Dispatches from a Dying Empire

Dispatches from abroad: aground in a sea of TB.

ral Sea, Karakalpakstan — It's another punishingly hot day as I make my way to the project sites for a routine supervisory visit. Médecins sans Frontières is in this remote , semi-autonomous region of Uzbekistan to help the local Ministry of Health combat a frightening tuberculosis epidemic. By training local health care workers and providing drugs, laboratories , and water and sanitation upgra...

Dispatches from abroad: laughter amid the land mines.

Dispatches from the Interface of Salivary Bioscience and Neonatal Research

The emergence of the interdisciplinary field of salivary bioscience has created opportunity for neonatal researchers to measure multiple components of biological systems non-invasively in oral fluids. The implications are profound and potentially high impact. From a single oral fluid specimen, information can be obtained about a vast array of biological systems (e.g., endocrine, immune, autonom...

Dispatches from the Freud wars: psychoanalysis and its passions

banned psychoanalysis as a Jewish science and there was no organized psychotherapy in a situation dominated by racial biology. In Psychotherapy in the Third Reich, Cocks recovered the history of the German institute for psychological research and psychotherapy, generally known as the Goering Institute after its chief, the psychotherapist Mathias Goering, a cousin of the infamous Hermann Goering...

Dying From Cancer

Medical oncologists and patients with advanced cancer struggle to discuss prognosis, goals, options, and values in a timely fashion. As a consequence, many patients die receiving aggressive treatment potentially inconsistent with their fully informed preferences and experience increased symptom burden and distress. The goals of patient oncologist communication include exchanging information, bu...