This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Gearing up for happiness — … The news headline says it all: “Toyota has built an EV with a fake transmission, and we’ve driven it – Five minutes behind the wheel, and you’ll be a believer.” This is […]
“Does the Sex of a Simulated Patient Affect CPR?” [by Chelsea E. Kramer, Matthew S. Wilkins, Jan M. Davies, Jeff K. Caird, and Gregory M. Hallihan, published in Resuscitation, vol. 86, 2015, pp. 82-87] is a featured study in “Medical Research: Rescuers’ Hands, Ponytail Headache, Elevation for Nursing“, which is a featured article in the special Women […]
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of Korea has just received a US patent for a ‘Vital sign measurement robot and control method thereof’. The company’s humanoid(ish) walking robot can not only measure a patient’s basic vital signs, (pulse rate, etc) but can also perform a series of complex medical examinations. Here he/she/it is performing an […]
Inventor Behnam Azizkhani describes a newly patented (US 9,089,597) medical treatment (for herpes and other conditions) involving intravenous diluted garlic juice injections – which were self-tested. The patent includes this compelling technical drawing; the inventor is represented, graphically, as the bottommost element of the drawing: Please note: Improbable strongly recommends that interested parties should consult qualified […]
When a medical patient turns blue, it is sometimes possible to identify the cause. Here is a report of one such incidence: “Adverse Reaction; Patent Blue Turning Patient Blue,” Meera Joshi, Matthew Hart, Farid Ahmed, Sandy McPherson, BMJ Case Reports, epub December 7, 2012. The authors, at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, UK, report: “The authors […]
Doctors are not allowed to sit on patients’ beds — at least in many British hospitals they’re not. Dr. Iona Heath explains in the BMJ: Still trying to come to terms with the widespread banning of flowers from hospital wards (BMJ 2009;339:b5406, doi:10.1136/bmj.b5406), I learnt recently from senior nursing colleagues that sitting on a patient’s […]