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Motivational speaker Tony Robbins endured potentially embarrassing publicity this week when 21 attendees of his workshop “Unleash The Power Within” sustained second- and third-degree burns while walking on hot embers. The firewalking ritual was apparently designed to help participants learn that Robbins can get people to pay to walk on burning coals.
In a press release, Robbins Research International explained that over 6,000 people walked on the coals, and the vast majority of them did not require emergency medical services. I wonder if the ones who were burned failed to internalize the speaker’s message, "understand that there is absolutely nothing you can't overcome," or maybe they just never learned that thermal effusivity is determined by the square root of the product of thermal conductivity, density, and specific heat capacity. In response, I’m planning my own motivational workshop entitled, “Unleash The Power Of Shoes.”
A survey of parents who belong to online support networks for trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 suggests that some pediatricians could be more sensitive when talking about genetic conditions. By “more sensitive,” I mean we should refrain from referring to someone’s child as “the T-13,” or, as some parents reported, “it." Parents who chose medical intervention rather than comfort care for these typically-severe conditions also recall pediatricians telling them their children would be “vegetables,” would lead “meaningless lives,” and would “ruin their marriages.” Some parents felt such statements were “judgmental.” Around half the the parents surveyed acknowledged that caring for their disabled children was harder than they had expected. An overwhelming 97% of parents, however, described their children as “happy,” and a large majority felt their children had enriched their lives. I suspect this study will have a profound effect on how pediatric residency programs teach trainees to talk with parents about severe medical conditions. As for me, I’ve pledged never to refer to any child in my practice as “it.”
Officials from the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) held a press conference last week to discuss this year’s explosion in cases of whooping cough (Bordatella pertussis), currently projected to hit a 50-year high. While unvaccinated children are 8 times more likely to contract pertussis than vaccinated children, the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat explains that vaccine hesitancy has not yet been a major factor in the spread of the disease, even in severely affected Washington State, where adequate vaccine protection threatens to go the way of professional basketball. Since the most severely affected infants are too young to have been completely immunized, it still appears the best response to the outbreak is to encourage adults to get their Tdap boosters if they plan to have a baby, be around a baby, or walk within 100 yards of a Toys R Us store.
A new study on sexual content in movies and teen sexual behavior is making me want to cancel our family’s cable service. Researchers writing in Psychological Science interviewed kids between the ages of 12 and 14 about what movies they had watched, then they interviewed those same kids 6 years later about their sexual activity. Not only did they prove both that watching movies with more sexual content correlates strongly with unsafe sexual behaviors, but they won a bar bet about whose research team could wait the longest to collect results. The authors explained that watching movies with sexual content could permanently alter kids’ appetites for novel sensations as well as providing “sexual scripts” for their behavior, since the majority of US 15-year-olds rely on the media as their #1 source of sexual information.
Personally, I was shocked enough just to read that 68% of G-rated films contain some sexual content. I’m tempted to go back and re-watch the entire Land Before Time series, but I think I’d rather walk on hot coals.
Motivational speaker Tony Robbins endured potentially embarrassing publicity this week when 21 attendees of his workshop “Unleash The Power Within” sustained second- and third-degree burns while walking on hot embers. The firewalking ritual was apparently designed to help participants learn that Robbins can get people to pay to walk on burning coals.
In a press release, Robbins Research International explained that over 6,000 people walked on the coals, and the vast majority of them did not require emergency medical services. I wonder if the ones who were burned failed to internalize the speaker’s message, "understand that there is absolutely nothing you can't overcome," or maybe they just never learned that thermal effusivity is determined by the square root of the product of thermal conductivity, density, and specific heat capacity. In response, I’m planning my own motivational workshop entitled, “Unleash The Power Of Shoes.”
A survey of parents who belong to online support networks for trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 suggests that some pediatricians could be more sensitive when talking about genetic conditions. By “more sensitive,” I mean we should refrain from referring to someone’s child as “the T-13,” or, as some parents reported, “it." Parents who chose medical intervention rather than comfort care for these typically-severe conditions also recall pediatricians telling them their children would be “vegetables,” would lead “meaningless lives,” and would “ruin their marriages.” Some parents felt such statements were “judgmental.” Around half the the parents surveyed acknowledged that caring for their disabled children was harder than they had expected. An overwhelming 97% of parents, however, described their children as “happy,” and a large majority felt their children had enriched their lives. I suspect this study will have a profound effect on how pediatric residency programs teach trainees to talk with parents about severe medical conditions. As for me, I’ve pledged never to refer to any child in my practice as “it.”
Officials from the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) held a press conference last week to discuss this year’s explosion in cases of whooping cough (Bordatella pertussis), currently projected to hit a 50-year high. While unvaccinated children are 8 times more likely to contract pertussis than vaccinated children, the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat explains that vaccine hesitancy has not yet been a major factor in the spread of the disease, even in severely affected Washington State, where adequate vaccine protection threatens to go the way of professional basketball. Since the most severely affected infants are too young to have been completely immunized, it still appears the best response to the outbreak is to encourage adults to get their Tdap boosters if they plan to have a baby, be around a baby, or walk within 100 yards of a Toys R Us store.
A new study on sexual content in movies and teen sexual behavior is making me want to cancel our family’s cable service. Researchers writing in Psychological Science interviewed kids between the ages of 12 and 14 about what movies they had watched, then they interviewed those same kids 6 years later about their sexual activity. Not only did they prove both that watching movies with more sexual content correlates strongly with unsafe sexual behaviors, but they won a bar bet about whose research team could wait the longest to collect results. The authors explained that watching movies with sexual content could permanently alter kids’ appetites for novel sensations as well as providing “sexual scripts” for their behavior, since the majority of US 15-year-olds rely on the media as their #1 source of sexual information.
Personally, I was shocked enough just to read that 68% of G-rated films contain some sexual content. I’m tempted to go back and re-watch the entire Land Before Time series, but I think I’d rather walk on hot coals.
Motivational speaker Tony Robbins endured potentially embarrassing publicity this week when 21 attendees of his workshop “Unleash The Power Within” sustained second- and third-degree burns while walking on hot embers. The firewalking ritual was apparently designed to help participants learn that Robbins can get people to pay to walk on burning coals.
In a press release, Robbins Research International explained that over 6,000 people walked on the coals, and the vast majority of them did not require emergency medical services. I wonder if the ones who were burned failed to internalize the speaker’s message, "understand that there is absolutely nothing you can't overcome," or maybe they just never learned that thermal effusivity is determined by the square root of the product of thermal conductivity, density, and specific heat capacity. In response, I’m planning my own motivational workshop entitled, “Unleash The Power Of Shoes.”
A survey of parents who belong to online support networks for trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 suggests that some pediatricians could be more sensitive when talking about genetic conditions. By “more sensitive,” I mean we should refrain from referring to someone’s child as “the T-13,” or, as some parents reported, “it." Parents who chose medical intervention rather than comfort care for these typically-severe conditions also recall pediatricians telling them their children would be “vegetables,” would lead “meaningless lives,” and would “ruin their marriages.” Some parents felt such statements were “judgmental.” Around half the the parents surveyed acknowledged that caring for their disabled children was harder than they had expected. An overwhelming 97% of parents, however, described their children as “happy,” and a large majority felt their children had enriched their lives. I suspect this study will have a profound effect on how pediatric residency programs teach trainees to talk with parents about severe medical conditions. As for me, I’ve pledged never to refer to any child in my practice as “it.”
Officials from the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) held a press conference last week to discuss this year’s explosion in cases of whooping cough (Bordatella pertussis), currently projected to hit a 50-year high. While unvaccinated children are 8 times more likely to contract pertussis than vaccinated children, the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat explains that vaccine hesitancy has not yet been a major factor in the spread of the disease, even in severely affected Washington State, where adequate vaccine protection threatens to go the way of professional basketball. Since the most severely affected infants are too young to have been completely immunized, it still appears the best response to the outbreak is to encourage adults to get their Tdap boosters if they plan to have a baby, be around a baby, or walk within 100 yards of a Toys R Us store.
A new study on sexual content in movies and teen sexual behavior is making me want to cancel our family’s cable service. Researchers writing in Psychological Science interviewed kids between the ages of 12 and 14 about what movies they had watched, then they interviewed those same kids 6 years later about their sexual activity. Not only did they prove both that watching movies with more sexual content correlates strongly with unsafe sexual behaviors, but they won a bar bet about whose research team could wait the longest to collect results. The authors explained that watching movies with sexual content could permanently alter kids’ appetites for novel sensations as well as providing “sexual scripts” for their behavior, since the majority of US 15-year-olds rely on the media as their #1 source of sexual information.
Personally, I was shocked enough just to read that 68% of G-rated films contain some sexual content. I’m tempted to go back and re-watch the entire Land Before Time series, but I think I’d rather walk on hot coals.