Look up the best careers. Most of them are in the health care field. I don't see robots/automated systems taking over health care any time soon.You will not be rich, but let's just say comfortable.
It all comes down to poor planning to begin with. Look at the Superconducting Supercollider ($2Billion to dig a friggin hole), this Tower, the cancelled Constellation program, cost overruns such as the $1.5Trillion F-35, etc. The government needs to do a much better job planning things out, and once planned, bring them to completion on time and on budget. If not, you have to have HUGE FINES or even jail time for bidding on things you know you can never accomplish. Don't blame that Senator for pork. Senators are elected to bring pork to their constituency. Blame the stupid planning by the administration of Sean O'Keefe for the failures of the Constellation program.
I am a dentist
One of the benefits cited in the fine article is that the kidney-grown tooth structures more closely resemble a real tooth with a physical root. The root system of a tooth is much more complex than just its physical shape. Within a tooth socket, you have the periodontal ligament surrounding the root separating the jaw bone from the root. Then you have the root itself with cementum layer, dentin layer, then pulp. Even if we were to be able to grow a tooth outside the mouth, it doesn't mean all the necessary structures are there. When transplanting a grown tooth, you're faced with several obstacles:
1) Bone socket must be created to the exactly fit the tooth
2) Creating the periodontal ligament to provide cushion, natural tooth movements, and the ability to extract that tooth without it fusing to the bone
3) The pulp tissue needs to be connected somehow to the nerve and blood systems, otherwise you would have to do a root canal to remove the pulp
4) The morphology of the crown portion above the gum needs to be correct, meaning the tooth needs a crown
So, while being able to induce cells to grown into something that looks like a tooth is a step forward, at this point it is far from a viable treatment option versus a titanium implant which has a known shape/diameter/length. The golden ticket is when we can induce mesenchymal stem cells to grow into a tooth directly in the jaw (hopefully with the correct morphology due to its position next to adjacent teeth as well).
This is happening at the graduate/professional level. These students are supposedly the cream of the crop. Still, given so much freedom, these students spend a lot less time studying than students in the traditional classroom setting (how can they study if they don't know where to turn to, at least until the following week). Many more kids who graduated with professional degrees at PBL schools couldn't pass the Board exams for licensure to practice than at traditional schools. They can't practice to pay back debts of some 300K (monthly payments of more than $2500). The Dean was sacked or resigned I'm not sure. At any rate, the school's reputation is shot at least in the eyes of those in the same field. To get back on topic, I'm not sure but I think the reason why Harvard is doing away with finals is because of the same PBL approach they helped theorize.
I can only speak for dentistry but I can surmise that medical school (since you have an MD) also need lots of spoon-feeding/rote memorization. In general all the undergraduates who couldn't handle the amount of workload/memorization have already been weeded out. Only when they grasp the basics forced down their throats can they begin to think independently. "Before you can run, you must first learn how to walk." Exams/midterms/finals are designed to gauge the level of comprehension of each student and if they do away with them, what other tools are available to assess each student? How can anyone step in and help those kids who are falling behind before it is too late? The exams are not only to see how each student does, but also for the professors to see if their style/way of teaching is working.
Harvard and some other schools instituted the so called "Problem-Based Learning" in which instead of the traditional roles of educators spoon-feeding students information in class, the educators would give students a problem for them to do their own research on, then at the end of the week, they would meet in a small group and discuss the problem along with the educator. PBL then doesn't require sitting for final exams etc. The idea is that this method would stimulate independent thinking/research-focused minds. However this method is proving to be a failure in certain professional schools. I will not name names but a certain school in SoCal decided to switch to PBL in their dental program. Instead of getting students to do their own research, these students would just hang out, get a job somewhere, help out at their parents' business, etc. They depended on their fellow classmates to come up with the answers. The end result is that they aren't really prepared for the Board exams. They aren't prepared in substance (studying) AND in the fact that they haven't been exposed to intense sitting exams (the Board exams take 2-3 days). Students need to be forced to go to class every day, get information shoved down their throat, and be grilled and final-tested because sometimes their profession requires the grand-daddy of final exams.
They were trying to get the kids to understand the meaning of the parentheses, that is to solve whatever is in () before anything else.
4+3+2=(what should go in here)+2
4+3+2=(4+3)+2
They are not trying to get the kids to solve for X or anything.
If I could just swap phones as needed during the course of the day.
It gives you one phone number which when called would ring all your phones. Then you can use whatever phone depending on your activity at the moment. As a matter of fact when I get home from work, I would switch an active call from my cell phone to my home phone without missing a beat if I ever need to cut down on mobile minutes.
Since patents are good for 20 years, why not make people register domains for 20 years for the initial purchase? You can think of your domain as a "patent". Then the $250 you propose would make sense. Imagine all these squatters having to fork out $250 per registration to sit on a domain that may not be worth anything.
There is no such thing as an "upper jaw." We have various bones forming the base of the skull and associated teeth structures (aka maxilla) and a lower jaw (aka mandible).
Dentists have been using stem cells for years. In certain situations when there are not enough bone to place dental implants, dentists would place bonegrafts mixed in with blood drawn from the hip marrow. You get around 5-10 stem cells for every million blood cells but that's all it takes to convert the bonegraft into the patient's own bone (the stem cells become osteoblasts). The only difference in this study versus what we have been doing is that they place the bonegraft with stem cells into the stomach for osteoconduction versus us placing the material into place right off the bat. Typical wait times for us is only 6 months before the bone is deemed solid enough for implant placement.
An acquaintance of mine is a multi-millionaire herbal medicine "pharmacist." In order to get people trust his stuff, he would mix low volumes of various pharmaceutical drugs into his herbal medicine. His reasoning is that although the herbal medicine he prescribed would work over the long term, some of his patients want immediate relief of their symptoms. By mixing pharmaceutical drugs in with his herbal medicine, patients would get immediate results along with the long-term benefits (unproven) of herbal medicine. I would get real mad at this blatant fraudulent practice. Not only is he low-dosing his patients for prolonged periods which may have serious ill-effects, he's getting rich and famous for being an awesome herbal medicinist. His work is "proof" to his patients that herbal medicine works, but little did they know the real reason why they were feeling better.
As a dentist who is trained in pharmacology and who doesn't stand to benefit from pharma money, I would fully support the FDA regulating the wild wild west that is herbal medicine. FWIW I'm Asian and I grew up in an herbal culture.
I am a dentist, so I thought I would chime in a bit
"Painless" Laser Dentistry has been out for some time http://www.biolase.com/waterlase.html There are many dentists using it to prep cavities, gum surgery, and even root canals (though not up to our conventional standards). No shots are required. Proven technology.
On the other hand, this plasma being researched is in its infancy and seems to only work on killing live cells and bacteria. It doesn't take care of the infected portions of the cavity that has no live cells/bacteria. Your filling can only adhere to sound tooth structure, so it's a waste of time having fillings falling off. Unproven.
Even with the advantages offerred by laser dentistry, I myself don't consider using laser dentistry any time soon. The problem with laser dentistry is that even though we're supposed to hold the tip of the wand away from the tooth at a specified distance (its focal point, say 1/3 of an inch) for the wand to burn away materials most efficiently, it still burns materials a bit farther away from the focal point. This means I cannot get a smooth finish. IMO laser dentistry is still limited to minor gum surgery. It's not yet primetime for drilling at least for me.
The biggest disadvantage though is that the fine tactile feedback I get from the drill hitting tooth is lost (meaning I cannot gauge how big of a hole I just made). This is the major difference between a dentist and a dental student. If the tactile feedback is lost, dentists are no better than dental students when it comes to drill and fill. So even though I consider myself to be uptodate with today's technologies, new isn't necessarily better. I would only add the electric handpiece (drill) so it wouldn't make that whirrrring noise, and that's it. These new technologies need to improve a lot more. You wouldn't want to be a guinea pig.
By the way, Novacaine hasn't been used since the 70s. Lidocaine is the most common dental anesthetic agent now.
In the root canal example you cited, I as a dentist can charge you both a lower or a higher fee than the negotiated fee with your insurance company. For instance, the cash fee for a root canal for the region I'm in is about $700 (depending on what tooth). The insurance company in order to offer you a "steal of a deal" forces us to agree to do root canals for $500 (they pay $250, you're responsible for only $250 more) or they won't send patients to us. That means we have to resort to volumes to make up for the difference. On top of the cheaper negotiated fees, we have to spend hours doing paperwork, preauthorizations, billing, etc. My office hours per day is listed as 8, but in truth I have to stay there for an additional 2 hours a day for paperwork. Doctors are the ones who get squeezed here.
Doctors can elect to do one of two things:
1) Bite the bullet, do volumes with the insurance companies at the cheaper fee, but keeping the cash fee that they think is fair the same, or
2) Bite the bullet v2.0, lower the cash fee a bit to make it more attractive to patients so they won't go buy their own insurance and because we don't have to do the paperwork.
In regards to the communist health care system some of the other posts mentioned, that would mean we're compensated even lower than what we get now. There would be more paperwork/bureaucracies to jump through. We would be squeezed even more. No wonder dentists are ranked near the top of the suicidal professionals list every year.
I truly advise everyone to just pay for your services in cash. You would be treated faster (no paperwork to jump through), cheaper (the insurance companies are the middle men), and live longer (you're being treated faster!).
Another related point: There should be some sort of same-as-cash health care money so that if your company offers you money instead of insurance, you can't just use it to buy a new car.
Toothbrush and Toothpaste with Fluoride?
on
Stone Age Dentists
·
· Score: 1
They're called toothbrush, toothpaste with fluoride. Two minutes of brushing twice a day compared to 1440 minutes in a day...it's but an instant. Stop being lazy and blame other people for providing you a service.
We need the C-4 to get plaque (calculus) off your teeth because it IS that bad. How many times do you hear people/ads/TV/etc telling you to brush and floss in a day? In one ear, out the other, apparently
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings?
on
Stone Age Dentists
·
· Score: 1
Why don't we all get tonsillectomies...no longer any need for dentists due to nonexistent tooth "decay". Any applicants for tonsillectomist school?
Re:Would that also mean they had fillings?
on
Stone Age Dentists
·
· Score: 5, Informative
IAAD (I AM A Dentist)
Coronal tooth structure (the part that is above the gum) is composed of Enamel, Dentin, then Pulp. Enamel is very hard, not easily susceptible to decay. Dentin is softer, more sensitive, contains tubules that lead directly into the pulp. Bacteria can either secrete acids to break down dentin (most likely) or crawl their way into the pulp (less likely), causing pain, pulpitis, then necrosis.
From the looks of the images, the ancient dentists drilled past the enamel into dentin. There is no mention of any attempt to fill these teeth (amalgam wasn't exactly perfected until the late 1800s, resin composites not until circa 1950s). It is not trivial to come up with a long-lasting filling material. Malleable gold comes to mind. Gold had been extensively used in dentistry dated back to I'd say 3000BC, not nearly old enough for these dentists. Most likely the recurrent decay found in those teeth resulted from plaque and bacteria making those un-filled drilled holes their home.
The US owns the.com.net and.org TLDs, hence the National Arbitration Forum of the USA has jurisdiction. The Russian NAF would have jurisdiction over.ru
Slashdot Mirror
Look up the best careers. Most of them are in the health care field. I don't see robots/automated systems taking over health care any time soon.You will not be rich, but let's just say comfortable.
It all comes down to poor planning to begin with. Look at the Superconducting Supercollider ($2Billion to dig a friggin hole), this Tower, the cancelled Constellation program, cost overruns such as the $1.5Trillion F-35, etc. The government needs to do a much better job planning things out, and once planned, bring them to completion on time and on budget. If not, you have to have HUGE FINES or even jail time for bidding on things you know you can never accomplish. Don't blame that Senator for pork. Senators are elected to bring pork to their constituency. Blame the stupid planning by the administration of Sean O'Keefe for the failures of the Constellation program.
I am a dentist One of the benefits cited in the fine article is that the kidney-grown tooth structures more closely resemble a real tooth with a physical root. The root system of a tooth is much more complex than just its physical shape. Within a tooth socket, you have the periodontal ligament surrounding the root separating the jaw bone from the root. Then you have the root itself with cementum layer, dentin layer, then pulp. Even if we were to be able to grow a tooth outside the mouth, it doesn't mean all the necessary structures are there. When transplanting a grown tooth, you're faced with several obstacles: 1) Bone socket must be created to the exactly fit the tooth 2) Creating the periodontal ligament to provide cushion, natural tooth movements, and the ability to extract that tooth without it fusing to the bone 3) The pulp tissue needs to be connected somehow to the nerve and blood systems, otherwise you would have to do a root canal to remove the pulp 4) The morphology of the crown portion above the gum needs to be correct, meaning the tooth needs a crown So, while being able to induce cells to grown into something that looks like a tooth is a step forward, at this point it is far from a viable treatment option versus a titanium implant which has a known shape/diameter/length. The golden ticket is when we can induce mesenchymal stem cells to grow into a tooth directly in the jaw (hopefully with the correct morphology due to its position next to adjacent teeth as well).
This is happening at the graduate/professional level. These students are supposedly the cream of the crop. Still, given so much freedom, these students spend a lot less time studying than students in the traditional classroom setting (how can they study if they don't know where to turn to, at least until the following week). Many more kids who graduated with professional degrees at PBL schools couldn't pass the Board exams for licensure to practice than at traditional schools. They can't practice to pay back debts of some 300K (monthly payments of more than $2500). The Dean was sacked or resigned I'm not sure. At any rate, the school's reputation is shot at least in the eyes of those in the same field. To get back on topic, I'm not sure but I think the reason why Harvard is doing away with finals is because of the same PBL approach they helped theorize.
I can only speak for dentistry but I can surmise that medical school (since you have an MD) also need lots of spoon-feeding/rote memorization. In general all the undergraduates who couldn't handle the amount of workload/memorization have already been weeded out. Only when they grasp the basics forced down their throats can they begin to think independently. "Before you can run, you must first learn how to walk." Exams/midterms/finals are designed to gauge the level of comprehension of each student and if they do away with them, what other tools are available to assess each student? How can anyone step in and help those kids who are falling behind before it is too late? The exams are not only to see how each student does, but also for the professors to see if their style/way of teaching is working.
Harvard and some other schools instituted the so called "Problem-Based Learning" in which instead of the traditional roles of educators spoon-feeding students information in class, the educators would give students a problem for them to do their own research on, then at the end of the week, they would meet in a small group and discuss the problem along with the educator. PBL then doesn't require sitting for final exams etc. The idea is that this method would stimulate independent thinking/research-focused minds. However this method is proving to be a failure in certain professional schools. I will not name names but a certain school in SoCal decided to switch to PBL in their dental program. Instead of getting students to do their own research, these students would just hang out, get a job somewhere, help out at their parents' business, etc. They depended on their fellow classmates to come up with the answers. The end result is that they aren't really prepared for the Board exams. They aren't prepared in substance (studying) AND in the fact that they haven't been exposed to intense sitting exams (the Board exams take 2-3 days). Students need to be forced to go to class every day, get information shoved down their throat, and be grilled and final-tested because sometimes their profession requires the grand-daddy of final exams.
They were trying to get the kids to understand the meaning of the parentheses, that is to solve whatever is in () before anything else. 4+3+2=(what should go in here)+2 4+3+2=(4+3)+2 They are not trying to get the kids to solve for X or anything.
If I could just swap phones as needed during the course of the day.
It gives you one phone number which when called would ring all your phones. Then you can use whatever phone depending on your activity at the moment. As a matter of fact when I get home from work, I would switch an active call from my cell phone to my home phone without missing a beat if I ever need to cut down on mobile minutes.
Since patents are good for 20 years, why not make people register domains for 20 years for the initial purchase? You can think of your domain as a "patent". Then the $250 you propose would make sense. Imagine all these squatters having to fork out $250 per registration to sit on a domain that may not be worth anything.
There is no such thing as an "upper jaw." We have various bones forming the base of the skull and associated teeth structures (aka maxilla) and a lower jaw (aka mandible).
Dentists have been using stem cells for years. In certain situations when there are not enough bone to place dental implants, dentists would place bonegrafts mixed in with blood drawn from the hip marrow. You get around 5-10 stem cells for every million blood cells but that's all it takes to convert the bonegraft into the patient's own bone (the stem cells become osteoblasts). The only difference in this study versus what we have been doing is that they place the bonegraft with stem cells into the stomach for osteoconduction versus us placing the material into place right off the bat. Typical wait times for us is only 6 months before the bone is deemed solid enough for implant placement.
As a dentist who is trained in pharmacology and who doesn't stand to benefit from pharma money, I would fully support the FDA regulating the wild wild west that is herbal medicine. FWIW I'm Asian and I grew up in an herbal culture.
"Painless" Laser Dentistry has been out for some time http://www.biolase.com/waterlase.html There are many dentists using it to prep cavities, gum surgery, and even root canals (though not up to our conventional standards). No shots are required. Proven technology.
On the other hand, this plasma being researched is in its infancy and seems to only work on killing live cells and bacteria. It doesn't take care of the infected portions of the cavity that has no live cells/bacteria. Your filling can only adhere to sound tooth structure, so it's a waste of time having fillings falling off. Unproven.
Even with the advantages offerred by laser dentistry, I myself don't consider using laser dentistry any time soon. The problem with laser dentistry is that even though we're supposed to hold the tip of the wand away from the tooth at a specified distance (its focal point, say 1/3 of an inch) for the wand to burn away materials most efficiently, it still burns materials a bit farther away from the focal point. This means I cannot get a smooth finish. IMO laser dentistry is still limited to minor gum surgery. It's not yet primetime for drilling at least for me.
The biggest disadvantage though is that the fine tactile feedback I get from the drill hitting tooth is lost (meaning I cannot gauge how big of a hole I just made). This is the major difference between a dentist and a dental student. If the tactile feedback is lost, dentists are no better than dental students when it comes to drill and fill. So even though I consider myself to be uptodate with today's technologies, new isn't necessarily better. I would only add the electric handpiece (drill) so it wouldn't make that whirrrring noise, and that's it. These new technologies need to improve a lot more. You wouldn't want to be a guinea pig.
By the way, Novacaine hasn't been used since the 70s. Lidocaine is the most common dental anesthetic agent now.
In the root canal example you cited, I as a dentist can charge you both a lower or a higher fee than the negotiated fee with your insurance company. For instance, the cash fee for a root canal for the region I'm in is about $700 (depending on what tooth). The insurance company in order to offer you a "steal of a deal" forces us to agree to do root canals for $500 (they pay $250, you're responsible for only $250 more) or they won't send patients to us. That means we have to resort to volumes to make up for the difference. On top of the cheaper negotiated fees, we have to spend hours doing paperwork, preauthorizations, billing, etc. My office hours per day is listed as 8, but in truth I have to stay there for an additional 2 hours a day for paperwork. Doctors are the ones who get squeezed here.
Doctors can elect to do one of two things:
1) Bite the bullet, do volumes with the insurance companies at the cheaper fee, but keeping the cash fee that they think is fair the same, or
2) Bite the bullet v2.0, lower the cash fee a bit to make it more attractive to patients so they won't go buy their own insurance and because we don't have to do the paperwork.
In regards to the communist health care system some of the other posts mentioned, that would mean we're compensated even lower than what we get now. There would be more paperwork/bureaucracies to jump through. We would be squeezed even more. No wonder dentists are ranked near the top of the suicidal professionals list every year.
I truly advise everyone to just pay for your services in cash. You would be treated faster (no paperwork to jump through), cheaper (the insurance companies are the middle men), and live longer (you're being treated faster!).
Another related point: There should be some sort of same-as-cash health care money so that if your company offers you money instead of insurance, you can't just use it to buy a new car.
We need the C-4 to get plaque (calculus) off your teeth because it IS that bad. How many times do you hear people/ads/TV/etc telling you to brush and floss in a day? In one ear, out the other, apparently
Tooth decay
IAAD (I AM A Dentist) Coronal tooth structure (the part that is above the gum) is composed of Enamel, Dentin, then Pulp. Enamel is very hard, not easily susceptible to decay. Dentin is softer, more sensitive, contains tubules that lead directly into the pulp. Bacteria can either secrete acids to break down dentin (most likely) or crawl their way into the pulp (less likely), causing pain, pulpitis, then necrosis. From the looks of the images, the ancient dentists drilled past the enamel into dentin. There is no mention of any attempt to fill these teeth (amalgam wasn't exactly perfected until the late 1800s, resin composites not until circa 1950s). It is not trivial to come up with a long-lasting filling material. Malleable gold comes to mind. Gold had been extensively used in dentistry dated back to I'd say 3000BC, not nearly old enough for these dentists. Most likely the recurrent decay found in those teeth resulted from plaque and bacteria making those un-filled drilled holes their home.
The US owns the .com .net and .org TLDs, hence the National Arbitration Forum of the USA has jurisdiction. The Russian NAF would have jurisdiction over .ru