As I said, no data has been compromised so obviously my process is fine. I do wish the security technology was more substantial so that if the process failed, additional safeguards would be in place to protect data. Paper files lack any encryption and can be taken with as simple a technology as a photocopier, camera phone, or even just by folding up a page and stuffing it in a pocket. Digital technology is an incredible step forwards in providing easier access to patient data for healthcare professionals, and inherently provides an additional barrier to theft or misuse: if your files are in my lab coat on my PDA or in my pants pocket on my PDA, there's a far less likely chance that they will be compromised than if they're on a piece of paper in my car, home, or office. That's not enough, though. Encryption and easy-to-use authentication are lacking... the technology must be improved as more digital access is expected of physicians; improving the process is not the issue once adequate training has been implemented.
You can attempt to turn this into a personal witch-hunt against me (which it's obvious from your first post you've been attempting to do by calling out my personal and professional abilities and judgement) or you can discuss the technology, the unrealistic expectations placed on individuals in many industries including the healthcare industry, and help brainstorm the solutions that should be made available for such problems. In your second reply, you go so far as to state that this isn't the correct "venue for this discussion." If you mean this isn't the correct venue for a discussion about technology in the healthcare workplace and risk of data theft - and the way people in the profession are trying to find a balance between required technology use and poor security tools, I think you're incorrect - this is the perfect venue for such a discussion. If you mean that this isn't the appropriate venue for me to have to defend myself from a personal attack by a nobody on the other end of an internet connection who thinks he knows all there is to know about human factors, technology, and security but who is so ignorant that he doesn't even agree that there is some validity to the complaints I've voiced... then I totally agree - this isn't the venue for that. Take your trolling elsewhere. >
Reprehensibly lax? You'd be surprised how insufficient most healthcare systems are when it comes to securing patient privacy. The extent of HIPAA at some hospitals involves ensuring that the clipboard cover of a patient's chart is closed when visitors or guests walk past - though there's nothing to stop those visitors from picking up the file and looking in it while nobody at the clerk station is paying attention.
The point here is that healthcare records are going electronic. I'm required to have OB/GYN notes for patients on me at the drop of a hat in case a delivery comes through the ER doors at 2 in the morning. When I'm heading to a patient's home for a visit (yes, some of us still do visit patients' homes!), it's far more convenient - and safer - for me to have their phone number and chart on my Smartphone than to print out their chart and bring a paper copy to their house. What happens if I am in a car accident and the file is stolen in the mix of the accident? What happens if someone breaks into my vehicle and I have other patient files kept there for other visits that I plan to do during the day (which I can't bring into the home and expose to the patient I'm seeing - again, HIPAA).
It's far more simple to have records stored in one SECURE place, but not every component of that device is secure. I haven't heard of any HanDBase hacks yet - I'm sure they're out there in the wild - but I haven't heard of them. Still, that leaves other information open to use an exploitation. HanDBase doesn't integrate well with the phone system; you can't even copy and paste a phone number for a patient from HanDBase into the phone application on my SmartPhone - so do I write it down? Do I try to remember the phone number and risk dialing a wrong number and giving my patient's name to some unknown person on the other end of the line when I ask for them (especially since I'm usually doing about 2 dozen things at a time) - or do I store the numbers of the patients I call most often in the address book and simply tap "call" next to their name when I need to contact them?
You lack a basic understanding of the workload placed on healthcare professionals and the impracticality of using a centralized computer system for everything. Thank goodness our health network is going wireless so docs can continue using their phones - which have become invaluable in improving patient care - and use them safely through encrypted data connections back to the hospital data center. You act as though storing a few patient files on a phone is some sort of sin; you give me a better way to have the exact prescriptions, doses, surgical and medical histories, etc. on every patient at my fingertips when I'm called to the ER to see one of my patients and the hospital's computer system is down or the record can't be found in the system because of reason X, Y, or Z. FIX THE TECH. The people want to USE the tech and use it responsibly, but if the technology isn't repaired FIRST, then the expectations placed on practitioners to go paperless are placing everyone at risk.
I'm describing the problem - it needs a solution. If you don't have one, I suggest you put your fingers in your ears instead of on your keyboard.
I have no experience with Blackberries. Do they support traditional wifi (802.11a/b/g/n?) I thought emails and all that went through Blackberry's central servers before being passed on to the organization's or corporation's servers. I know this data is encrypted, but does it meet the encryption requirements laid down for electronic medical records in HIPAA? I also wonder about Blackberry service coverage. In many of the buildings where I work, I don't get cell service (Sprint) and my peers do not either (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc). There is local wifi available, but can Blackberry use that? I know some of the phones from AT&T (I think one is called the Flip or something) and the iPhone do both cell-data network wireless internet and have 802.11a/b/g/n wireless, so they could be used within our facilities. Just wondering what the limitations of the seemingly "perfect" Blackberry platform really are.
I've had a Palm Treo 755p Smartphone for a about 9 months. I have a lot of medical data on my unit, including (unfortunately) some patient data. I've tried to use Palm's "Private Records" feature for sensitive data, but it's too complex and unreliable. Some things that I mark as private show up in the regular views anyway, without needing to be unlocked with a password, even after I try to "lock" them or mark them as "private" multiple times. I doubt they're actually encrypted, either - probably just a bit-flag which only some software on the device reads and uses.
So I tried instead to setup an automatic lock on my device - I figure a power-on password should be fine. I set that up - and unfortunately, even though I set it to auto-lock after 1 hour of non-use, it NEVER asks for the power-on password. I've set it up exactly as Palm's site suggests... it still won't auto-lock the unit.
The thing is that the tech seems to need a fix before we can go about blaming the users. I've never lost a patient file or my phone, but obviously it would be a major problem if something like that did happen. Thankfully, the healthcare system I work for is going to electronic records, so nothing will be stored on my Palm anymore; I'll just use my cell plan to connect to the server (SSL encrypted) and access files wirelessly.
Still, there are other things I'd rather not have fall into a criminal's hands... hospital phone numbers, phone numbers of peers, nurses, other physicians, pagers, laboratories, etc. But my model, at least, is simply inadequate in protecting this data. Someone needs to come up with something better than what's currently available - maybe once it's "expected" - much like a password when you log onto Windows - it won't be such a big deal for people to use it.
Then perhaps the way Lieberman needs to go about this is to work behind the scenes to subpoena the IP address information of the people who posted the videos rather than requesting the removal of the videos - then he could shame the countries that are allowing the offending videos to be posted from their IP blocks and the US could take legal action against them. Wait, Bush is still in office... we'll take military action instead since talking to them would be "appeasement."
And as for the India case, Google is a US company which has a global presence through the internet. Simple human rights such as freedom of speech are guaranteed by many multi-national treaties and resolutions. Countries that violate such rights are not on the side of the international conscience. Apparently Google's greed and desire to do business in backwards third-world nations supercedes their willingness to stand up for basic human rights. If a country is going to violate human rights, why continue to do business there? Or has morality lost all meaning in America?
I, for one, will not be using any more Google services or products in the future. This nonsense has to stop. Google will fall. It's just a matter of time until they implode like so many other dot-coms constructed like a house of cards on the sale of a single product on the internet - in Google's case, cheap advertising that scams people and companies who pay for it due to click fraud and unscrupulous web hosts and site operators. There is a reason Google's other products are all free; nobody would ever pay money for the other junk they produce, even with all the "smartest minds" in Silicon Valley beating down their door to come work for them. They're a has-been. Their recent follies prove that the end is near.
Google didn't seem to have much support for freedom of speech when they assisted the government of India in locating a man who posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, as reported yesterday on Slashdot. Strong supporters of freedom of speech indeed - right up until the protection of a user's right to freedom of speech threatens to strain Google's political relationships with distant countries where labor and data center construction are cheap.
I know plenty of people who are fed up with the integrated "Blazer" browser on their Palm-based devices - especially Treo devices. Opera offers Opera Mini for the platform, but it is cumbersome and lacks even some basic features. It's also notorious for crashing the system.
As far as I know, Palm is looking for developers to make mainstream programs for their OS - they even offer free software development kits, APIs, and more on their site to all developers. Some on here may laugh and consider Palm OS an outdated beast, but a lot of professionals use Treos running Palm OS and MS Direct Push technology rather than Blackberries, iPhones, or other devices.
If Mozilla wants to break into the mobile browser market, why not make a browser that will smoke the two paltry PalmOS-based offerings currently available and grab a major share of the market on these devices instead of competing to release *another* browser for devices that already have many options?
Personally, I prefer merging, simply because there's less potential for data loss. It's easier to manually delete extra files than it is to restore missing ones. It might not be any more "intuitive" but it's safer.
My point exactly. I want my computer to protect my unknowing mother, brother, uncle, or grandfather from accidentally deleting hundreds of important documents. If they click "continue" or "Yes to all" when asked about merging on a PC, the worst they'll do is overwrite photos or documents with the exact same names. In my own technical support experiences, people tend to rename things that are important for them - a thesis may be found on a student's computer with 15 to 20 different names. A Master's project paper may be saved with a few different "version" names. Chances are, merging won't overwrite anything that isn't an exact duplicate, with the way people's minds work and the way they name files when saving important things. And with my photo example - most digital cameras keep a running counter at least from 0 to 9999 with their file numbering system, even after changing memory cards or downloading the pics to the computer. Chances of overwriting old, precious photos are very low with a merge. My Canon handheld camera counts higher than 9999... few people have that many photos in 1 directory anyway. With the "overwrite this folder" option that is the DEFAULT on Macs, one errant click and it not only moves the files, but deletes ALL of your original files. THAT is a problem. Oh, and how do you do a merge copy on a Mac? Open the command line or go into each directory and move the files within them by hand... wow; that's easy and intuitive.
Honestly, it took me a little while to get used to it, but now that I expect it, it's fine. Usually, if I'm doing anything complicated with copying/moving lots of stuff recursively, I'm going to want to use a command line anyhow. In the command-line, "cp" and "mv" work in normal unix fashion.
I guess the reason I have a problem with this is that my own computer usually has 3 drive letters listed - the internal hard drive, an external hard drive, and my USB flash drive, which I plug in when I sign on, usually. The typical user drags and drops a folder called "photos" from their flash drive to their desktop, which - unfortunately - also contains a folder called "photos"... they click the wrong button thinking it will replace duplicate files WITHIN the folder, not the folder itself (a careful wording change that could easily be missed in a hurry) and bam - all of the photos that were on the desktop to begin with are gone! For a user who seems reasonably knowledgable about Apples to say that the easiest way to do a simple directory merge is to whip out a command prompt and do some Unix-style command prompt kung-fu proves just how flawed Apple's little Finder thing is. It's time for a total rework.
Enough of the fanboys being wowed by cute translucent graphics and crap... improve the functionality first, for goodness sake. Oh... and when I'm closing a maximized window in Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, or Vista, I can click in the top right corner of the screen (not actually on the "X" to close the window) - and it closes the window. On a Mac... if you can even figure out how to maximize, you gotta click right on. Don't click that piece of desktop showing in the middle of the CD icon on your screen on a Mac - you didn't click the icon PICTURE, so it won't click the icon. My mom with her arthritis has no problem with the PC - click in the vicinity of the icon and it knows what you're doing. How is even something as simple as scroll-bar manipulation, window manipulation, and icon manipulation STILL so flawed in Apple's OS? God-damnit, I want my file menu at the top of the window not at the top of the screen with that stupid little Apple icon. When I click "FILE" in an inactive window on a PC, it opens the menu without trouble. On a mac... click the window first to activate, wait for the menu at the top to change to that program's menu, then go click on file. Waste of time. Programming design flaws. Stop trying to hold onto the past... make something NEW and FUNCTIONAL for a change.
I used to recommend Macs because they were easy to use and relatively safe when manipulating files and data - so I told people I liked to get them. Now I recommend them to people I hate - I hope they lose their precious family photos because of a basic programming glitch... and blew $1800 on an overpriced piece of shit that some has-been in a turtleneck brainwashed them into thinking was the best thing in the world.
From what I know of the BBC, they've always prided themselves on "spreading the word" of the BBC as far and wide as possible, setting up broadcast stations in some of the most remote parts of the world to share their news, informational programming, and perhaps most importantly - the English language - with those who often have very limited resources. I can tell from personal experience - I am able to receive the BBC from midnight to 4 AM on my local public radio station here in Indiana on a nightly basis... I was able to receive the BBC loud and clear when I was on a relief trip to Honduras (though I think the programming was moderately different from that received here in Indiana) - and one of my peers reported being able to receive the BBC when he was in a remote part of Africa on a hunting expedition. For a company that claims to want to make their information accessible to everyone, I find their explanation for a Windows-only launch of their player less than satisfying.
I don't think that MS and the BBC are necessarily in bed together. The problem likely stems from hiring programmers that aren't familiar with porting software to the Linux platform. I know that the BBC is well-funded, but I have serious doubts about the influence this project's leader within the BBC has over the "uppers" who write his budget and provide his human resources. With limited resources, the idea might be to "cast the net as wide as possible." Sure, porting the player to be Linux-compatible *should* be really easy, but I can say from experience that porting multimedia software that incorporates a significant amount of network interface software to access the feeds from the internet from Windows to Linux often requires something of a "special touch" - something I, unfortunately, do not have. Those programmers they hired built the software they did, perhaps, as a "test." CNN and the NY Times have both launched major media projects that later failed - this might be the BBC testing the waters to see what demand is. Still, their excuse could be a little more realistic and honest.
I remember back when I was a Best Buy salesperson... I was only 16 or 17 at the time... working in the computer sales department. One of our "duties" at the end of the night was to get all of the returned goods from Customer Service, bring the items back to the department, and place "open box" price stickers on them if they had been opened or reshelf the products if they hadn't been opened.
Going through the products one night, I came across a video card box that "felt funny." The shrink-wrap was hard and tough, not the soft shrink-wrap type that stretches when you pull on it. I brought the box to my manager, along with one from the shelf - wrapped in the softer shrinkwrap. We opened up the box that had been returned, the one with the hard wrapping, only to find an ancient, dirty / dust-covered modem inside rather than the $150+ video card. My manager searched the return receipts for that night, hoping to stop the refund to the guy's credit card before the transactions posted for the night. He found the receipt - the guy was careful and paid cash, so Best Buy ate the price of the card on that one.
So yeah, this type of bull happens all the time at brick and mortar stores. There's not much Best Buy can do about it, and not much a consumer can do other than beware of unusual packaging anomalies. I've come across similar "strange items" in my own shopping experiences. I usually leave the odd-ball package in favor of one that is more like all the others on the shelf. If it's the last one on the shelf, I'll usually buy it at customer service, then open it right there, in front of the employees, to make sure it's ok inside.
Buyer beware... and don't expect Best Buy to foot the bill for you being the unlucky shmuck to pick the box that someone re-wrapped. That just isn't how they roll, I can tell you, after 4 long, painful years of working there.
Unfortunately, you've got this wrong. Type II Diabetes is a failure of equilibrium functionality, not a case of hyperactivity of equilibrium mechanisms in the body. The body works to maintain equilibrium by releasing insulin following consumption of a meal, which in turn tells the cells of the body (primarily skeletal muscle cells) to take up glucose from the bloodstream. Type II diabetes, at its core, is a syndrome of insulin resistance, not a syndrome in insulin insufficiency. The skeletal muscle cells become less attentive to insulin signalling and refuse to take up glucose from the bloodstream in response to normal insulin levels within the body. The pancreas attempts to compensate by up-regulating the insulin thermostat, producing more and more insulin to try to get the muscles to respond by taking up the glucose. Glucose, if not taken up rapidly by the body's cells, can be harmful as it results in glycosylation of proteins all over the body (including in hemoglobin, in the form of HbA1C, which is a useful marker for long-term diabetes management analysis). The muscles become less willing to respond to the increased doses of insulin produced by the pancreas. Eventually, if not managed carefully, the pancreas may "burn itself out" - producing sub-normal levels of insulin, causing a type II diabetic to become insulin-injection dependent.
This research is incredibly interesting since it may reverse the burn-out syndrome and alleviate the need for poorly managed type II diabetics to inject insulin. It will not, however, reverse the insulin resistance present in insulin-sensitive cells within the body.
In order to set up shop in a particular specialty, you must be board certified in that specialty. Without that certification, you can *attempt* to practice medicine in that area, but no insurance company will pay you a penny for your work. So you'd be taking money cash-in-hand from patients. One of those patients sues you, all they need to say to a jury is that you're not board certified in the area of medicine in which you were practicing and it's a guaranteed loss for the doctor. Board certification in a particular specialty requires the requisite training in an accredited residency program in that are of medicine.
As for simply "buying" the training - it's not possible. The training programs are strictly controlled on an application-only basis. It is not possible to buy your way into them. At my particular school, there are a total of 3 residency slots available for plastic surgery, 2 for dermatology, and 6 for radiology. My graduating class will number well over 200 (I go to one of the largest medical schools in the nation). Those residency spots are open to ANYONE in the country graduating from medical school, as well as foreign applicants graduating from foreign medical education programs - not just to students at my own school. Once you've picked your field and do a residency in that area, you're virtually restricted to that for life, legally and financially. There is no sideways mobility within medicine because even the most basic areas require 3 to 5 years of post-med-school training before you can be certified in that area... even pediatrics and family medicine. Changing from, say, an OB/GYN to an opthalmologist is virtually impossible because all residency training places go to "fresh from med. school" doctors. Residency programs want fresh faces that they can mold into their image, not crusty 45 year old family practice docs looking to get ahead by switching to high-priced plastics or dermatology.
Clearly you did not read my original post in its entirety. MOST doctors don't have that position. Reason being - the positions are limited and only a select few are allowed to go into them. If every doctor COULD and DID go into them, who would you call when you had back pain, a runny nose, or - heaven forbid - an STD. You have - again - no idea how medicine works. Doctors take tests and exams for the rest of their lives, constantly being re-certified in their selected specialty until they retire. When doctors apply to residency programs, the programs have a limited number of spots. Plastics, dermatology, and the surgical specialties all have very few slots available for the 20,000+ doctors graduating from medical school each year. The majority of those doctors are forced, not by choice, but by sheer lack of available positions - to take a primary care specialty, such as pediatrics, family medicine, internal medicine, or OB/GYN. If you think that once you've got "MD" after your name, you call the shots and decide what area of medicine in which you're going to work, you're quite mistaken. You throw your name into a huge computer run by the residency match program service, list your specialty and hospital preferences, interview with those places that choose to interview you - and hope the computer assigns you to the one you want. Not everybody can be a radiologist, plastic surgeon, or dermatologist doing botox injections or sitting on their ass reading digital x-ray "films" every day - nor should everybody. Somebody has to take care of your kid when they've got the sniffles or you when you throw your back out playing paintball with the guys from work. Doing it for 70+ hours a week for peanuts while other doctors pull in almost 7 figures a year for getting rid of your wife's wrinkles or making her look like Chesty LaRou - that's the problem.
Wow - that's pretty intense. So... I should pick my profession based on monetary reward, not based on whether or not I like to do what I'm doing? That's a pretty bad way to look at life and a career choice. I'm simply saying that if IT "professionals" are going to bitch and moan about unfair compensation, shouldn't the rest of the professional world be allowed to join in the fight for fair wages? Do you AGREE that an NP with an anesthesiology certificate who works 35 hours a week reading a magazine while machines do most of his or her work should be making more than a 70-hour a week pediatrician working with screaming kids all day? That's where the injustice comes in... Get angry at me for choosing a path that is more concerned with helping others and doing what I love than making a huge paycheck - that makes a lot of sense. I think you have some serious personal issues that you need to resolve with respect to your relationships with healthcare professionals as a whole.
And why don't you grow a pair and get an account if you're going to use such powerful language in a comment here instead of posting anonymously?
Doctors complaining about how little they make as residents are whiny little babies that I want to backhand. First, all the poor little doctors say that they didn't enter the field to make money--then immediately start complaining about how little money they make. Then they complain about how they make only $55,000 a year right out of medical school and how that's nothing compared to the 80 hour work-weeks they have to maintain. But they ignore the fact that after they complete their residencies, they're basically guaranteed over $200,000 for the rest of their lives.
Not true at all, my friend. Malpractice insurance runs into the tens of thousands of dollars annually, even for physicians with clean records. The average family practice doc earns $150,000 - median salary amongst all ages of physicians - according to the Department of Labor. The average pediatrician (median salary) earns $135,000 a year. Let's look at the late night phone calls - continued working of 60 to 70 hours per week to maintain that salary, constant fighting with insurance companies to even take home the money to which they're entitled... and we see why this is a problem. It is the rare exception that earns over $200,000 a year in medicine, except in specific specialties such as neurosurgery and cardiothoracic surgery. Most physicians do not go into such specialties, though. Approximately half of all doctors pursue primary care instead - fewer and fewer each year - specifically because of the threat of low wages.
Unlike law or banking, doctors have job security and high-paying jobs.
Right... little Billy comes to see you for a cough. You treat the cough but miss the hangnail on his toe. His drug-addicted mom doesn't take him back to the doc until the toe is infected and gangrenous. Billy has to have his toe amputated. You get sued out of business by said drug addict mom. That's job security alright!
Furthermore, the government pays the hospitals hundreds of thousands of dollars for each resident they take to offset training costs. That's right, we pay for their education.
You do? Then why is my current financial situation such that I have more than $200,000 in debt, earning close to $1000 monthly in interest right now? You think the GOVERNMENT is making it easy for me to be a doctor? HAH! You should try it, my friend - just look at the average tuition for a medical school student. If you think we're getting a free lunch, you're quite mistaken. It is expected that it will take me more than 15 years after residency to pay back my student loans from medicine (making me well over 40 by the time I'm financially "sound"). And immediately after residency, I'll be lucky to make a six-figure salary after insurance and hospital fees. So yeah, take your ignorance and shove it. You clearly haven't done your homework on the reality of becoming a physician.
And assuming that they're all intelligent people, they signed up for this knowing what was going to happen. The question is why they did it anyway if things were so dire. The answer is that things are not so dire, medicine is a very lucrative field for all involved, and that whiners like this really should shut up and go away without comparing themselves to IT folks who will make $60,000 for the rest of their lives with NO job security and crazy long hours.
If you ask the average medical student today - and trust me, we've all been asked during our admissions interviews - why we chose the field we're in, it is because we like to help people; not because we enjoy the lifestyle. In fact, continuing polls by the AMA and ACP list as the top reasons physicians enjoy and stay in medicine as the ability to help others and the possibility to make a difference in the lives of others. My previous degree is in engineering, and I have worked in information technology myself before attending medical school. I have three family members still involved in Information Technology. I can say from personal experienc
I'm a medical student who will be graduating soon and entering residency. I hope any progress from this affects us, too - currently the AAMC (which regulates the medical residency programs) limits interns and residents to an 80 hour work week. Yes, these are the people charged with learning to save lives WHILE saving lives. 80 hours per week. Most of us will sign some utterly unfair, incomprehensible, thick as a dictionary employment agreement with our hospital that basically signs our life over to them for the next 3 to 7 years. Choice tidbits of "policy" included in these contracts mention that we may be expected to be on call for anywhere from 18 to 36 hours - on hospital grounds - multiple times per week. The 80 hours limit, while "technically" weekly is only calculated on a monthly basis. Fun times.
It's great that such important people as those who maintain our information technology infrastructure are about to get a financial boost... what about those of us earning $55,000 a year or less with 8 years+ of college and post-graduate education and charged with taking care of you and your family? Everyone envisions doctors as Corvette-driving, boat-owning, million-dollar mansion homestead people. I assure you that in today's marketplace, NOBODY goes into medicine for the money - unless they're making drugs for a big-pharm company or doing boob jobs.
I have to agree with the idea that blackboards and whiteboards are great for the learning process, particularly in math and physics. As an engineering major at a large state university, I had to take all the usual high-end mathematics and physics classes - Multivariable calculus, matrix algebra, differential equations, finite mathematics, subatomic physics, etc. The same technologies you've described - tablet PC and projector - were available in all of those classes. Only a few professors decided to use them. When they did, the students banded together to tell the professor to STOP - that we'd rather they teach than give us a powerpoint or show us nifty demonstrations in Mathematica or Maple. Back to the old blackboard and everyone was happy.
It's because math and physics aren't like a business or art history class, where you can sit quietly and passively absorb information. The learning process has to be interactive to be effective. The best way to make math interactive is to reproduce exactly what students will have to do in homework and exams in class - something difficult to do with a laptop unless you're assigning them homework in Mathematica or Maple. In short, those tech tools are cute and pretty, and they may serve a purpose for high-level mathematicians once they understand the mathematics that can be replicated with those programs, but they have no place in the classroom other than to say "isn't this neat? Now back to the blackboard." Now that I'm a graduate student, we rarely touch the "real math" behind things, opting to use Matlab or another analysis tool instead... but I can still do a Fourier Transform and simulate complex systems with the math I know - if I need to. If I'd started with the technology, I know with absolute certainty that I would not have those skills.
Quote: "Just because a company is large does not mean it's trying to steal your soul."
Google, in my opinion, is the "large company trying to steal my soul." Why were Gmail accounts by invite only for so long - and then by text message? Simple: paper trail to track who users are. I view Microsoft as too big and outdated to be smart enough to figure out how to abuse users' privacy concerns. Google is the new big brother - I'm just wondering how long it will be until the general public comes to realize that all of Google's amazingly wonderful and free services come at a steep price: Google owning a piece of your soul.
I'm used to most articles about giant companies making mistakes which affect their users having a cynical "holier than thou" attitude - but when Google makes a mistake, they're still considered "young" enough to be forgiven with a short commentary on "fuming users" and how things usually work right for them. I'm not saying MS should be given a free pass when people can't get simple things like Quicktime movies working with certain hardware and the latest greatest version of Vista - but neither should Google.
"Computers break down - news at 11?" Where is that sort of "who cares" mentality when it comes to the other players? Google is big enough to know better than to screw up - as are Apple, MS, and pretty much every other company in the tech. world that has become a household name. MS sneezes wrong, and the Slashdotters post 800 comments about how everything in the world is better than MS. Google screws up, shutting down major services without explanation for long periods of time and they're given a pass. I'm tired of the slant. Maybe I'll go watch Bill O'Reilly for my "Fair and Balanced."
The "wow" factor for the use of this technology by healthy people to play video games can't be denied (if, in fact, the device works as it says it does). My huge question about this, though, is why if the technology is so good, it hasn't been implemented to help people with neurological abnormalities better control the world around them. I'm sure many a quadriplegic would be ecstatic about the opportunity to control their wheelchair or utilize a mechanical arm to help feed themselves using a helmet and the "power of thought." Instead, it seems like the first application being touted is for video game control? That doesn't make much sense to me - I would think the medical market would be where the money is at AND the population most likely to adopt such a new technology without it having to be 100% accurate all the time.
It makes me wonder if this is just a lot of hot air to get a company's name thrown around in places like Slashdot. Yay! Control video games with your brain! Then why is it researchers at the National Institutes of Health as recently as two years ago still couldn't get a similar technology to work with a level of accuracy greater than that of random chance just to tell whether a person was going to move their right or left arm before the motion actually took place? Oh, and those analyses were done with EEG, which involves the use of a skullcap with 30+ electrical leads stuck directly to a person's scalp with a special electro-conductive gel. I'm sure if that's required to make this "helmet" work, it probably won't go over too well since setting up a clinical EEG skullcap takes upwards of 10 minutes and can be rather painful, depending on how much hair a person has.
I think one of the key problems here isn't necessarily the statistical methods used, it is that the CMU team was comparing real-life drive performance to the "ideal" performance levels predicted by the drive manufacturers. Allow me to provide two examples of this "apples to oranges" comparison problem.
I have had two computers with power supply units that were "acting up." They ended up killing my hard drives on multiple occasions - Seagates, WD's, Maxtors, etc. It didn't matter what type of drive you put in these systems, the drive would die after anywhere from a week to two years. I later discovered that the power supplies were the problems, replaced them with brand new ones, and replaced the drives one last time. That was quite some time ago (years), and those drives, although small, still work, and have been transferred into newer computer systems since that time. The PSU was killing the drives; they weren't inherently bad or had a manufacturing defect. A friend of mine who lives in an apartment building constructed circa 1930 experienced similar problems with his drives. After just a few months, it seemed like his drives would spontaneously fail. When I tested his grounding plug, I found that it was carrying a voltage of about 30V (a hot ground - how wonderful). Since he moved out of that building and replaced his computer's PSU, no drive failures.
The same type of thing is true in automobile mileage testing. Car manufacturers must subject their cars to tests based on rules and procedures dictated by state and federal government agencies. These tests are almost never real world - driving on hilly terrain, through winds, with the headlights and window wipers on, plus the AC for defrost. They're based on a certain protocol developed in a laboratory to level the playing field and ensure that the ratings, for the most part, are similar. It simply means when you buy a new car, you can expect that under ideal conditions and at the beginning of the vehicle's life, it should BE ABLE to get the gas mileage listed on the window (based on an average sampling of the performance of many vehicles).
My point is that there really isn't a decent way to go about ensuring that an estimated statistic is valid for individual situations. By modifying the environmental conditions, the "rules of the game" change. A data-center with exceptional environmental control and voltage regulation systems, and top-quality server components (PSU's, voltage regulators, etc.) should expect to experience fewer drive failures per year than the drives found in an old chicken-shack data center set up in some hillbilly's back yard out in the middle of nowhere where quality is the last thing on the IT team's mind. It's impractical to expect that EVERY data center will be ideal - and since it's very very difficult to have better than the "ideal" testing conditions used in the MTTF tests - the real-life performance can only move towards more frequent and early failures. Using the car example above, since almost nobody is going to be using their vehicle in conditions BETTER than the ideal dictated by the protocols set forth by the government, and almost EVERYONE will be using their vehicles under worse conditions, the population average and median have nowhere to go but down. That doesn't mean the number is wrong, it just means that it's what the vehicle is capable of - but almost never demonstrates in terms of its performance - since ideal conditions in the real world are SO rare.
It might be wise for whomever posted this to read the article more completely before publishing. PPAR-gamma is a receptor found within/on cells, NOT a separate "magic compound." This is old news, anyway - PPAR-gamma's effects with respect to cancer have been well understood for months now.
Notice how it says "implicated in cancer"? That information has been there for quite some time. Time for people to stop posting this antiquated junk as "new news."
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As I said, no data has been compromised so obviously my process is fine. I do wish the security technology was more substantial so that if the process failed, additional safeguards would be in place to protect data. Paper files lack any encryption and can be taken with as simple a technology as a photocopier, camera phone, or even just by folding up a page and stuffing it in a pocket. Digital technology is an incredible step forwards in providing easier access to patient data for healthcare professionals, and inherently provides an additional barrier to theft or misuse: if your files are in my lab coat on my PDA or in my pants pocket on my PDA, there's a far less likely chance that they will be compromised than if they're on a piece of paper in my car, home, or office. That's not enough, though. Encryption and easy-to-use authentication are lacking... the technology must be improved as more digital access is expected of physicians; improving the process is not the issue once adequate training has been implemented. You can attempt to turn this into a personal witch-hunt against me (which it's obvious from your first post you've been attempting to do by calling out my personal and professional abilities and judgement) or you can discuss the technology, the unrealistic expectations placed on individuals in many industries including the healthcare industry, and help brainstorm the solutions that should be made available for such problems. In your second reply, you go so far as to state that this isn't the correct "venue for this discussion." If you mean this isn't the correct venue for a discussion about technology in the healthcare workplace and risk of data theft - and the way people in the profession are trying to find a balance between required technology use and poor security tools, I think you're incorrect - this is the perfect venue for such a discussion. If you mean that this isn't the appropriate venue for me to have to defend myself from a personal attack by a nobody on the other end of an internet connection who thinks he knows all there is to know about human factors, technology, and security but who is so ignorant that he doesn't even agree that there is some validity to the complaints I've voiced... then I totally agree - this isn't the venue for that. Take your trolling elsewhere. >
Very well said. Much better than Pilgrim's "holier than thou" attitude.
Reprehensibly lax? You'd be surprised how insufficient most healthcare systems are when it comes to securing patient privacy. The extent of HIPAA at some hospitals involves ensuring that the clipboard cover of a patient's chart is closed when visitors or guests walk past - though there's nothing to stop those visitors from picking up the file and looking in it while nobody at the clerk station is paying attention.
The point here is that healthcare records are going electronic. I'm required to have OB/GYN notes for patients on me at the drop of a hat in case a delivery comes through the ER doors at 2 in the morning. When I'm heading to a patient's home for a visit (yes, some of us still do visit patients' homes!), it's far more convenient - and safer - for me to have their phone number and chart on my Smartphone than to print out their chart and bring a paper copy to their house. What happens if I am in a car accident and the file is stolen in the mix of the accident? What happens if someone breaks into my vehicle and I have other patient files kept there for other visits that I plan to do during the day (which I can't bring into the home and expose to the patient I'm seeing - again, HIPAA).
It's far more simple to have records stored in one SECURE place, but not every component of that device is secure. I haven't heard of any HanDBase hacks yet - I'm sure they're out there in the wild - but I haven't heard of them. Still, that leaves other information open to use an exploitation. HanDBase doesn't integrate well with the phone system; you can't even copy and paste a phone number for a patient from HanDBase into the phone application on my SmartPhone - so do I write it down? Do I try to remember the phone number and risk dialing a wrong number and giving my patient's name to some unknown person on the other end of the line when I ask for them (especially since I'm usually doing about 2 dozen things at a time) - or do I store the numbers of the patients I call most often in the address book and simply tap "call" next to their name when I need to contact them?
You lack a basic understanding of the workload placed on healthcare professionals and the impracticality of using a centralized computer system for everything. Thank goodness our health network is going wireless so docs can continue using their phones - which have become invaluable in improving patient care - and use them safely through encrypted data connections back to the hospital data center. You act as though storing a few patient files on a phone is some sort of sin; you give me a better way to have the exact prescriptions, doses, surgical and medical histories, etc. on every patient at my fingertips when I'm called to the ER to see one of my patients and the hospital's computer system is down or the record can't be found in the system because of reason X, Y, or Z. FIX THE TECH. The people want to USE the tech and use it responsibly, but if the technology isn't repaired FIRST, then the expectations placed on practitioners to go paperless are placing everyone at risk.
I'm describing the problem - it needs a solution. If you don't have one, I suggest you put your fingers in your ears instead of on your keyboard.
I have no experience with Blackberries. Do they support traditional wifi (802.11a/b/g/n?) I thought emails and all that went through Blackberry's central servers before being passed on to the organization's or corporation's servers. I know this data is encrypted, but does it meet the encryption requirements laid down for electronic medical records in HIPAA? I also wonder about Blackberry service coverage. In many of the buildings where I work, I don't get cell service (Sprint) and my peers do not either (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc). There is local wifi available, but can Blackberry use that? I know some of the phones from AT&T (I think one is called the Flip or something) and the iPhone do both cell-data network wireless internet and have 802.11a/b/g/n wireless, so they could be used within our facilities. Just wondering what the limitations of the seemingly "perfect" Blackberry platform really are.
I've had a Palm Treo 755p Smartphone for a about 9 months. I have a lot of medical data on my unit, including (unfortunately) some patient data. I've tried to use Palm's "Private Records" feature for sensitive data, but it's too complex and unreliable. Some things that I mark as private show up in the regular views anyway, without needing to be unlocked with a password, even after I try to "lock" them or mark them as "private" multiple times. I doubt they're actually encrypted, either - probably just a bit-flag which only some software on the device reads and uses.
So I tried instead to setup an automatic lock on my device - I figure a power-on password should be fine. I set that up - and unfortunately, even though I set it to auto-lock after 1 hour of non-use, it NEVER asks for the power-on password. I've set it up exactly as Palm's site suggests... it still won't auto-lock the unit.
The thing is that the tech seems to need a fix before we can go about blaming the users. I've never lost a patient file or my phone, but obviously it would be a major problem if something like that did happen. Thankfully, the healthcare system I work for is going to electronic records, so nothing will be stored on my Palm anymore; I'll just use my cell plan to connect to the server (SSL encrypted) and access files wirelessly.
Still, there are other things I'd rather not have fall into a criminal's hands... hospital phone numbers, phone numbers of peers, nurses, other physicians, pagers, laboratories, etc. But my model, at least, is simply inadequate in protecting this data. Someone needs to come up with something better than what's currently available - maybe once it's "expected" - much like a password when you log onto Windows - it won't be such a big deal for people to use it.
Then perhaps the way Lieberman needs to go about this is to work behind the scenes to subpoena the IP address information of the people who posted the videos rather than requesting the removal of the videos - then he could shame the countries that are allowing the offending videos to be posted from their IP blocks and the US could take legal action against them. Wait, Bush is still in office... we'll take military action instead since talking to them would be "appeasement."
And as for the India case, Google is a US company which has a global presence through the internet. Simple human rights such as freedom of speech are guaranteed by many multi-national treaties and resolutions. Countries that violate such rights are not on the side of the international conscience. Apparently Google's greed and desire to do business in backwards third-world nations supercedes their willingness to stand up for basic human rights. If a country is going to violate human rights, why continue to do business there? Or has morality lost all meaning in America?
I, for one, will not be using any more Google services or products in the future. This nonsense has to stop. Google will fall. It's just a matter of time until they implode like so many other dot-coms constructed like a house of cards on the sale of a single product on the internet - in Google's case, cheap advertising that scams people and companies who pay for it due to click fraud and unscrupulous web hosts and site operators. There is a reason Google's other products are all free; nobody would ever pay money for the other junk they produce, even with all the "smartest minds" in Silicon Valley beating down their door to come work for them. They're a has-been. Their recent follies prove that the end is near.
Google didn't seem to have much support for freedom of speech when they assisted the government of India in locating a man who posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, as reported yesterday on Slashdot. Strong supporters of freedom of speech indeed - right up until the protection of a user's right to freedom of speech threatens to strain Google's political relationships with distant countries where labor and data center construction are cheap.
I know plenty of people who are fed up with the integrated "Blazer" browser on their Palm-based devices - especially Treo devices. Opera offers Opera Mini for the platform, but it is cumbersome and lacks even some basic features. It's also notorious for crashing the system. As far as I know, Palm is looking for developers to make mainstream programs for their OS - they even offer free software development kits, APIs, and more on their site to all developers. Some on here may laugh and consider Palm OS an outdated beast, but a lot of professionals use Treos running Palm OS and MS Direct Push technology rather than Blackberries, iPhones, or other devices. If Mozilla wants to break into the mobile browser market, why not make a browser that will smoke the two paltry PalmOS-based offerings currently available and grab a major share of the market on these devices instead of competing to release *another* browser for devices that already have many options?
Personally, I prefer merging, simply because there's less potential for data loss. It's easier to manually delete extra files than it is to restore missing ones. It might not be any more "intuitive" but it's safer.
My point exactly. I want my computer to protect my unknowing mother, brother, uncle, or grandfather from accidentally deleting hundreds of important documents. If they click "continue" or "Yes to all" when asked about merging on a PC, the worst they'll do is overwrite photos or documents with the exact same names. In my own technical support experiences, people tend to rename things that are important for them - a thesis may be found on a student's computer with 15 to 20 different names. A Master's project paper may be saved with a few different "version" names. Chances are, merging won't overwrite anything that isn't an exact duplicate, with the way people's minds work and the way they name files when saving important things. And with my photo example - most digital cameras keep a running counter at least from 0 to 9999 with their file numbering system, even after changing memory cards or downloading the pics to the computer. Chances of overwriting old, precious photos are very low with a merge. My Canon handheld camera counts higher than 9999... few people have that many photos in 1 directory anyway. With the "overwrite this folder" option that is the DEFAULT on Macs, one errant click and it not only moves the files, but deletes ALL of your original files. THAT is a problem. Oh, and how do you do a merge copy on a Mac? Open the command line or go into each directory and move the files within them by hand... wow; that's easy and intuitive.
Honestly, it took me a little while to get used to it, but now that I expect it, it's fine. Usually, if I'm doing anything complicated with copying/moving lots of stuff recursively, I'm going to want to use a command line anyhow. In the command-line, "cp" and "mv" work in normal unix fashion.
I guess the reason I have a problem with this is that my own computer usually has 3 drive letters listed - the internal hard drive, an external hard drive, and my USB flash drive, which I plug in when I sign on, usually. The typical user drags and drops a folder called "photos" from their flash drive to their desktop, which - unfortunately - also contains a folder called "photos"... they click the wrong button thinking it will replace duplicate files WITHIN the folder, not the folder itself (a careful wording change that could easily be missed in a hurry) and bam - all of the photos that were on the desktop to begin with are gone! For a user who seems reasonably knowledgable about Apples to say that the easiest way to do a simple directory merge is to whip out a command prompt and do some Unix-style command prompt kung-fu proves just how flawed Apple's little Finder thing is. It's time for a total rework.
Enough of the fanboys being wowed by cute translucent graphics and crap... improve the functionality first, for goodness sake. Oh... and when I'm closing a maximized window in Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, or Vista, I can click in the top right corner of the screen (not actually on the "X" to close the window) - and it closes the window. On a Mac... if you can even figure out how to maximize, you gotta click right on. Don't click that piece of desktop showing in the middle of the CD icon on your screen on a Mac - you didn't click the icon PICTURE, so it won't click the icon. My mom with her arthritis has no problem with the PC - click in the vicinity of the icon and it knows what you're doing. How is even something as simple as scroll-bar manipulation, window manipulation, and icon manipulation STILL so flawed in Apple's OS? God-damnit, I want my file menu at the top of the window not at the top of the screen with that stupid little Apple icon. When I click "FILE" in an inactive window on a PC, it opens the menu without trouble. On a mac... click the window first to activate, wait for the menu at the top to change to that program's menu, then go click on file. Waste of time. Programming design flaws. Stop trying to hold onto the past... make something NEW and FUNCTIONAL for a change.
I used to recommend Macs because they were easy to use and relatively safe when manipulating files and data - so I told people I liked to get them. Now I recommend them to people I hate - I hope they lose their precious family photos because of a basic programming glitch... and blew $1800 on an overpriced piece of shit that some has-been in a turtleneck brainwashed them into thinking was the best thing in the world.
From what I know of the BBC, they've always prided themselves on "spreading the word" of the BBC as far and wide as possible, setting up broadcast stations in some of the most remote parts of the world to share their news, informational programming, and perhaps most importantly - the English language - with those who often have very limited resources. I can tell from personal experience - I am able to receive the BBC from midnight to 4 AM on my local public radio station here in Indiana on a nightly basis... I was able to receive the BBC loud and clear when I was on a relief trip to Honduras (though I think the programming was moderately different from that received here in Indiana) - and one of my peers reported being able to receive the BBC when he was in a remote part of Africa on a hunting expedition. For a company that claims to want to make their information accessible to everyone, I find their explanation for a Windows-only launch of their player less than satisfying.
I don't think that MS and the BBC are necessarily in bed together. The problem likely stems from hiring programmers that aren't familiar with porting software to the Linux platform. I know that the BBC is well-funded, but I have serious doubts about the influence this project's leader within the BBC has over the "uppers" who write his budget and provide his human resources. With limited resources, the idea might be to "cast the net as wide as possible." Sure, porting the player to be Linux-compatible *should* be really easy, but I can say from experience that porting multimedia software that incorporates a significant amount of network interface software to access the feeds from the internet from Windows to Linux often requires something of a "special touch" - something I, unfortunately, do not have. Those programmers they hired built the software they did, perhaps, as a "test." CNN and the NY Times have both launched major media projects that later failed - this might be the BBC testing the waters to see what demand is. Still, their excuse could be a little more realistic and honest.
I remember back when I was a Best Buy salesperson... I was only 16 or 17 at the time... working in the computer sales department. One of our "duties" at the end of the night was to get all of the returned goods from Customer Service, bring the items back to the department, and place "open box" price stickers on them if they had been opened or reshelf the products if they hadn't been opened.
Going through the products one night, I came across a video card box that "felt funny." The shrink-wrap was hard and tough, not the soft shrink-wrap type that stretches when you pull on it. I brought the box to my manager, along with one from the shelf - wrapped in the softer shrinkwrap. We opened up the box that had been returned, the one with the hard wrapping, only to find an ancient, dirty / dust-covered modem inside rather than the $150+ video card. My manager searched the return receipts for that night, hoping to stop the refund to the guy's credit card before the transactions posted for the night. He found the receipt - the guy was careful and paid cash, so Best Buy ate the price of the card on that one.
So yeah, this type of bull happens all the time at brick and mortar stores. There's not much Best Buy can do about it, and not much a consumer can do other than beware of unusual packaging anomalies. I've come across similar "strange items" in my own shopping experiences. I usually leave the odd-ball package in favor of one that is more like all the others on the shelf. If it's the last one on the shelf, I'll usually buy it at customer service, then open it right there, in front of the employees, to make sure it's ok inside.
Buyer beware... and don't expect Best Buy to foot the bill for you being the unlucky shmuck to pick the box that someone re-wrapped. That just isn't how they roll, I can tell you, after 4 long, painful years of working there.
Sorry, I know I can be verbose sometimes. You got the summary right on the ball. :-) Thanks HitchingStick.
Unfortunately, you've got this wrong. Type II Diabetes is a failure of equilibrium functionality, not a case of hyperactivity of equilibrium mechanisms in the body. The body works to maintain equilibrium by releasing insulin following consumption of a meal, which in turn tells the cells of the body (primarily skeletal muscle cells) to take up glucose from the bloodstream. Type II diabetes, at its core, is a syndrome of insulin resistance, not a syndrome in insulin insufficiency. The skeletal muscle cells become less attentive to insulin signalling and refuse to take up glucose from the bloodstream in response to normal insulin levels within the body. The pancreas attempts to compensate by up-regulating the insulin thermostat, producing more and more insulin to try to get the muscles to respond by taking up the glucose. Glucose, if not taken up rapidly by the body's cells, can be harmful as it results in glycosylation of proteins all over the body (including in hemoglobin, in the form of HbA1C, which is a useful marker for long-term diabetes management analysis). The muscles become less willing to respond to the increased doses of insulin produced by the pancreas. Eventually, if not managed carefully, the pancreas may "burn itself out" - producing sub-normal levels of insulin, causing a type II diabetic to become insulin-injection dependent.
This research is incredibly interesting since it may reverse the burn-out syndrome and alleviate the need for poorly managed type II diabetics to inject insulin. It will not, however, reverse the insulin resistance present in insulin-sensitive cells within the body.
In order to set up shop in a particular specialty, you must be board certified in that specialty. Without that certification, you can *attempt* to practice medicine in that area, but no insurance company will pay you a penny for your work. So you'd be taking money cash-in-hand from patients. One of those patients sues you, all they need to say to a jury is that you're not board certified in the area of medicine in which you were practicing and it's a guaranteed loss for the doctor. Board certification in a particular specialty requires the requisite training in an accredited residency program in that are of medicine.
As for simply "buying" the training - it's not possible. The training programs are strictly controlled on an application-only basis. It is not possible to buy your way into them. At my particular school, there are a total of 3 residency slots available for plastic surgery, 2 for dermatology, and 6 for radiology. My graduating class will number well over 200 (I go to one of the largest medical schools in the nation). Those residency spots are open to ANYONE in the country graduating from medical school, as well as foreign applicants graduating from foreign medical education programs - not just to students at my own school. Once you've picked your field and do a residency in that area, you're virtually restricted to that for life, legally and financially. There is no sideways mobility within medicine because even the most basic areas require 3 to 5 years of post-med-school training before you can be certified in that area... even pediatrics and family medicine. Changing from, say, an OB/GYN to an opthalmologist is virtually impossible because all residency training places go to "fresh from med. school" doctors. Residency programs want fresh faces that they can mold into their image, not crusty 45 year old family practice docs looking to get ahead by switching to high-priced plastics or dermatology.
Clearly you did not read my original post in its entirety. MOST doctors don't have that position. Reason being - the positions are limited and only a select few are allowed to go into them. If every doctor COULD and DID go into them, who would you call when you had back pain, a runny nose, or - heaven forbid - an STD. You have - again - no idea how medicine works. Doctors take tests and exams for the rest of their lives, constantly being re-certified in their selected specialty until they retire. When doctors apply to residency programs, the programs have a limited number of spots. Plastics, dermatology, and the surgical specialties all have very few slots available for the 20,000+ doctors graduating from medical school each year. The majority of those doctors are forced, not by choice, but by sheer lack of available positions - to take a primary care specialty, such as pediatrics, family medicine, internal medicine, or OB/GYN. If you think that once you've got "MD" after your name, you call the shots and decide what area of medicine in which you're going to work, you're quite mistaken. You throw your name into a huge computer run by the residency match program service, list your specialty and hospital preferences, interview with those places that choose to interview you - and hope the computer assigns you to the one you want. Not everybody can be a radiologist, plastic surgeon, or dermatologist doing botox injections or sitting on their ass reading digital x-ray "films" every day - nor should everybody. Somebody has to take care of your kid when they've got the sniffles or you when you throw your back out playing paintball with the guys from work. Doing it for 70+ hours a week for peanuts while other doctors pull in almost 7 figures a year for getting rid of your wife's wrinkles or making her look like Chesty LaRou - that's the problem.
Wow - that's pretty intense. So... I should pick my profession based on monetary reward, not based on whether or not I like to do what I'm doing? That's a pretty bad way to look at life and a career choice. I'm simply saying that if IT "professionals" are going to bitch and moan about unfair compensation, shouldn't the rest of the professional world be allowed to join in the fight for fair wages? Do you AGREE that an NP with an anesthesiology certificate who works 35 hours a week reading a magazine while machines do most of his or her work should be making more than a 70-hour a week pediatrician working with screaming kids all day? That's where the injustice comes in... Get angry at me for choosing a path that is more concerned with helping others and doing what I love than making a huge paycheck - that makes a lot of sense. I think you have some serious personal issues that you need to resolve with respect to your relationships with healthcare professionals as a whole.
And why don't you grow a pair and get an account if you're going to use such powerful language in a comment here instead of posting anonymously?
Doctors complaining about how little they make as residents are whiny little babies that I want to backhand. First, all the poor little doctors say that they didn't enter the field to make money--then immediately start complaining about how little money they make. Then they complain about how they make only $55,000 a year right out of medical school and how that's nothing compared to the 80 hour work-weeks they have to maintain. But they ignore the fact that after they complete their residencies, they're basically guaranteed over $200,000 for the rest of their lives.
Not true at all, my friend. Malpractice insurance runs into the tens of thousands of dollars annually, even for physicians with clean records. The average family practice doc earns $150,000 - median salary amongst all ages of physicians - according to the Department of Labor. The average pediatrician (median salary) earns $135,000 a year. Let's look at the late night phone calls - continued working of 60 to 70 hours per week to maintain that salary, constant fighting with insurance companies to even take home the money to which they're entitled... and we see why this is a problem. It is the rare exception that earns over $200,000 a year in medicine, except in specific specialties such as neurosurgery and cardiothoracic surgery. Most physicians do not go into such specialties, though. Approximately half of all doctors pursue primary care instead - fewer and fewer each year - specifically because of the threat of low wages.
Unlike law or banking, doctors have job security and high-paying jobs.
Right... little Billy comes to see you for a cough. You treat the cough but miss the hangnail on his toe. His drug-addicted mom doesn't take him back to the doc until the toe is infected and gangrenous. Billy has to have his toe amputated. You get sued out of business by said drug addict mom. That's job security alright!
Furthermore, the government pays the hospitals hundreds of thousands of dollars for each resident they take to offset training costs. That's right, we pay for their education.
You do? Then why is my current financial situation such that I have more than $200,000 in debt, earning close to $1000 monthly in interest right now? You think the GOVERNMENT is making it easy for me to be a doctor? HAH! You should try it, my friend - just look at the average tuition for a medical school student. If you think we're getting a free lunch, you're quite mistaken. It is expected that it will take me more than 15 years after residency to pay back my student loans from medicine (making me well over 40 by the time I'm financially "sound"). And immediately after residency, I'll be lucky to make a six-figure salary after insurance and hospital fees. So yeah, take your ignorance and shove it. You clearly haven't done your homework on the reality of becoming a physician.
And assuming that they're all intelligent people, they signed up for this knowing what was going to happen. The question is why they did it anyway if things were so dire. The answer is that things are not so dire, medicine is a very lucrative field for all involved, and that whiners like this really should shut up and go away without comparing themselves to IT folks who will make $60,000 for the rest of their lives with NO job security and crazy long hours.
If you ask the average medical student today - and trust me, we've all been asked during our admissions interviews - why we chose the field we're in, it is because we like to help people; not because we enjoy the lifestyle. In fact, continuing polls by the AMA and ACP list as the top reasons physicians enjoy and stay in medicine as the ability to help others and the possibility to make a difference in the lives of others. My previous degree is in engineering, and I have worked in information technology myself before attending medical school. I have three family members still involved in Information Technology. I can say from personal experienc
I'm a medical student who will be graduating soon and entering residency. I hope any progress from this affects us, too - currently the AAMC (which regulates the medical residency programs) limits interns and residents to an 80 hour work week. Yes, these are the people charged with learning to save lives WHILE saving lives. 80 hours per week. Most of us will sign some utterly unfair, incomprehensible, thick as a dictionary employment agreement with our hospital that basically signs our life over to them for the next 3 to 7 years. Choice tidbits of "policy" included in these contracts mention that we may be expected to be on call for anywhere from 18 to 36 hours - on hospital grounds - multiple times per week. The 80 hours limit, while "technically" weekly is only calculated on a monthly basis. Fun times.
It's great that such important people as those who maintain our information technology infrastructure are about to get a financial boost... what about those of us earning $55,000 a year or less with 8 years+ of college and post-graduate education and charged with taking care of you and your family? Everyone envisions doctors as Corvette-driving, boat-owning, million-dollar mansion homestead people. I assure you that in today's marketplace, NOBODY goes into medicine for the money - unless they're making drugs for a big-pharm company or doing boob jobs.
I have to agree with the idea that blackboards and whiteboards are great for the learning process, particularly in math and physics. As an engineering major at a large state university, I had to take all the usual high-end mathematics and physics classes - Multivariable calculus, matrix algebra, differential equations, finite mathematics, subatomic physics, etc. The same technologies you've described - tablet PC and projector - were available in all of those classes. Only a few professors decided to use them. When they did, the students banded together to tell the professor to STOP - that we'd rather they teach than give us a powerpoint or show us nifty demonstrations in Mathematica or Maple. Back to the old blackboard and everyone was happy.
It's because math and physics aren't like a business or art history class, where you can sit quietly and passively absorb information. The learning process has to be interactive to be effective. The best way to make math interactive is to reproduce exactly what students will have to do in homework and exams in class - something difficult to do with a laptop unless you're assigning them homework in Mathematica or Maple. In short, those tech tools are cute and pretty, and they may serve a purpose for high-level mathematicians once they understand the mathematics that can be replicated with those programs, but they have no place in the classroom other than to say "isn't this neat? Now back to the blackboard." Now that I'm a graduate student, we rarely touch the "real math" behind things, opting to use Matlab or another analysis tool instead... but I can still do a Fourier Transform and simulate complex systems with the math I know - if I need to. If I'd started with the technology, I know with absolute certainty that I would not have those skills.
Quote: "Just because a company is large does not mean it's trying to steal your soul."
Google, in my opinion, is the "large company trying to steal my soul." Why were Gmail accounts by invite only for so long - and then by text message? Simple: paper trail to track who users are. I view Microsoft as too big and outdated to be smart enough to figure out how to abuse users' privacy concerns. Google is the new big brother - I'm just wondering how long it will be until the general public comes to realize that all of Google's amazingly wonderful and free services come at a steep price: Google owning a piece of your soul.
I'm used to most articles about giant companies making mistakes which affect their users having a cynical "holier than thou" attitude - but when Google makes a mistake, they're still considered "young" enough to be forgiven with a short commentary on "fuming users" and how things usually work right for them. I'm not saying MS should be given a free pass when people can't get simple things like Quicktime movies working with certain hardware and the latest greatest version of Vista - but neither should Google.
"Computers break down - news at 11?" Where is that sort of "who cares" mentality when it comes to the other players? Google is big enough to know better than to screw up - as are Apple, MS, and pretty much every other company in the tech. world that has become a household name. MS sneezes wrong, and the Slashdotters post 800 comments about how everything in the world is better than MS. Google screws up, shutting down major services without explanation for long periods of time and they're given a pass. I'm tired of the slant. Maybe I'll go watch Bill O'Reilly for my "Fair and Balanced."
The "wow" factor for the use of this technology by healthy people to play video games can't be denied (if, in fact, the device works as it says it does). My huge question about this, though, is why if the technology is so good, it hasn't been implemented to help people with neurological abnormalities better control the world around them. I'm sure many a quadriplegic would be ecstatic about the opportunity to control their wheelchair or utilize a mechanical arm to help feed themselves using a helmet and the "power of thought." Instead, it seems like the first application being touted is for video game control? That doesn't make much sense to me - I would think the medical market would be where the money is at AND the population most likely to adopt such a new technology without it having to be 100% accurate all the time.
It makes me wonder if this is just a lot of hot air to get a company's name thrown around in places like Slashdot. Yay! Control video games with your brain! Then why is it researchers at the National Institutes of Health as recently as two years ago still couldn't get a similar technology to work with a level of accuracy greater than that of random chance just to tell whether a person was going to move their right or left arm before the motion actually took place? Oh, and those analyses were done with EEG, which involves the use of a skullcap with 30+ electrical leads stuck directly to a person's scalp with a special electro-conductive gel. I'm sure if that's required to make this "helmet" work, it probably won't go over too well since setting up a clinical EEG skullcap takes upwards of 10 minutes and can be rather painful, depending on how much hair a person has.
I think one of the key problems here isn't necessarily the statistical methods used, it is that the CMU team was comparing real-life drive performance to the "ideal" performance levels predicted by the drive manufacturers. Allow me to provide two examples of this "apples to oranges" comparison problem.
I have had two computers with power supply units that were "acting up." They ended up killing my hard drives on multiple occasions - Seagates, WD's, Maxtors, etc. It didn't matter what type of drive you put in these systems, the drive would die after anywhere from a week to two years. I later discovered that the power supplies were the problems, replaced them with brand new ones, and replaced the drives one last time. That was quite some time ago (years), and those drives, although small, still work, and have been transferred into newer computer systems since that time. The PSU was killing the drives; they weren't inherently bad or had a manufacturing defect. A friend of mine who lives in an apartment building constructed circa 1930 experienced similar problems with his drives. After just a few months, it seemed like his drives would spontaneously fail. When I tested his grounding plug, I found that it was carrying a voltage of about 30V (a hot ground - how wonderful). Since he moved out of that building and replaced his computer's PSU, no drive failures.
The same type of thing is true in automobile mileage testing. Car manufacturers must subject their cars to tests based on rules and procedures dictated by state and federal government agencies. These tests are almost never real world - driving on hilly terrain, through winds, with the headlights and window wipers on, plus the AC for defrost. They're based on a certain protocol developed in a laboratory to level the playing field and ensure that the ratings, for the most part, are similar. It simply means when you buy a new car, you can expect that under ideal conditions and at the beginning of the vehicle's life, it should BE ABLE to get the gas mileage listed on the window (based on an average sampling of the performance of many vehicles).
My point is that there really isn't a decent way to go about ensuring that an estimated statistic is valid for individual situations. By modifying the environmental conditions, the "rules of the game" change. A data-center with exceptional environmental control and voltage regulation systems, and top-quality server components (PSU's, voltage regulators, etc.) should expect to experience fewer drive failures per year than the drives found in an old chicken-shack data center set up in some hillbilly's back yard out in the middle of nowhere where quality is the last thing on the IT team's mind. It's impractical to expect that EVERY data center will be ideal - and since it's very very difficult to have better than the "ideal" testing conditions used in the MTTF tests - the real-life performance can only move towards more frequent and early failures. Using the car example above, since almost nobody is going to be using their vehicle in conditions BETTER than the ideal dictated by the protocols set forth by the government, and almost EVERYONE will be using their vehicles under worse conditions, the population average and median have nowhere to go but down. That doesn't mean the number is wrong, it just means that it's what the vehicle is capable of - but almost never demonstrates in terms of its performance - since ideal conditions in the real world are SO rare.
It might be wise for whomever posted this to read the article more completely before publishing. PPAR-gamma is a receptor found within/on cells, NOT a separate "magic compound." This is old news, anyway - PPAR-gamma's effects with respect to cancer have been well understood for months now.
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Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=
Notice how it says "implicated in cancer"? That information has been there for quite some time. Time for people to stop posting this antiquated junk as "new news."