February 2012
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January 2012
7 posts
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“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back...”
– From Self-Reliance (1841) by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Tech bubbles happen, but we usually gain from the innovation left behind. [The...”
– From “This Tech Bubble is Different” in Bloomberg Businessweek by Ashlee Vance. This is a statement that raises a lot of questions. With all eyes of the investment community on finding the next Twitter or Facebook, what will be the technology legacy of this era once the party is over?
December 2011
7 posts
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Dr. Facebook?
A recent Danish study asked people to post symptoms of a medical problem on their Facebook page and ask their friends to come up with possible diagnoses. They found that the correct diagnosis was suggested in five out of the six presented cases after a median time of ten minutes. They described the responses from “relevant differential diagnoses to very...
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“Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather...”
– Christopher Hitchens
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State of equipoise and uncertainty in clinical...
Equi·poise, noun \ˈe-kwə-ˌpȯiz, ˈē-\
1: a state of equilibrium 2: counterbalance
Patients who enroll in clinical trials do so because they want to get experimental therapy. In a typical randomized trial with two arms, one arm of the study is either standard therapy and/or placebo and the other arm is experimental. I’m often asked by patients randomized to the standard therapy arm of a...
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November 2011
5 posts
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“In surveys that seek to determine why patients volunteer as research subjects,...”
– Michael A. Rogawski and Howard J. Federoff. Science Translational Medicine 3, no. 102 (2011): 102cm29.
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Are we as doctors making too much of too little or...
This is the provocative title of a recent publication by a colleague and prominent cancer researcher at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The main problem highlighted by this paper is whether the biologically targeted therapies that are supposed to “target” the broken cellular pathways that cause cancer worth the cost, effort, and toxicities considering the fact that many of these...
“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what...”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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October 2011
8 posts
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“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to...”
– Steve Jobs, 1985.
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“The key to reforming capitalism lies in creating shared value by harnessing the...”
– Mark R. Kramer, Harvard Business Review
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September 2011
20 posts
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It's all about having common sense
The British biologist Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) is known for saying that science is nothing but simply common sense at its best.
This is a very true statement and especially relevant when trying to filter the noise surrounding us in today’s age of information overload. No matter what role we play in society (consumer, employer, employee), trusting the wrong kind of information can get us...
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How safe is the HPV vaccine?
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“When we engage with people who have different assumptions about what is right,...”
– Demographic diversity is crucial for success of local economies. It sparks curiosity and influences innovation
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Cancer statistics 2011: the numbers tell the story
Last week, I attended a forum on U.S. cancer statistics, which was a sobering reminder of the burden of the disease and why I decided to join the National Cancer Institute.
Here are some of the highlights of what was discussed:
The total number of deaths in the US from cancer in 2011 is estimated to be almost 600,000 (300,430 men and 271,520 women)
Over 1.5 million people are diagnosed with...
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“My name is Harold, not Dr. Varmus!”
– Nobel Laureate Dr. Harold Varmus during his inaugural address as new director of The National Cancer Institute
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Turning scientists into entrepreneurs
A great article by Steve Blank in Nature News talks about a new project by the National Science Foundation (NSF) called the Innovation Corps (I-Corps) that aims to turn scientists into entrepreneurs by identifying promising research endeavors in US universities and turning them into start-ups by providing seed funds and business training.
I’ve always believed that scientists are...
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The most common misconceptions about the flu shot
We’re approaching flu season. Let’s dispel some myths about the flu shot:
Influenza is no big deal, it’s just the flu. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that about 36,000 people die from the flu, or influenza-related causes, each year. So it’s a big deal.
I’m not in a high-risk group so I won’t get the flu. The elderly and those with lung diseases or...
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Using cell phone data to track people during...
Over 300,000 people died during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, mostly in the crowded capital of Port-au-Prince. Shortly after, a cholera outbreak in a U.N. camp broke out in a northern province and quickly spread to the city.
Tracking people when they move around during natural disasters has traditionally been a challenge. This can increase the loss of human life by complicating the process of...
August 2011
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And iPads for all
Yale School of Medicine, reported to spend about $100,000 a year in printing costs, will no longer provide printed course materials. Instead, they will be giving all students iPads, which in addition to saving them money will make their curriculum “imminently updateable.”
The Boston Globe
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