Medicine based on customs

@varelalaf

The universe of my childhood was full of incontestable rules; most of them had to do with the precepts of religion, although the matter affected all aspects of daily life. I remember that you could not bathe in the sea or in the pool if you had eaten or drank within a minimum period of two hours, a period that the strictest families extended to three. When you were a teenager and you protested, the parents told you all kinds of calamities that could happen to you if you failed to comply with the rule, according to a lot of legends that were passed down from generation to generation.

For a more conservative medicine

@varelalaf

Last week I discussed the influence of machine learning on clinical practice, a dynamic loaded with chiaroscuro and, for this reason, I think it is worth echoing today the manifesto "The case for being a medical conservative" written by four doctors: John Mandrola (cardiologist), Adam Cifu (internist), Vinay Prasad (oncologist -haematologist) and Andrew Foy (cardiologist). The authors clarify that their manifesto has nothing to do with politics, but that, given the dazzle of technology and the pressure of consumerism; they are forced to embrace conservatism, a way of saying enough when nobody is willing to do it.

"Machine learning" and clinical practice

@varelalaf

Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence based on the idea that systems can learn, identify patterns and make decisions with minimal human intervention, as is the case, for example, with weather forecasting. When I was little, the men of the time (then there were no women in these jobs) drew isobar lines on a blackboard where they had made their predictions based only on their experience and the four sources of data that came to them from the meteorological observatories. Now, as the forecasts are made by the models, meteorologists have enough time to comment on photos sent by viewers, in addition to raising awareness of the effects of pollution and climate change.

Primary Health Care: Working in the Darkness

Working as a family doctor these days is not easy because we're walking blind. First of all we are trying to do as much work as possible over the phone to prevent patients from travelling and coming to a health facility if it can be avoided. On the other hand we do not have reliable data. Every day we receive various protocols, instructions, directives, official emails and so on in what has been a fluctuating data overload in addition to what everyone receives through their personal social networks, Whastapp groups and so on.