Doctors Restore Individual Finger Function For Amputee

Two hand surgeons from OrthoCarolina in North Carolina say they completed the first surgery that allows an amputee patient to have individual digital control in a functioning myoelectric prosthesis.

[From article]
An amputee has reportedly become the first in the world to gain individual finger control in his prosthetic hand thanks to a ground-breaking operation.
Two hand surgeons from OrthoCarolina in North Carolina say they completed the first surgery that allows an amputee patient to have individual digital control in a functioning myoelectric prosthesis.
The operation involved transferring existing muscle from the fingers to the back of the hand and wrist without causing damage to the nerves and blood vessels to the muscles.[. . .]
OrthoCarolina Research Institute said the pilot case is an example of 'life-changing impact' orthopedic research plays in advancing patient outcomes and that it will continue supporting the research and the manufacturing of the prosthesis.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3621109/Amputee-moves-fingers-individually-thanks-ground-breaking-prosthesis.html

Amputee becomes first ever to move his 'fingers' individually thanks to ground-breaking prosthesis
Dr Glenn Gaston and Dr Bryan Loeffler completed surgery to allow an amputee with a prosthetic hand to have individual finger control
Operation involved transferring existing muscle from fingers to back of the hand and wrist without damaging nerves and blood vessels
Dr Loeffler said the muscle transfer is a breakthrough that could impact how specific amputations are done in the future
By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 22:23 EST, 1 June 2016 | UPDATED: 23:17 EST, 1 June 2016

Marijuana Is Medicine?

“'Any place in which we allow a doctor’s or dentist’s office, we should allow a medical marijuana dispensary,' McGovern said." If that argument has any validity why not sell this "medicine" in all pharmacies in the city? Must be something different about this "medicine."
"Councilor Jan Devereux said it was an unfortunate occurrence that the city had previously made geographic zoning for one set of circumstances." Does the freshman councilor believe there was no discussion before the zoning was voted on? Does she believe she has better knowledge than the entire previous council and the voters and taxpayers who commented? Does that indicate arrogance?
“'We have really failed voters and patients in not having a suitable zone for a way of accommodating these businesses,' Devereux said." See above comments which apply to this specious argument.

[From article]
“Any place in which we allow a doctor’s or dentist’s office, we should allow a medical marijuana dispensary,” McGovern said.
Impatient to see the petition progress, Councilor Jan Devereux said it was an unfortunate occurrence that the city had previously made geographic zoning for one set of circumstances.
[. . .]
“We have really failed voters and patients in not having a suitable zone for a way of accommodating these businesses,” Devereux said.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160224/NEWS/160228141

Dispensary seeks zoning amendment in Mid-Cambridge
By Natalie Handy
nhandy (at) wickedlocal.com
Posted Feb. 24, 2016 at 11:55 AM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

Eliminating Hate, A Human Emotion

The only way to eliminate hate is to eliminate humans. Each one comes with hate. It is an essential element of human nature, an emotion. Psychiatrists define experiencing an emotion as illness. It is part of the effort to implement the feminist therapeutic state. Along with the Frankfort School is where the divisive diversity campaign derives.

[From article]
Carter has for some time been suffering from melanoma, and four cancerous lesions on his brain. On December 6, 2015, Carter announced that his cancer has now been beaten by his use of Keytruda, a drug that was researched and tested in Israel.
The person mainly responsible for research on Keytruda, one of the new “immunotherapy” drugs, was Jacob Schachter, at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel. The new drug is an advance on chemotherapy that destroys cancerous cells but also destroys healthy cells. The Sheba Medical Center is presumably one of the academic institutions that the American Anthropological Association on November 20, 2015 decided to boycott. Apparently, no American anthropologist must be contaminated with Keytruda.
[. . .]
What a contrast between this evidence of Israeli contributions to science and humanity with the published statements in December 2015 of the Palestinian Authority. Among the various Palestinian contributions to science and humanity were support for the terrorist knife-wielding individuals in Jerusalem and other places in Israel, the call to remember “the souls of the heroic martyrs” who had stabbed innocent Jews, and continuing “lawfare” against Israel in the international arena. Absent from these statements were any word of peace, let alone any condemnation of the continuing acts of terrorism.
[. . .]
This organization claims it condemns any form of racism or anti-Semitism, [. . .] One peace-loving teacher at the UNRWA Beit Hanoun school in Gaza informed his students that “the Zionists and the Jews are sons of monkeys and pigs.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/condemnation_the_islamist_attack_on_democratic_values.html

December 12, 2015
Condemning the Islamist Attack on Democratic Values
By Michael Curtis

Massachusetts Housing Chief Charged With Stealing Elder Woman's Medications

Gregory Bartlett, 57, executive director of the Stoughton (MA) Housing Authority


[From article]
The executive director of the Stoughton Housing Authority was released on $2,500 bail after pleading not guilty stealing prescription pain medications of a woman in her 90s who lived in one of the authority's units.
Gregory Bartlett appeared Monday in Stoughton District Court on a charges including breaking and entering, theft of a controlled substance and larceny of property valued at more than $250 from a person over 65 years old.
Authorities say as executive director, the 57-year-old Bartlett had access to apartments and a list of residents' medications.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/01/housing_authority_chief_charged_with_stealing_meds

Housing authority chief charged with stealing meds
Monday, January 5, 2015
By: Associated Press
Boston Herald

Computers Are Dumbing Down Professionals, Restraint Needed In Programming

Computers are taking over the kinds of knowledge work long considered the preserve of well-educated, well-trained professionals. Luci Gutiérrez 

[From article]
Worrisome evidence suggests that our own intelligence is withering as we become more dependent on the artificial variety. Rather than lifting us up, smart software seems to be dumbing us down.
It has been a slow process. The first wave of automation rolled through U.S. industry after World War II, when manufacturers began installing electronically controlled equipment in their plants. [. . .] The new technology would be ennobling.
[. . .]
More often than not, the new machines were leaving workers with drabber, less demanding jobs. An automated milling machine, for example, didn’t transform the metalworker into a more creative artisan; it turned him into a pusher of buttons.
[. . .]
Computers are taking over the kinds of knowledge work long considered the preserve of well-educated, well-trained professionals: Pilots rely on computers to fly planes; doctors consult them in diagnosing ailments; architects use them to design buildings.
[. . .]
“Flying skills decay quite rapidly towards the fringes of ‘tolerable’ performance without relatively frequent practice,” Mr. Ebbatson concluded. But computers now handle most flight operations between takeoff and touchdown—so “frequent practice” is exactly what pilots are not getting.
[. . .]
In other words, our skills get sharper only through practice, when we use them regularly to overcome different sorts of difficult challenges.
The goal of modern software, by contrast, is to ease our way through such challenges. Arduous, painstaking work is exactly what programmers are most eager to automate—after all, that is where the immediate efficiency gains tend to lie. In other words, a fundamental tension ripples between the interests of the people doing the automation and the interests of the people doing the work.
[. . .]
The programs incorporate valuable checklists and alerts, but they also make medicine more routinized and formulaic—and distance doctors from their patients.
[. . .]


A professor from Harvard Medical School wrote in a journal article that when doctors become ‘screen-driven,’ following a computer’s prompts rather than ‘the patient’s narrative thread,’ their thinking can become constricted. In the worst cases, they may miss important diagnostic signals. Getty Images 

Medical software, they write, is no “replacement for basic history-taking, examination skills, and critical thinking.”
[. . .]
When software takes over, manual skills wane.
[. . .]
When system designers begin a project, they first consider the capabilities of computers, with an eye toward delegating as much of the work as possible to the software. The human operator is assigned whatever is left over, which usually consists of relatively passive chores such as entering data, following templates and monitoring displays.
This philosophy traps people in a vicious cycle of de-skilling. By isolating them from hard work, it dulls their skills and increases the odds that they will make mistakes. When those mistakes happen, designers respond by seeking to further restrict people’s responsibilities—spurring a new round of de-skilling.
[. . .]
Even the smartest software lacks the common sense, ingenuity and verve of the skilled professional. In cockpits, offices or examination rooms, human experts remain indispensable. Their insight, ingenuity and intuition, honed through hard work and seasoned real-world judgment, can’t be replicated by algorithms or robots.
If we let our own skills fade by relying too much on automation, we are going to render ourselves less capable, less resilient and more subservient to our machines. We will create a world more fit for robots than for us.



http://online.wsj.com/articles/automation-makes-us-dumb-1416589342

Automation Makes Us Dumb
Human intelligence is withering as computers do more, but there’s a solution.
By NICHOLAS CARR
Nov. 21, 2014 12:02 p.m. ET

CDC Stocks Up On Latest Medical Fashions

A health care worker receives protocol on the proper removal of personal protection equipment from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instructors in preparation for the response to the current Ebola outbreak, during a CDC safety training course in Anniston, Alabama, October 6, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell

[From article]
The CDC has ordered $2.7 million in personal protective equipment that is being configured into 50 kits for rapid deployment to hospitals, it said in a statement.
Some U.S. orders of protective equipment have been backlogged amid growing domestic demand, as manufacturers prioritize a flood of requests from aid agencies trying to curb the outbreak in West Africa.
The CDC tightened its guidelines for people handling Ebola patients on Oct. 20, requiring a fluid-resistant gown, gloves, a hood, shoe coverings and a face mask.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/07/us-health-ebola-usa-gear-idUSKBN0IR1UQ20141107

U.S. CDC boosts national stockpile of Ebola protective gear
Fri Nov 7, 2014 12:06pm EST

More Laws Will Not Solve Problems

[From article]
In the racially charged and sometimes deadly crime, one or more assailants, usually black, target a randomly selected white person and, for amusement, try to knock out the unsuspecting victim with a single punch.
Now along with Democrat and Republican colleagues, Tedisco is sponsoring a bill called the Knockout Game Deterrent Act. Among those who want tougher penalties are State Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn and New York City Council Member Peter Vallone Jr.

As some commenters below this story observed, physically attacking another is already a crime,. What good will another law do? Enforcement and changing behavior of violent criminals is needed. Criminal justice system needs maintenance, not more laws. Same with medical delivery system It needed maintenance not a brand new insurance system with bells and whistles that are unfunded. 

http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/lawmaker-hits-back-at-twisted-knockout-gamers/

LAWMAKER HITS BACK AT 'TWISTED' 'KNOCKOUT' GAMERS
New York Assembly member has plan for those who use violence against innocent
December 21, 2013

Doctors Over Prescribe Antibiotics

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/medication-nation-study-shows-antibiotic-overuse

MEDICATION NATION: STUDY SHOWS ANTIBIOTIC OVERUSE
By MIKE STOBBE
Apr. 10 4:59 PM EDT

Medicaid Fraud Ring Busted

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/med_scam_hits_city_rx_shops_9F4gIhpDxF7u8S1U4ilmKO

Med scam hits city Rx shops
By BRUCE GOLDING and JOSH MARGOLIN
New York Post
Last Updated: 3:07 AM, July 18, 2012
Posted: 3:05 AM, July 18, 2012

* * *

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2012071748_charged_in_massive_medicaid_fraud_case/

48 charged in massive Medicaid fraud case
Boston Herald
By Associated Press
Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Elderly Losing Medical Care

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/25/AR2010112503638_pf.html

Doctors say Medicare cuts force painful decision about elderly patients
By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 26, 2010; 12:02 AM

TV Dramas Show Wrong Treatment

Wouldn't it great if TV and film makers showed the extreme abuses of psychiatry along with the love of psychiatrists for the power they have over their patients, in the name of love for the patient? 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61D2JV20100214?feedType=RSS&feedName=lifestyleMolt&rpc=22&sp=true

TV medical dramas show viewers the wrong response

Belinda Goldsmith

Reuters