"You have 'em, I'll entertain 'em"...

And Dr. Seuss did just that, during his long life and continues to do so after his death. The "'em" in question, of course, is children. A lot of my friends and people I know who are my age are now having kids, as evidenced by them using photos of their kids as Facebook profile pictures (a personal pet peeve, btw).

Anyhoo, a quick troll around the Interwebs today found me three stories related to caring for children, and now you are brought up to speed on my method for finding today's theme. : ) I hope you enjoy regardless of whether you have kids at the moment.

In a nod to those out there my age and older (and those who are not the oldest child in the family), Northwestern University professors have found that exposure to and ingestion of dirt may not be the worst thing in the world, according to the Chicago Tribune. Their study of Filipino children who were exposed to a "healthy" amount of dirt and pathogens in childhood actually developed less of a chance of cardiovascular inflammation in adulthood and thus had less of a risk for heart attacks and the like. I'm not sure what a healthy amount of microbes is, but it does make me feel better about being an early adopter of the five-second rule...

Did you ever have to do that parenting simulation exercise in school where they give you a baby doll which is able to cry - at unexpected times - so you get the idea of what having an infant is like? I did, but I'm pretty sure my pretend infant had nothing on the Simbaby. The Chicago Trib reported on a recent alumnae donation to Elmhurst College's nursing program. The $50,000 gift allowed the program to purchase a Simbaby to better prepare its nursing students for the challenges in treating young children. "Baby Boo" allows the student nurses to get a feel for making their own decisions without the possibility of actually hurting a child if they make a mistake.

A much more low-tech version of soothing a baby has gone viral online. Anderson Cooper on CNN featured this video on his "The Shot" segment. The clip shows an Akita-like dog next to a baby bassinet or carriage, whose howls actually sooth the crying child in the bassinet, though I'm not sure which becomes more nerve-wracking, the crying or the howling...

(Photo courtesy of The University of Southern Mississippi)

Hanging out the shingle...

Once upon a time (so I'm told), doctors not only worked out of their homes but made house calls. The doctors knew everyone in town, especially the younger people since they helped deliver them. If you were short on money, a basket of eggs or some homemade bread worked as payment until you were flush again.

I'm not entirely sure when this ceased to be, but now insurance companies and lawyers have gotten into the middle of the doctor-patient relationship. I was informed of my PCP's resignation for family reasons via form letter, but at least that was better than finding out by accident my health insurance changed my dental insurance without telling me.

The following two stories reminded me the conceit of small town doctoring is still out there, whether you are in the big city or the country.

CNN profiled the Moore family in Lexington, Ky. Like their philanthropic father before them, three of the Moore brothers are doctors and provide free outpatient surgical care for the uninsured on the third Sunday of every month. The Moore brothers have treated over 3100 people since starting their free services in 2005. On an average Sunday, they care for 25-30 patients with the help of volunteer doctors and nurses.

Dan Ivankovich is the Lone Ranger of service-oriented docs. The seven foot-tall, blues-playing, head-to-toe leather-wearing Chicagoan orthopedic surgeon does over 800 surgeries a year, nearly all for patients living below the poverty line. One of his quotes from this CBS News video sums it up perfectly - "You see a child that's crippled. You see a 50 year-old in wheelchair, and I can fix it. Why wouldn't I?"

(Photo courtesy of CBS News)

Happy health news...

One of my favorite parts of my job is reading the thank you letters we get from former patients and their families. Hospitals are a last resort; you only end up here if everything else has failed. And that generally means you're in dire straits. So it's always nice to get notes from the people who walk out our doors well. Things do go wrong and that makes you sad, so hearing from those who had things go right makes it better.

A lot of the bad news coming out of Haiti now seems to be related to survivors' health, from crush injuries requiring amputation to the smallest of cuts turning into raging infections. The US and other countries have been helping with the injuries, but recently the US put a hold on medical evacuations due to concerns on the pressure they would put on our health care system. The Boston Globe reported on a group of doctors who went around that obstacle by flying three children with tetanus, pneumonia and third-degree burns to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia on a private plane. All were critically ill and would have died soon without the evac.

We have Haitian staffers in all of our hospitals in my health system, and many of them lost contact with family and friends after the quake. Some still have not reached their loved ones. Yahoo! News posted a first-person account of a group of TIME reporters who helped a friend send money to her 94 year-old great-aunt. France St. Fleur came out of the quake okay, but she was living in a tent outside her badly damaged house. The article details the challenges the team faced with tracking down St. Fleur when all their landmarks to her home were demolished.

One of the unfortunate consequences of natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti can be the rampant spread of disease. Microsoft's Bill Gates has pledged through his foundation to donate $10 billion over the next decade to finding vaccines. He and wife Melinda made the announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to a short article on MSNBC.com.

Going global...

Today good news is taking over the world. Well, not really if the headlines on NPR radio this morning were any indication, but the stories I have for today are from all over the globe and every social strata. Here's to positivity growing like kudzu (shout out to my redneck roots. :) )

Representing the top of the social stratosphere, Bill and Melinda Gates sat down with ABC News' Charles Gibson and talked about the success of their global health initiative. Run through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Living Proof Project highlights all the good that has been done by the teamwork between the US Government and privately funded health initiatives. The Gates' cite the "huge difference" made by the millions of US dollars spent on vaccines, medicines and health worker training around the world.

In a bit of a role reversal, not-quite-Bill-and-Melinda-Gates-but-up-there-rich Germans have made a call for a tax increase for the wealthy in their country. They want a five percent tax for two years followed by a drop to one percent for those with over $750,000 incomes, according to Deutsche Welle. The proposal's supporters claim this could generate $150 billion. I don't think anyone actually thinks this will pass, but the awareness that the middle- and lower-class population could use a break in this financial crisis is welcoming.

On the other end of the demographic spectrum, we find a nice little "gotcha" story coming out of Mexico. The New York Times tells the story of a little extortion south of the border. When state senator Michelle L. Fischbach went to Cancun with family members for vacation, the last thing she expected was to be pulled over by the police on a trumped up charge and having to come up with a bribe to keep her husband out of jail. One letter to the Cancun mayor from a US state senator yielded the termination of the offices, a reimbursement check from the city government and the mayor's personal attention...

In Lebanon, the government is working on harnessing an excellent natural resource - the sun. Plagued by frequent and long power outages, parts of Lebanon are forced to grind to a halt. But this winter, several schools and hospitals are hoping the lights stay on after the repairs on and building of new solar power stations.

Mankind's continual leaps forward...

Living with three physicists (and spending time with their equally science-y friends) definitely left a mark.

As outlined in a previous post, I am just not a left-brain person. I rely on gut feelings and intuition and have very little patience for having to examine every little fact before reaching a conclusion. Yes, occasionally this gets me into trouble (hello, my first apartment in Boston), but usually I make out okay.
Still, I suppose daily exposure to the squiggles and letters that make up physics has left with me a lingering attraction for the more technical side of life.

MSNBC reports on the MIT PhDs who created robotic fish, which can look for pollutants and inspect submerged things like pipelines by mimicking the swimming motions of real fish. These fake fish are sleek and easy to maneuver with just 10 parts and one motor; they are much more likely to be able to go places other, more bulky underwater vehicles can't.

Technological advances in healthcare are reported on both MSNBC and CNET; the US and Japan have created robot doctors and nurses, respectively. Last night, I saw a preview for a movie called "Surrogates" where robots take over and seem to basically replace humans in every day living. In the case of Robo-ER here, thankfully only the Japanese seem bent on professional domination.

The "Chungbot," named after Brooke Army Medical Center's Dr. Kevin Chung, has allowed the doctor to check on patients from as far away as Iraq. The doc-bot is a five-foot tall, motorized robot is controlled by a joystick and laptop and wirelessly transmits images between the screen mounted on its "body" and Chung's laptop. This technology allows Chung to be able to see his patients and instruct another medical staff member who is there with the patient to do the hands-on care.

The Japanese have created a robot nurse to lift elderly patients from wheelchairs and beds, and, as CNet's opening paragraph says best, "naturally, it looks like a teddy bear." The bear can lift up to 134 pounds and apparently has a cuddly face to make it look less scary to the patients. It was created to help combat the problem of the workforce shrinking in proportion to the population aging.

The story on Switched.com makes me chuckle just at the premise - six mice boarding the international space station as invited guests. The tone of the Switched blog post is so perfect, I'm not even going to try to compete.

Lastly, Newsweek's website has a photo gallery nearly 100 years in the making. Court photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii traveled all over Mother Russia taking photographs at Czar Nicholas II's behest. Prokudin-Gorskii took three consecutive photos of every subject - one each with separate red, green and blue filters - and melded them through a process of his own devising in a specially fitted railway car. The result were a wide range of photos of Russia's people, architecture, technology and environment in living color. But it took the advent of digital imaging to be able to restore them.

(Photo courtesy of CNET)

Attention, Grey's Anatomy producers...

After the glut of hospital/doctor shows in the late '90s, I refused to catch the tidal wave that is Grey's Anatomy. I personally do not feel like I've lost anything by not keeping up with Meredith and McDreamy, but the look on people's faces when they realize their breathless retelling of the best parts of last night's Grey's made absolutely no sense to me is preciously comical. 

However, the three stories I have today all involve kidney transplants and have all the elements of being "made for TV." 

My college roomie Michelle sent this first one my way from AOL.com. Rita Van Loenen, a 63 year-old woman from Arizona, made trips to her dialysis appointments in Tom Chappell's taxi after she was diagnosed with kidney disease and one transplant had already been rejected. Chappell decided to put his name on the list to be tested for a match after several of Van Loenen's family members tested negative. He turned out to be a perfect match and will give his long-time passenger a kidney. Chappell's employers are so pleased with his decision, they are covering his wages for the entire, four-to-six week recovery time. 

MSNBC had a story awhile back on a massive, 14-person kidney swap. Dr. J. Keith Melancon performed a "domino transplant" between six males and eight females over a four-day period. Most of the participants who donated were involved because a loved one of theirs needed a transplant. Two people were "altruistic donors" and knew none of the recipients personally. 

Dr. Melancon performed his surgery at Georgetown Hospital, but doctors at UCSD Medical Center recently performed San Diego County's first paired donor kidney swap. Patti Ford had been on the national waiting list for four years and was receiving dialysis, while Paul Bryan had been waiting six months and was about to start dialysis. Ford's husband, Patrick, donated a kidney to Paul, while Bryan's wife, Robyn, donated one of hers to Patti. All four are doing fine, according to their physicians and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

(Photo courtesy of MSNBC)