examination to a poignant essay on medical dissection by Pauline W. Chen.
Exemplifying the collection's best prose is psychiatrist Oliver Sacks's essay, The Lost Mariner. Writing about a patient who has Korsakoff's syndrome, a form of amnesia, Sacks says: "If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye. But if he has lost a self - himself - he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it." The sentiment captured in these few words is particularly poignant in the light of today's increasingly pressing issues of ageing and mental health.
Containing many such insights into the human condition, Writer, M.D. will leave you with much to mull over, long after you have put it down.
Airport laser interrogator gives you back your bottle
Sick of having to ditch your bottled water, booze and toiletries at the airport security post? That appalling hassle should end by April next year, when airports are supposed to start screening the contents of bottles for explosives.
But they can only do this if the bottle-scanning technologies currently being trialled are up to the job. This week, Cobalt Light Systems of the UK says its explosives detector has passed all its European civil aviation security tests - which means the end should be in sight for bottle-dumping at airport security.
The rule that no bottles larger than 100 millilitres can be carried on aircraft followed the failed 2006 attempt by 17 would-be terrorists who conspired to carry hydrogen peroxide-based liquid explosives onto aircraft in Britain.
The key to getting rid of the subsequent ban on all but the tiniest bottles is revealing what bottles contain without opening them. Cobalt Light Systems - a spinoff from the Central Laser Facility in Harwell, UK - uses a microwave oven-sized machine that uses a near-infrared laser to interrogate the liquid, powder or gel molecules in a bottle and reveal what they are chemically.
The technique, called spatially offset raman spectroscopy, shines the near-infrared laser into the bottle at a number of points. A small proportion of the light reflected back at each point is shifted in wavelength by the energy levels in the liquid molecules, and this small shift reveals what the substance is. Within five seconds of placing a bottle in the machine, a simple readout says: "marmite" or "hydrogen peroxide". See a video of the machine in action.
Crucially, Cobalt's newly-approved technology has a low rate of false alarms - it gives less than 0.5 per cent false positives - and reveals the seemingly innocent precursor chemicals that could be mixed inflight to create a potent explosive, says CEO Paul Leoffen.
But they can only do this if the bottle-scanning technologies currently being trialled are up to the job. This week, Cobalt Light Systems of the UK says its explosives detector has passed all its European civil aviation security tests - which means the end should be in sight for bottle-dumping at airport security.
The rule that no bottles larger than 100 millilitres can be carried on aircraft followed the failed 2006 attempt by 17 would-be terrorists who conspired to carry hydrogen peroxide-based liquid explosives onto aircraft in Britain.
The key to getting rid of the subsequent ban on all but the tiniest bottles is revealing what bottles contain without opening them. Cobalt Light Systems - a spinoff from the Central Laser Facility in Harwell, UK - uses a microwave oven-sized machine that uses a near-infrared laser to interrogate the liquid, powder or gel molecules in a bottle and reveal what they are chemically.
The technique, called spatially offset raman spectroscopy, shines the near-infrared laser into the bottle at a number of points. A small proportion of the light reflected back at each point is shifted in wavelength by the energy levels in the liquid molecules, and this small shift reveals what the substance is. Within five seconds of placing a bottle in the machine, a simple readout says: "marmite" or "hydrogen peroxide". See a video of the machine in action.
Crucially, Cobalt's newly-approved technology has a low rate of false alarms - it gives less than 0.5 per cent false positives - and reveals the seemingly innocent precursor chemicals that could be mixed inflight to create a potent explosive, says CEO Paul Leoffen.
Costa Concordia cruise ship pictured from space
The huge scale of the Costa Concordia disaster is apparent in this satellite image of the stricken cruise ship just off the Italian island of Giglio.
The oil boom that aims to protect the coast from fuel leaks from the ship's giant tanks is visible trailing along the left-hand side. The island and its surrounding waters are part of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park, which is home to the endangered Mediterranean monk seal.
The ship is in a precarious position after swiftly capsizing on an undersea ridge after striking the rocks on Friday. Within 45 minutes of the crash, it was listing at an angle too steep for lifeboats to be lowered from its port side. Rescue work has been suspended since the ship slipped, amid fears it could slide into deeper waters.
This image was captured by WorldView-1, a commercial imaging satellite operated by DigitalGlobe.
The oil boom that aims to protect the coast from fuel leaks from the ship's giant tanks is visible trailing along the left-hand side. The island and its surrounding waters are part of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park, which is home to the endangered Mediterranean monk seal.
The ship is in a precarious position after swiftly capsizing on an undersea ridge after striking the rocks on Friday. Within 45 minutes of the crash, it was listing at an angle too steep for lifeboats to be lowered from its port side. Rescue work has been suspended since the ship slipped, amid fears it could slide into deeper waters.
This image was captured by WorldView-1, a commercial imaging satellite operated by DigitalGlobe.
Bird flu researchers stand down for 60 days
The world's top flu virologists have vowed to stop working on any experiments that could lead to the H5N1 bird flu virus becoming more transmissible – at least, for the next 60 days. It's a good gesture, but whether 60 days is enough to really deal with the Pandora's box they have opened is another matter.
As we reported in September, two labs – in the Netherlands and the US – finally breached the genetic barrier that stopped H5N1 bird flu from spreading easily through the air between mammals – in this case, ferrets, who get flu a lot like we do.
H5N1 hasn't done that in nature, which is what stops it from going pandemic in mammals like us. Frighteningly, the virus was just as deadly in ferrets after it became easy to catch. Now, H5N1 kills around half the humans who catch it. If H5N1 stayed that lethal and became as easy to catch as ordinary flu – as the ferret virus did – civilisation might not survive the resulting pandemic.
The journals and the research and biosafety community in the US are now debating how to publish that research, which details to withhold about what made the virus transmissible (just in case a bioterrorist is interested), and paradoxically, how to make those details available to virologists who must now look for the mutations in H5N1 in the wild. Virologists must also, as Ron Fouchier of the Dutch lab noted yesterday, ensure that they don't inadvertently create H5N1 viruses with those mutations in low-containment labs. He checked, and apparently someone had a virus with four of the five mutations required. Eek.
So virologists have pledged to stop for a bit while they decide, I hope, who will do what and with what safety precautions. Sixty days doesn't seem very long for that. Certainly not long enough to bring all the scientists who might do this work into an organisation where peer pressure and careful deliberation will establish norms and guidelines that will, with luck, prevent anyone from releasing a killer.
Previous efforts at corralling researchers for the greater good have taken more than just two months. In 1973 US researchers started to worry that their experiments putting novel combinations of DNA into living bacteria might inadvertently create a monster. In July 1974, Paul Berg of Stanford University – who went on to win a Nobel in 1980 – called on the world's scientists to observe a moratorium on all such work until they could discuss what safety guidelines were needed.
As we reported in September, two labs – in the Netherlands and the US – finally breached the genetic barrier that stopped H5N1 bird flu from spreading easily through the air between mammals – in this case, ferrets, who get flu a lot like we do.
H5N1 hasn't done that in nature, which is what stops it from going pandemic in mammals like us. Frighteningly, the virus was just as deadly in ferrets after it became easy to catch. Now, H5N1 kills around half the humans who catch it. If H5N1 stayed that lethal and became as easy to catch as ordinary flu – as the ferret virus did – civilisation might not survive the resulting pandemic.
The journals and the research and biosafety community in the US are now debating how to publish that research, which details to withhold about what made the virus transmissible (just in case a bioterrorist is interested), and paradoxically, how to make those details available to virologists who must now look for the mutations in H5N1 in the wild. Virologists must also, as Ron Fouchier of the Dutch lab noted yesterday, ensure that they don't inadvertently create H5N1 viruses with those mutations in low-containment labs. He checked, and apparently someone had a virus with four of the five mutations required. Eek.
So virologists have pledged to stop for a bit while they decide, I hope, who will do what and with what safety precautions. Sixty days doesn't seem very long for that. Certainly not long enough to bring all the scientists who might do this work into an organisation where peer pressure and careful deliberation will establish norms and guidelines that will, with luck, prevent anyone from releasing a killer.
Previous efforts at corralling researchers for the greater good have taken more than just two months. In 1973 US researchers started to worry that their experiments putting novel combinations of DNA into living bacteria might inadvertently create a monster. In July 1974, Paul Berg of Stanford University – who went on to win a Nobel in 1980 – called on the world's scientists to observe a moratorium on all such work until they could discuss what safety guidelines were needed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
