Most popular posts of 2008

In 2008, Canadian Medicine was visited more than 57,000 times. These were the 10 most popular articles over the past year:

1. THE INTERVIEW: Dr Mehmet Oz
"I don’t think the gentlemanly approach always works. You have to shake some people up. The reason for that is that our biggest enemy in educating people about their bodies in Canada and in America, is that they think they already know the answers. And they don’t." ... On Oprah’s heart: "She has a beautiful heart. It’s pristine. It has no blockages and functions very elegantly."

2. Grand Rounds 4:25
Sultry nurses seduce patients; training to become a doctor is akin to learning to sign opera; and the best hospital cafeteria in Canada, with caribou stew on the menu. (No kidding.)

3. What really killed Jane Austen?
Was it the vapours? Acute Darcyitis? A bilious attack?

4. Canada's greatest medical research
Canada has produced a disproportionately large number of major biomedical breakthroughs. This report exhaustively catalogues the best of the best. You probably knew about Dr Frederick Banting's discovery of insulin, but you're sure to be surprised at some of the high-profile research mentioned in the report, like robot surgeons, music therapy for the physically disabled, induced hypothermia for heart surgery patients and "cobalt bombs," to name a few of the most interesting items.

5. Vasectomies by Dr Dick Chopp, and more physician aptonyms
Dr Richard "Dick" Chopp performs vasectomies at a urology practice in Austin, Texas. He even gives out T-shirts to vasectomy patients. On the back, they read "I was 'chopped' at the Urology Team." Classy... Dick Chopp isn't the only doctor with a medically appropriate (or inappropriate, as the case may be) moniker -- there are plenty more, including a few Canadians as well.

6. Q&A: Why tech journalist just had to try body modification
San Francisco journalist Quinn Norton had a magnet implanted into her fingertip. "When my GP asked why I'd had it done, I told him it was to get a sense for electro magnetic fields, live wires, spinning motors, and the like. He asked me why I'd want that? I was at a loss. I wasn't sure how to explain it, other than to say, why wouldn't you want a completely new sixth sense?"

7. Vancouver Island plans clean crack pipe program after new study shows need
Coinciding with the release of a new study from the University of Victoria that found hepatitis C can be transmitted on shared crack pipes, the Vancouver Island Health Authority has announced it will provide clean crack pipe mouthpieces and filters to addicts at needle exchange sites beginning April 1, 2008.

8. Is universal healthcare an illegal, dangerous monopoly? One Ontario lawsuit argues 'yes'
Adolfo Flora, whose first legal appeal in his case against the government-operated Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) was dismissed last year, is back at it again. His lawyers insist that Ontario's universal healthcare system is putting citizens' lives in danger. (OHIP provides universal healthcare insurance; OHIP has a monopoly over healthcare insurance; monopolies are detrimental to the public good; ergo OHIP is detrimental to the public good -- so goes Mr Flora's argument.)

9. Doctors must kill the skunk, says bioethicist
When Toronto neurosurgeon and bioethicist Mark Bernstein encountered a wounded skunk in the middle of the road on his drive to work, he considered his options. "I figured I had four: 1) I could stop and pick it up and drive to an all-hours veterinary clinic (I knew the whereabouts of one due to a recent illness in one of my two Labradors); 2) I could keep driving and forget about it; 3) I could call 911 or information to get a number for the humane society (assuming they have an after-hours number); and 4) I could try to somehow put the poor thing out of its misery." You can probably guess where this story is going.

10. THE INTERVIEW: Dr Brian Goldman, host of the CBC radio show White Coat, Black Art
"We devoted a half a show to whether a real-life House would be able to practise medicine in the real world... Probably 10 or 15 years ago he would have been able to, but now that doctor would be put out on his ass pretty quickly. I’ve heard of a surgeon who flung scalpels at OR nurses. You’re not allowed to do that anymore."

Get Canadian Medicine news by email or in an RSS reader