I think this essay touches on but slightly conflates "younger" with "inexperienced". Younger people are inexperienced at more things in life, sure. But if you write essays about things that are new to the world (new technologies? events? societal changes?) then even older people may be inexperienced with it and could learn something, something that surprises the author and the reader.
Readit Newsdoctoring commented on The Shape of the Essay Field paulgraham.com/field.html... · Posted by u/luisb
doctoring commented on Cheap blood test detects pancreatic cancer before it spreads nature.com/articles/d4158... · Posted by u/rbanffy
Public service announcement: There are already blood tests for detecting pancreatic cancer and other cancers on the market, and more coming, depending on where you live. So get tested, if this is something you are worried about.
I believe the only commercially available one in the US is Grail's Galleri (https://www.galleri.com).
More info on this category of tests: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/screening/multi-cancer-early-d...
There are many tests in the pipeline -- although the technology is there, the regulatory and evidence process is slow. (Data relating to detecting cancer early, by its nature, takes a long time and a lot of people to prove out.)
doctoring commented on Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video] youtube.com/watch?v=-qisI... · Posted by u/rayhaanj
Is the goal to be able to supercruise, or are they just going to be to waste tons of fuel on afterburning like the Concorde?
I had the same question. From their FAQ (https://boomsupersonic.com/faq):
> Will Overture use afterburners like Concorde?
> No. Overture will fly without the use of afterburners, meeting the same strict regulatory noise levels as the latest subsonic airplanes. The airliner will be powered by the Symphony propulsion system. Symphony will be a medium-bypass turbofan engine designed and optimized for environmentally and economically sustainable supersonic flight.
doctoring commented on Radiology-specific foundation model harrison.ai/harrison-rad-... · Posted by u/pyromaker
"We'd better hope we can actually replace radiologists with AI, because medical students are no longer choosing to specialize in it."
- one of the speakers at a recent health+AI event
I'm wondering what others in healthcare think of this. I've been skeptical about the death of software engineering as a profession (just as spreadsheets increased the number of accountants), but neither of those jobs requires going to medical school for several years.
I don't know for other countries, but for the United States, "medical students are no longer choosing it" is very very untrue, and it is trivial to look up as this information is public from the NRMP (the organization that runs the residency match).
Radiology remains one of the most competitive and in-demand specialties. In this year's match, only 4 out of ~1200 available radiology residency positions went unfilled. Last year was 0. Only a handful of other specialties have similar rates.
As comparison, 251 out of ~900 pediatric residency slots went unfilled this year. And 636 out of ~5000 family medicine residency slots went unfilled. (These are much higher than previous years.)
However, I do somewhat agree with the speaker's sentiment if for a different reason. Radiologist supply in the US is roughly stable (thanks to the US's strange stranglehold on residency slots), but demand is increasing: the number of scans ordered on a per patient continues to rise, as does the complexity of those scans. I've heard of hospital systems with backlogs that result in patients waiting months for, say, their cancer staging scan. One can hope we find some way to make things more efficient. Maybe AI can help.
I hope this is an appropriate place to ask.
Say I am eating well, exercising consistently, getting enough sleep.
For a male in his 40s, what are the best bang-for-the-buck ways to detect cancer before it becomes life-threatening?
Whole body MRI is fairly available in major metro areas, though not cheap and not very sensitive or specific.
The Galleri blood test screens for a range of cancers (sensitivity varies by cancer) and is ~$900, although you need a doctor to order it. You also may not technically be within the intended use population unless you have some risk factors (e.g. you are older than 50, or have family history of cancer).
Colonoscopy is a good idea, given the rising rates of colon cancer among younger adults.
doctoring commented on KPMG Fined Record $25M in Exam-Cheating Scandal wsj.com/articles/kpmg-fin... · Posted by u/mfiguiere
> "The tests... cover topics such as U.S. audit standards, professional ethics and independence..."
Ethics, you say?
> "...involved hundreds of professionals, including partners and senior leaders such as the now former head of assurance..."
When the scale of these things is so large in a single firm, and only comes to light after 2(!) whistleblowers, it is hard to imagine that it is an isolated incident in the industry.
doctoring commented on Receive push notifications from your rice cooker shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/03/... · Posted by u/ColinWright
Neat!
I was always under the impression that rice cookers worked on a timer basis, but from the article it sounds like it's more of a thing where the appliance will tell you when the rice is cooked - is that right?
I'm intrigued to get one now, although it's unclear to me what the difference is between a £40 one and the one mentioned in the post (which looks to be about £100 now on Amazon)
I love rice cookers!
Rice cookers (usually) make clever use of 1) alloys whose magnetism depends on temperature and 2) the fact that boiling water occurs at a fixed temperature. With a "trigger" temperature just above the boiling point of water, the rice cooker automatically turns off the heating element when all the water is gone (and thus the temperature starts to rise above boiling point).
More detail here: https://youtu.be/RSTNhvDGbYI
doctoring commented on How Ultrasound Became Ultra Small spectrum.ieee.org/mems-ul... · Posted by u/CharlesW
Very interesting overview of the technological / materials breakthroughs to enable miniaturization.
From a physician (specifically radiologist) perspective, I'm a big fan of handheld/point-of-care ultrasound and am excited about their potential at democratizing a very useful and low-cost/low-risk imaging technology. (I also own a Butterfly.)
That being said, the "cart-based" ultrasounds will likely always have a place in a hospital; the size of the ultrasound probes is not why the cart is big/expensive/useful. The cart is a big floating screen and also an image/record management system. You (or at least, a trained ultrasound technician) can manipulate ultrasound parameters and annotate images (critical for ultrasound interpretation) way way faster on the cart's set of wonky keys/dials/trackball than on a smartphone.
Also, with the rise of handheld/point-of-care ultrasound, we've noted with amusement in the radiology department the frequency with which patients get referred for additional imaging because the ED or primary doctor saw some pathology on their handheld ultrasound... and when we take a look it is just not there. I think this is probably more of a training issue, as ultrasound is truly quite challenging both to perform AND to interpret (and a major part of using an ultrasound probe is essentially real-time interpretation), which is even more challenging given the lower image quality and field-of-view of smaller probes.
Will you sign a BAA for HIPAA covered entities?
They list it under their "legal documents" page: https://www.nabla.com/docs/business-associate-agreement
EDIT:
Adding these caveats:
1. There is a ton of nuance in the diagnosis, since most people have a small amount of cancer in their blood at all times
2. The screenings are 5-10k + follow up appointments to actually see if its real cancer
3. All in cost then could be much higher per person
4. These tests arent something that are currently produced to be used at mass scale
This is not to downplay the potential benefit of early cancer detection... which is huge. And in the US/UK anyway, there are ongoing large trials to try to figure some of this stuff out in the space of blood-based cancer screening, as part of the path to convincing regulatory bodies and eventual reimbursement for certain tests. As mentioned, you can currently at least get the Galleri test out of pocket (<$1k, not cheap, but not exorbitant either), as well as whole body MRIs (a bit more expensive, ~$2-5k).