Nobel Prize in Medicine

David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work “for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.” Here is a summary of Professor Julius’ contribution from the BBC: Prof David Julius’s breakthrough, at the University of California, San Francisco, came from investigating the burning pain…

Physician Decision Fatigue

When should you schedule an appointment with your doctor or dentist? I had always thought that being one of the first appointments of the day was beneficial because the doctor’s aren’t yet tired from a long day of work. For instance, I try to schedule my dentist appointments early in the morning just for this…

Causality: Bradford Hill criteria

If you observe two things occuring, how can you know whether event A causes event B. For instance, consider the case of patients who use a given treatment and finding that they have better health outcomes. While this relationship could be causal in nature, it may not be. For instance, if only people with higher…

The Placebo Effect

The placebo effect is well-known in medicine. Give people a sugar pill, they have shown, and those patients — especially if they have one of the chronic, stress-related conditions that register the strongest placebo effects and if the treatment is delivered by someone in whom they have confidence — will improve. Tell someone a normal…