Tag: Berkhout

Reading of the Week: Aromatherapy for Insomnia? Also, Ramadan and Mental Health and Responding to Vaccine History

April 15, 2021 /

From the Editor

“Sleep is one of the indispensable needs of human beings and is essential for maintaining physical and mental health.”

So writes Yueheng Tang (of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology) and co-authors in a new paper on insomnia. That topic is always relevant; with a third wave and the ongoing stresses of the pandemic, more people than ever seem to be struggling with insomnia. In the past few weeks, I’ve received a flurry of questions from patients and non-patients about remedies for insomnia.

What to make of aromatherapy? It’s trendy – but is it evidence based? In a new paper for the Journal of Affective Disorders, Tang et al. consider aromatherapy which “has a long history in China, and it has been used to strengthen the body and treat diseases since ancient times.” They conduct a meta-analysis, drawing on sixteen articles. They find: “Aromatherapy has a significant effect on improving sleep quality.” We consider the paper and ask: should we recommend this to our patients?

aromatherapy

In the second selection, we look at a new podcast that explores Ramadan and its clinical implications. In this Quick Takes episode, I’m joined by Drs. Juveria Zaheer and Zainab Furqan (both of the University of Toronto). They discuss fasting, mental disorders, and offer some suggestions. For example, with drug regiments: “if a medication is dosed twice daily, we can ask if it can be given safely during the interval when the interval between doses is shortened? So can we give it then in the evening or at dawn and then at sunset again? Or can we give it as one dose? And we need to think about the side effects of the medication.”

Finally, in our third selection, a reader writes us. Dr. Suze G. Berkhout (of the University of Toronto) responds to the paper by Drs. Angela Desmond and Paul A. Offit considering the history of vaccines. “The story the authors tell is history as it is written by the victors: emphasizing the hard work and successes of scientists, while failing to acknowledge the ways in which vaccine technologies have also been part of an exclusionary politics of biomedicine.”

Note that there will be no Reading next week.

DG

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Reading of the Week: Should Medical Education Stay in Its Lane? Drs. Zaheer and Berkhout Respond

October 10, 2019 /

From the Editor

Should medical education “stay in its lane?”

Two weeks ago, we discussed an essay by the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Stanley Goldfarb who warns that: “Curricula will increasingly focus on climate change, social inequities, gun violence, bias and other progressive causes only tangentially related to treating illness.”

This week, we feature two letters to the editor responding to this essay, both original content for the Reading of the Week, and both from physicians affiliated with the University of Toronto.

Drawing on the medical literature and her life experience, Dr. Juveria Zaheer wonders what makes a medical expert or a physician scientist. “Being a medical expert or a physician scientist isn’t just about learning about biology – it’s about committing to the creation of a society where every life is worth living.”

Looking at medicine and philosophy, Dr. Suze G. Berkhout questions the basic assumptions of Dr. Goldfarb’s argument. “Goldfarb misrepresents the place of values in shaping scientific and medical knowledge.”

2012_canada_highwayoftears_0Staying in Your Lane: Good for Drivers, not Med Ed?

Both letters are thoughtful and worth reading.

DG

 
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