Urban Legends: Doctors Really Should Know Better

7 Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 20 December 2007 07



Popular culture is loaded with myths and half-truths. Most are harmless. But when doctors start believing medical myths, perhaps it's time to worry.
In the British Medical Journal this week, researchers looked into several common misconceptions, from the belief that a person should drink eight glasses of water per day to the notion that reading in low light ruins your eyesight.
"We got fired up about this because we knew that physicians accepted these beliefs and were passing this information along to their patients," said Dr. Aaron Carroll, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. "And these beliefs are frequently cited in the popular media."
And so here they are, so that you can inform your doctor:
Myth: We use only 10 percent of our brains.
Fact: Physicians and comedians alike, including Jerry Seinfeld, love to cite this one. It's sometimes erroneously credited to Albert Einstein. But MRI scans, PET scans and other imaging studies show no dormant areas of the brain, and even viewing individual neurons or cells reveals no inactive areas, the new paper points out. Metabolic studies of how brain cells process chemicals show no nonfunctioning areas. The myth probably originated with self-improvement hucksters in the early 1900s who wanted to convince people that they had yet not reached their full potential, Carroll figures. It also doesn't jibe with the fact that our other organs run at full tilt.
Myth: You should drink at least eight glasses of water a day.
Fact: "There is no medical evidence to suggest that you need that much water," said Dr. Rachel Vreeman, a pediatrics research fellow at the university and co-author of the journal article. Vreeman thinks this myth can be traced back to a 1945 recommendation from the Nutrition Council that a person consume the equivalent of 8 glasses (64 ounces) of fluid a day. Over the years, "fluid" turned to water. But fruits and vegetables, plus coffee and other liquids, count.
Myth: Fingernails and hair grow after death.
Fact: Most physicians queried on this one initially thought it was true. Upon further reflection, they realized it's impossible. Here's what happens: "As the body’s skin is drying out, soft tissue, especially skin, is retracting," Vreeman said. "The nails appear much more prominent as the skin dries out. The same is true, but less obvious, with hair. As the skin is shrinking back, the hair looks more prominent or sticks up a bit."
Myth: Shaved hair grows back faster, coarser and darker.
Fact: A 1928 clinical trial compared hair growth in shaved patches to growth in non-shaved patches. The hair which replaced the shaved hair was no darker or thicker, and did not grow in faster. More recent studies have confirmed that one. Here's the deal: When hair first comes in after being shaved, it grows with a blunt edge on top, Carroll and Vreeman explain. Over time, the blunt edge gets worn so it may seem thicker than it actually is. Hair that's just emerging can be darker too, because it hasn't been bleached by the sun.
Myth: Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight.
Fact: The researchers found no evidence that reading in dim light causes permanent eye damage. It can cause eye strain and temporarily decreased acuity, which subsides after rest.
Myth: Eating turkey makes you drowsy.
Fact: Even Carroll and Vreeman believed this one until they researched it. The thing is, a chemical in turkey called tryptophan is known to cause drowsiness. But turkey doesn't contain any more of it than does chicken or beef. This myth is fueled by the fact that turkey is often eaten with a colossal holiday meal, often accompanied by alcohol — both things that will make you sleepy.
Myth: Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals.
Fact: There are no known cases of death related to this one. Cases of less-serious interference with hospital devices seem to be largely anecdotal, the researchers found. In one real study, mobile phones were found to interfere with 4 percent of devices, but only when the phone was within 3 feet of the device. A more recent study, this year, found no interference in 300 tests in 75 treatment rooms. To the contrary, when doctors use mobile phones, the improved communication means they make fewer mistakes.
"Whenever we talk about this work, doctors at first express disbelief that these things are not true," said Vreeman said. "But after we carefully lay out medical evidence, they are very willing to accept that these beliefs are actually false."

Irritated Doc Blows Up House to Spite His Wife

NY Doctor Who Blew Up Home to Spite His Wife Dies

The London Telegraph
26 September 2007

The Manhattan surgeon suspected of blowing up his townhouse last week in an accidental suicide, has died from his injuries, hospital officials have said.

The blast left a hole in the city block.
Dr Nicholas Bartha, 66, was alone in the four-story townhouse on East 62nd Street when the explosion levelled it on Monday.
He was rescued from the rubble by firemen and transferred to hospital with severe burns.
The cardiologist is suspected of blowing up the multi-million dollar townhouse in order to prevent his ex-wife from receiving it as part of their divorce settlement.
He was never questioned by police.

Investigators have confirmed that someone tampered with a gas line leading into the home's basement, allowing vapours to flow freely for hours until it caused the building to blow up.
Several of the doctor's friends, as well as his ex-wife, received e-mails from him before the explosion saying he would leave the home the couple once shared "only if I am dead."
Dr Bartha had been ordered by the courts to sell the home, where he had his practice, as a result of the couple's acrimonious divorce and was reportedly served with eviction papers just days before.

America's Dumbest Doctors: WHAT Did He Say??

What Did He Say??


“Medical language is replete with blizzards of linguistic and conceptual confusion.”
Author Unknown, but not Unwise


(Observation)
Yeah, and sometimes it just gets mean . . .

(As told to a patient): “As an obese woman, you will likely outlive your obese spouse. You’ll have a difficult time establishing new relationships, because most men are completely negative to obese women. Let’s face it. If your husband dies tomorrow, who would want you?”
Dr. Terry Bennett
New Hampshire

“Going through a natural opening – such as the rectum or vagina –
to get to the gall bladder, is being looked excitedly at by a lot of people.”
Dr. Marc Bessler
Natural Orifice Surgery Consortium
(Sounds like a real hoot of a fraterity)


“A man comes running into the E.R. and yells, “My wife’s going to have a baby in the cab!”
I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the woman’s dress and started removing her panties. Suddenly I noticed there were several taxis out there, and I was in the wrong one.”
Dr. Mark McDonald
San Antonio Texas

“Our family physician reports that in the early years of his practice he had a woman come into his office with a baby. He was able to determine right away that the child had an ear ache, so he wrote a prescription for eardrops. In the directions he wrote, ‘Put two drops in the right ear every four hours.’
Several days went by and the woman returned with the infant, complaining that he still had pain in his ear, and now his little bottom was getting really messy from all the oil.
The doctor examined the child’s bottom and then reviewed what he had written on the prescription. Put 2 drops in the R ear every 4 hours.”
Dave Larkin, RN
Redwood City, California

“At the beginning of my shift I used my stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female with asthma, listening to her anterior chest. ‘Big breaths,’ I instructed.
‘Yes, they used to be,’ the patient replied.’”
Dr. Richard Byrnes
Seattle, Washington

“A chance to cut is a chance to cure.”

(A common surgeon wisecrack)

“I was caring for a woman once and asked, ‘So how’s your breakfast this morning?’
She replied that it was pretty good except for the godawful Kentucky jam. I took a look at the small packet lying next to her toast. It was K Y Jelly.”
Dr. Leonard Kransdorf
Detroit, Michigan


“I remember once I was under the care of a couple of medical students who couldn’t diagnose a decapitation.”
Jeffrey Bernard


“First he gave me the good news. He said I was about to have a new

disease named after me.”
Steve Martin




“The New England Journal of Medicine reports that nine out of ten doctors

agree that one out of ten is an idiot.”
Jay Leno

America's Dumbest Doctors

“Stupid is as stupid does.”
Forest Gump

Introduction


We don’t know how you happened upon our Dumbest Doctors rant, but we’re guessing you didn’t find our book review next to the magazines in a waiting room. Pity, because we can’t think of a better place for it. Although your personal first aid kit will do nicely, when America's Dumbest Doctors is released, in which case you may file this one under Reality Check, if you like, because that’s precisely what this is.

Rest assured, in the realm of clinical diagnoses, A.D.D. no longer merely stands for Attention Deficit Disorder.

Some of you may wonder how America’s Dumbest Doctors came to be. It isn’t really that long a story. For years we waited patiently (no pun intended) for somebody of appropriate angst to come along, sort through the pyramid of Giza-sized piles of goof-ups, and assemble them into an enlightening work. It would have been particularly cool, we thought, had a doctor chosen to turn a critical eye toward his or her own profession. An elucidation of physician faux pas was several decades overdue. Dumb doctors indeed. So we went about our own daily chores in medicine and waited. We waited and waited. And you know what? It just didn’t happen.

So who else might do such a project justice, if not doctors themselves? Well, nurses certainly could. Nobody on the planet, Lord knows, holds a more accurate view of inner sanctum lunacy than these talented professionals. It is nurses, after all, who are insulted and assaulted, spat upon, pushed aside, denigrated, groped and more, all on a daily basis. So much so that within the sequestered halls of medicine – and not a few court rooms – an embarrassing phrase is beginning to echo off the walls. It’s called “disruptive physician,” dumb doctor demeanor which encompasses a wide-range of child-like deportment, sort of like the sixth-grader who tends to get mean, throw things around the classroom and generally fails to play well with others. Academia is now replete with studies detailing the undeniable connection between nurses walking away from the profession, and physician foibles. (A politically correct term for dumb doctors) The resulting impact on patient outcomes is ugly and obvious. (See studies by Rosenstein, Russell & Lauve) Yet even nurses, for reasons unknown, elect to remain relatively silent on the dumb doctor syndrome they know so well. To be sure, a number of terrific exceptions have been penned over the years. (Condition Critical, by Echo Heron, RN, may well be the best of the best) Still, the ongoing circus of physician foul-ups, bloops and boo-boos rolls merrily along everyday, seriously under-published. No dumb doctor book extant, until ours, America's Dumbest Doctors, is released in '08.

And we’ve always wondered why. Why no exasperated pharmacist with a prescription-scribbled migraine had yet taken up the pen. Why no maddened physical therapist, O.R. tech, phlebotomist, administrator, x-ray pro, perfusionist, nor orderly has ever raged, “For God’s sake, enough dumb doctors!” and cleared the air.

For there exists, we now know, entire armies of health care experts with tales to hoist your hackles, but you would never locate Dumbest Doctors on the library shelf, until we wrote it.

So after 25 years, with our personal pile of funny little notes bulging from a dust-covered briefcase, it finally dawned. Okay, so maybe we’re slower than we ought to be. But the torch was ours to carry. Paramedics would just have to out the dumbest doctors in the USA. We, the ruffians in blue, those rogues of rescue, the only characters in the entire scheme of medicine who run around outside, faces awash in the fresh air of clarity. It does, in the end, make perfect sense. Who else orchestrates advanced emergency care with not a singular hospital staff, but dozens? Who else, by virtue of our nifty 24-hour shifts, is likely to be around at all, to witness bonehead moves by dumb doctors, at any hour of any day? Who else has the nerve to out dumb doctors?

And so it comes to pass, from our unparalleled perspective, that three unequivocal points ought now be carved into the record:

1. Some of the finest primates in our country can be found wearing
lab coats, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

2. Some of their wackiest peers graduated from the very same medical
schools. Yes, they're among the dumbest doctors we describe.

3. Some of the most egregious criminals in society scribe M.D. after
their names. And you bet they make the dumbest doctors litany too.

And we thought you might want to know a little more about the characters who make up our dumb doctors list. After all, have you checked yours, lately?

So stay tuned, friends, to much, much more. Trust us. We're just warming up when it comes to seriously, truly, dumb doctors.

America's Dumbest Doctors

Welcome to America's Dumbest Doctors. Our sole purpose is to provide a wee-bit of entertainment while advising U.S. citizenry of the very real dangers of getting within arm's length of anyone sporting a medical degree. Whether you are aware of it or not, healthcare is a dangerous sport.

As our site becomes fleshed out over the next few weeks, please do feel free to email any comment or question you may have regarding the matter of extremely idiotic physician behavior. After all, it was the comments by thousands of folks which made this blog necessary in the first place.

And we're here to help.

We would be nowhere without you. (And, of course, a whole bus-load of physician shenanigans)

Our email address is: Toxicdoctors@medicalmaniacs.com