Tag: Osler

Reading of the Week: A Century After Osler, Is He Relevant (NEJM)? Also, AI & Diagnosis (CMAJ) and Ketamine & Safety (JAD)

December 12, 2019 /

From the Editor

A century after his death, is Dr. Osler still relevant?

This week, there are three selections. First, we start with a look back with an essay on Dr. William Osler. We then look forward: with papers on AI and ketamine.

In the first selection, Drs. Charles S. Bryan (the University of South Carolina) and Scott H. Podolsky (Harvard University) write in The New England Journal of Medicine about Dr. Osler on the 100th anniversary of his death. Contemplating his life and views, they note that he “gave physicians what certain national historians gave their countries: warm feelings of togetherness, pride, and purpose.”

nlc012022-v6William Osler

In the second selection, we look at a CMAJ paper. Considering AI and health care, University of Strasbourg’s Dr. Thierry Pelaccia and his co-authors write about the reasoning of mind and machine. They see a bright future: “AI can assume its place as a routine tool in medical practice.”

Finally, for the third selection, we consider a new paper on ketamine and safety from the Journal of Affective Disorders. Drawing on several studies, NIMH’s Elia E. Acevedo-Diaz and her co-authors conclude: “The results indicate that a single intravenous subanesthetic-dose ketamine infusion was relatively safe for the treatment of [treatment-resistant depression].”

DG

Continue reading

Reading of the Week: ECT & Dementia – the New Lancet Psychiatry Paper

September 6, 2018 /

From the Editor

It’s effective but is it really safe?

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) remains controversial 80 years after its first clinical use. At the heart of the controversy: its effects on cognition. Some wonder about the possibility that ECT could be linked to dementia.

Despite the strong concerns expressed over the years, relatively little research has been done on the possible connection between ECT and dementia. This week, we consider a new paper by the University of Copenhagen’s Merete Osler and her co-authors. In this Lancet Psychiatry study, they tap Danish national databases, finding no connection.

old-man-in-sorrow-vincent-van-goghvan Gogh’s Old Man in Sorrow – in need of ECT?

In this Reading, we look at the paper and consider some recent work on ECT.

DG

 

Continue reading