The Wall Street Journal earlier this week published the results of a poll it commissioned on the benefits (and one would hope, the potential risks) of an electronic medical record (EMR, also known as an electronic health record [EHR] or personal health record [PHR]). A summary of the results:

The survey of 2,153 U.S. adults, conducted […]

Last week there was a big-to-do about former Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Conner’s husband John O’Conner, and his love affair with another woman. One of the articles I read on this topic, posted on CNN.com and titled “Son: O’Connor not jealous of husband’s new relationship”, stated that Sandra is not jealous of her […]

You remember Friendster, don’t you? That was the big social networking site a few years ago. Or how about Myspace? No?
Then maybe you’re repeating history and you don’t even realize it as you fill out your Facebook profile and think, “Wow, this is so cool!” Cory Doctorow has an excellent article entitled, How Your Creepy […]

You may have missed this if you don’t regularly read The Washington Post, but staff writer Shankar Vedantam wrote an excellent article describing how recent research into schizophrenia is increasingly pointing to maternal infections during the first and second trimester of pregnancy — especially flu infections:

That’s because the newest studies suggest the culprit may not […]

In the wake of the Virginia Tech murders earlier this year, Virginia’s legislators are looking at whether to make it easier to commit people who are a danger to themselves or others. This is a complete and utter deflection of the problem that states like Virginia actually face — a decline in support and funding […]

Earlier this month, Time magazine published a first-person account of a doctor having to deal with a challenging patient who came to him after having conducted some research via Google. The doctor’s description of his disdain for these kinds of patients, and this particular patient and her child, wasn’t very politically correct, which caught […]

It’s amazing how quickly guilt can kick in for the smallest, most meaningless things in our lives.
Guilt is an emotional warning sign that most people learn through their normal childhood social development. Its purpose is to let us know when we’ve done something wrong, to help us develop a better sense of our behavior […]

Since this myth seems to keep making the rounds and has perhaps even become conventional wisdom, it’s time to put it to rest permanently.
Newer medications do not necessarily have fewer or less severe side effects. While often the initial clinical trials done to have the medication approved by the FDA show fewer side effects for […]

When I was a kid my brother invented a game that we both thought was hilarious, at least for a little while anyhow. “Rip-Cord”, as it came to be known, involved him lying on his back with his knees bent into his chest. Then I would sit on his feet and yell “Rip-Cord” and […]

An article, titled “Patients with Schizophrenia More Likely to Suffer from Ruptured Appendix” reports on a study published in BMC Public Health, which says that schizophrenic patients are more likely to experience a burst appendix. The researchers in the study examined discharge data from Taiwanese hospitals for both those patients with a […]

People with bipolar disorder are at a higher risk for suicide than other in the general public. Based on this risk, a lot of research is being done to understand this process and how to prevent suicides. According to some new research, if someone with bipolar disorder has a family member who committed suicide, it […]

Do you help or hinder educating people about mental illness when you title a column “undefinable madness,” then proceed to define it poorly?
Elissa Ely provides the fodder in today’s The Boston Globe through an op-ed on schizophrenia. I wanted to like this column, but I was immediately put off by her self-assured misrepresentation of our […]