Category Archives: Uncategorized
Prostate Cancer Screening Recommendations Change Yet Again
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th October 2019The US Preventive Services Task Force is as fickle an organization as can be found in medicine. Consider their position about prostate cancer it seems to change more often than an infant’s diaper. Their latest pronunciamento on the subject is summarized below. Their full statement is at the end of this piece. Part of the…
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You Cannot See My Face
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th October 2019The Universe is not only stranger than you think; it’s stranger than you can imagine. Richard Feynman The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. WB Yeats And he (Moses) said: “Show me, now, Your glory!” He (God) said: “I will let all…
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What is Drug Addiction?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th August 2019The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) believes that drug addiction exists, while the psychiatrist’s handbook, the DSM 5, doesn’t use the term. The public and their political representatives believe addiction to be a major problem. Though there’s no reason to think they understand the issue any better than the doctors who make a living…
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Viva Rossini!
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th July 2019During his active phase as an opera composer Gioachino Rossini (1792-1968) was the most popular composer of operas throughout the Western World. After his premature retirement from the stage at age 37, he was eclipsed in popularity first by Verdi and then by Puccini. For a while the only opera of his to be regularly…
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Highlights from the DSM V
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th September 2018Rare and Unusual Psychiatric Syndromes: A Primer and Culture-Specific Psychiatric Syndromes: A Review are articles from Medscape Internal Medicine which is an online compendium of useful information dedicated to practitioners of the specialty. You can read both articles by clicking the above links. The syndromes these articles describe are taken from from the Diagnostic and…
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Donner and Blitzen in Santa Fe Plus L’Italiana in Algeri
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th August 2018On Thursday August 4 there was a terrific thunderstorm over the Crosby Theater of the Santa Fe Opera. The show, appropriately Dr Atomic, continued even though the stage and surrounding area were drenched. The following afternoon an even more explosive storm hit the central area of Santa Fe causing a prolonged blackout. So we went…
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Court Rules Wagner’s Music Dangerous to Health
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th April 2018I written about the medical danger to health associated with Parsifal, now a British court has added Die Walküre to the list of hazardous Wagner operas. Violist Christopher Goldscheider convinced the court that playing in a cramped orchestra pit during a 2012 rehearsal of the opera subjected him to a noise level which resulted in “acoustic…
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Quotations of the Day
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th March 2018There’s nothing as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in. Will Rogers One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine. Sir William Osler
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Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th March 2018An understanding of statistics is essential if a physician, or any interested party, is to understand the medical literature. Alas asking a typical doctor to evaluate statistical data is like giving a scalpel to an accountant and asking him to perform a coronary bypass. My last post on sodium intake gave an example of inadequate…
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The Salinity Obsession
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th March 2018Many physicians and those charged with regulating the nation’s health have been obsessed with salt since Lot’s wife was transformed into a pillar of the stuff. On March 7, 2018 the JAMA published online a well performed study of sodium intake, the investigators used 24 hour urinary sodium excretion as a marker of intake, which documents…
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