April 2010
15 posts
Population of 24 Urban Places in 1790
randyhaddock:
From the U.S. Bureau of the Census, via The Volokh Conspiracy:
1 New York city, NY *………………… 33,131 2 Philadelphia city, PA *…………….. 28,522 3 Boston town, MA *………………….. 18,320 4 Charleston city, SC………………… 16,359 5 Baltimore town, MD…………………. 13,503 6 Northern Liberties township, PA *……. 9,913 7 Salem town, MA…………………….. 7,921 8 Newport town, RI…………………… 6,716 9 Providence town, RI...
March 2010
20 posts
The Costs of Human Action →
Instead of wasting our time trying to modify what will become yet another ruinous governmental fiction, we could take a lesson from the private security firms who profit from preventing crime. Whether apocryphal or historic, there are reported instances of societies in which physicians are compensated for remedies and treatments designed to keep patients healthy; that when a patient becomes ill,...
Replacement Bones to Order →
IF a lover breaks your heart, tissue engineers can’t fix it. But if sticks and stones break your bones, scientists may be able to grow custom-size replacements.
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, has solved one of many problems on the way to successful bone implants: how to grow new bones in the anatomical shape of the original…
Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good... →
amyl:
“It used to be that keeping a few free-range chickens, tending some grain-fed hogs, and raising a small vegetable garden was how people simply survived. Now these are often vanity projects for young hipsters and retired hedge-fund executives who have discovered the forgotten pleasures of “heirloom” tomatoes and artisanal sausage. Incredibly, we’ve reached a point in our society where...
Amazon Filler Item Filer →
I just stumbled across this (maybe you’ve already seen this).
When you are stuck in that uncomfortable spot of being a few bucks short of getting your free shipping from Amazon, you can use the above site to find a “filler” item that will get you there. Useful for when the cost of shipping would exceed the amount by which you are short.
Pretty cool.
Run the presses →
Creates a library-quality, perfect bound, acid-free 300-page paperback book in roughly four minutes. These books are indistinguishable from paperbacks produced by major publishing houses.
Awesome advance in publishing. In the years to come, the term “out of print” will cease to exist. Imagine the possibilities…
Evidence does not support mandatory calorie counts... →
The evidence so far (counter intuitively) does not support listing calorie counts next to menu choices at restaurants. See here.
Makes you wonder. Is this the new era of evidenced based practice that we’ve all been waiting for?
25 Things You Should Always Have With You →
17. Medical info (allergies, med history, med list, doctor’s name and number etc
Musings of an Orthopedic Surgeon: Cost... →
… via online.wsj.com
Great interview in the WSJ. Becker articulates in simple language why he believes the recent health care reform (health insurance reform) bill was a “bad bill.”
I think the final paragraph I highlighted speaks to the number one issue we face, cost. Costs will..
Amen. Patients have traded an education for the seemingly infallible MRI. Doctors “give the patient...
2 tags
Health care bill to bring huge boost to the... →
Mumbai – With 22 pen strokes, President Obama signed into existence not just a historic healthcare reform law but also monumental piles of paperwork: New member registration forms. More claims. Ever-expanding databases. And on top of that, pressure to cut costs.
The bulge in administrative work may look like a nightmare to American insurance firms and government employees. But to outsourcing...
Joint Venture →
I took an position as Assistant Professor of Orthopedics at Wright State University back in the fall of 2009. I recently started a series I am calling Joint Venture in which I interview the partners in my group on a regular basis and get their informal, personal perspective on their work as surgeons. It’s meant to let the general public get to know orthopedic surgeons better in general and...
Here's a weird question...
randyhaddock:
complicatedshoes:
How do you make something like health care… which requires an actual person to provide the care… a right. What if all the doctors decided today not to be doctors anymore? You can’t force people to be doctors. If every doctor in the country determined that this was a raw deal for them and they all moved to Fiji, this would be an unenforceable law, would it...
The Money Trail →
…while we’re on the subject of price fixing. This is a post that I never got around to publishing back when this article first came out
“DePuy Spine has agreed to provide funding to support up to 25 graduate medical education fellowships in spine care during the 2010-2011 academic year through the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF) Clinician Development...
El Salvador →
In the United States, the current debate over healthcare reform is really no debate at all. Both sides of the argument accept the fundamental principle of government intervention. Today few can recall a time when healthcare was not considered an entitlement. Americans caught up in this racket would do well to look south, to El Salvador. It has been a half-century since medical care in the United...
Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of... →
Whether the canopy of a rain forest or the trading floor of Wall Street, complex systems share certain characteristics. A small input to such a system can produce huge, often unanticipated changes — what scientists call “the amplifier effect.” A vaccine, for example, stimulates the immune system to become resistant to, say, measles or mumps. But administer too large a dose, and...
Public Service Announcement
I know there are a lot of Foursquare fans on Tumblr. I recently saw a story about how some nefarious nincompoops are using Foursquare to target people. What happens is this: the bad guys track when and where people are “checking in.” They then look up their address and rob the unsuspecting Foursquare fan’s house.
I haven’t used Fourquare myself, so perhaps there are...
"I, Pencil" read it →
I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human...
Medicare Payment Cuts Coming Soon...lines to...
Senate doesn’t extend deadline for implementing 21.2 percent Medicare rate cut despite House action.
Although the U.S. House of Representative passed legislation to delay a 21.2 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates, the Senate failed to approve it. The 21.2 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursement is required under the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, and will officially go...