Practical Rage

As regular readers know, we here at Doc Gurley like practical info – too often the news is full of fear-mongering reports, or information that you can’t use. So it’s the practical slant that we really like in this report on parental rage at children’s sports events. This study in Applied Social Psychology highlights the […]

Ick Award

Here’s a potent argument in support of those Oh-So-Annoying JCAHO regulations – outpatients getting clinic-based chemotherapy came down with a rare, nasty blood infection. Clinics aren’t covered by those irritating rules and regulations. Perhaps the only way anyone really recognized the source of these infections is because the germ was sooo unusual. Alcaligenes is a […]

M.D.ea Culpa

Sometimes playing the blame game is the right thing to do. Recent research is pointing an accusing finger at doctors who fail to obtain appropriate health tests and interventions for…well, let’s just say certain patients. As in, specifically, African American patients. Is this racism? Class-ism? Sexism? Do your doctor’s biases affect your health? Or is […]

Warms Your Heart

Ah, that amazing sunshine vitamin strikes again. Studies are now mounting (this is not the first) to show a strong link between vitamin D and your heart. Low vitamin D levels are linked to increased risks of heart attack. This latest study is a case control study in the Archives of Internal Medicine that shows […]

Blind Men and The Diabetes Elephant

You remember that fable, don’t you? The one where six blindfolded men each describe an elephant – or at least the part he could reach. One said the elephant was a fan (the ear), another said it was a giant snake (the trunk), another said it was a tree trunk (the leg), and so on […]

A Grain of Salt

Here’s a provocative study – but one that we should maybe take with a grain of salt. It fits the Doc Gurley criteria for interesting studies in that it: 1) deals with a common problem, 2) offers a low-cost, low-risk way of improving that problem, 3) uses an approach that already has known health benefits, […]