Your clean wardrobe is all used up for the week, and you have to be in the hospital in an hour. It's an impossible situation until you realize it's Saturday, and you are on weekend call. 
Breast cancer is a devastating disease, and women in the United States expect to be screened from the disease when they are at risk.
"Some time ago, I built a Lego MRI system as a giveaway for a pediatric radiologist and had it CT scanned later."The original model on plain color image:
From Flickr user Voxel123.
As Glenn Garvin puts it:Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.How can these aliens bring universal healthcare without resorting to a 2000-page piece of legislation? Congress is missing the mark somewhere.
The news media swoons in admiration — one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."
Margaret Daalman came to hospital complaining of stomach ache - and one glance at her X-ray shows why.From the Daily Mail.
Surgeons in Rotterdam in the Netherlands were flabbergasted when X-rays showed 78 different items of cutlery in the 52-year-old woman's stomach.
They rushed her to surgery in a desperate attempt to remove the dozens of forks and spoons trapped inside her body one by one.
WASHINGTON - In a historic move, President Obama signaled Wednesday that physician salaries will be capped at $100,000 per year.
"For too long in this great country, greed has been the cornerstone of American medicine," Obama said on the south lawn. "Doctors care less about patients' well-being than their own pocketbook."
The plan calls for sweeping reform of payment to all physicians who have ever received money from the federal government, from subsidized education loans and residency stipends to Medicare service reimbursements.
"The federal government helped these people out by lending tuition or paying for their specialty training in residency. They ought to give something back to society."
When asked by the press about the specific limit of $100,000 in yearly income, the President responded, "So these 'poor' doctors can't afford a new luxury car every year. That's not hardship." He also stated, "And besides, mom and pop in Omaha, Nebraska with their 3 kids are able to survive just fine on less than $100,000. Doctors should too."
This latest announcement is on the heels of a new White House plan to curb executive pay by as much as 90% at major banking institutions receiving federal aid, capping total compensation at $200,000.
"Greed can exist in many places, but the most critical areas today are with physicians and bankers. That is where we need to start reining it in. They are the problem, the scourge, in today's society."
There's a hurricane passing through the area, flooding the hospital campus. At that moment you get paged about a patient in the building across the street. You need to see the patient immediately, but you can't wait for the storm to pass.
Q4 call. You survived the torment of the evil weekend: Saturday overnight call, Sunday post-call. Then another full week of work starting Monday. 
With too many patients, you feel powerless to do everything for any of your patients. With too few, you feel powerless to do anything for everyone else who might be sick in the world. 
You discuss the history. You perform the physical exam. Now it comes to the juicy part. All that hard work gets put together, and a few sentences can say it all. 
"Let me dispel these ridiculous rumors once and for all and set the record straight: Under my plan, seniors are going to be killed the way they want to be killed, end of story," said the president, who acknowledged that "wiping out" the nation's elderly population has always been his No. 1 priority. "If your grandmother would rather be euthanized in the privacy of her own home than be gutted and hanged on a high school soccer field, she is entitled to that right."Humor is best served with a sprinkle of truth.
Lisa Hofstra was the nurse in charge of the emergency room at Illinois Masonic about 4 a.m. on Aug. 1 when she said an officer named Rodriguez asked her to take blood samples from a man to determine his blood-alcohol level, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court. Hofstra allegedly told the officer the man had to become a patient first and she wanted to consult with her supervisor. The officer cuffed her and placed her in the back of a squad car, according to the lawsuit.
There are credible estimates that serious tort reform could save the country between $100 and $200 billion annually in wasteful spending, as doctors practice defensive medicine to preempt lawsuits. … Now Obama says he’s going to study the issue. “I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today,” he said.
That would be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, whose resume includes eight years as director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association.
So Obama has chosen a former industry lobbyist to run tort reform.
Why are people cynical about health care reform?
Quote: "And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone."
Fact: The major coverage expansions in all the legislation being considered would not begin until January 2013-so according to the President's own methodology, Democrat bills will allow more than 15 million additional Americans to become uninsured.
Quote: "And it's why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it-about $1000 per year that pays for somebody else's emergency room and charitable care."
Fact: An even larger tax-of nearly $1,800 per year-is paid by individuals with private coverage who are forced to subsidize lower payments made by government-run health plans like Medicare and Medicaid, according to a study conducted by independent actuaries at the consulting firm Milliman.
Quote: "Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have."
Fact: Independent experts all agree that the legislation proposed would result in millions of Americans losing the coverage they have-the Congressional Budget Office believes several million, the Urban Institute 47 million, and the Lewin Group as many as 114 million.
Quote: "Under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance."
Fact: Senior Obama Administration official Sherry Glied has previously written that a mandate "is in many respects analogous to a tax"-and furthermore has the potential to be a "very regressive tax, penalizing uninsured people who genuinely cannot afford to buy coverage." Thus this policy stance breaks the signal promise of the Obama campaign: "I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
Quote: "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false-the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."
Fact: Nothing in any of the Democrat bills would require individuals to verify their citizenship or identity prior to receiving taxpayer-subsidized benefits-making the President's promise one that the legislation itself does not keep.
Quote: "And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up-under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place."
Fact: The National Right to Life Committee, among other independent pro-life groups, have confirmed that the legislation will result in federal funds being used to pay for abortions-both through the government-run health plan, and through federal subsidies provided through the Exchange, despite various accounting gimmicks created in an Energy and Commerce Committee "compromise."
Quote: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits-either now or in the future. Period."
Fact: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has found that H.R. 3200 would increase deficits by $239 billion over ten years-and "would probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits" thereafter. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation released a study today which found that in its second decade, H.R. 3200 would increase federal deficits by more than $1 trillion.
Quote: "Not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan."
Fact: Among more than $500 billion in proposed savings from Medicare, the Democrat bills also propose re-directing $23 billion from the Medicare Improvement Fund to fund new health care entitlements. According to current law, the Medicare Improvement Fund is designated specifically "to make improvements under the original Medicare fee-for-service program."
Quote: "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan. Much of the rest would be paid for with revenues from the very same drug and insurance companies that stand to benefit from tens of millions of new customers."
Fact: The Congressional Budget Office has previously found that the cuts to Medicare Advantage plans included in the Democrat legislation would result in millions of seniors losing their current plan-a direct contradiction of the President's assertion that "nothing in this plan requires you to change what you have."
Quote: "This reform will charge insurance companies a fee for their most expensive policies, which will encourage them to provide greater value for the money - an idea which has the support of Democratic and Republican experts. And according to these same experts, this modest change could help hold down the cost of health care for all of us in the long-run."
Fact: While some Republicans support addressing the current employee exclusion for health insurance in the context of overall tax reform, the President's proposal would raise "fees" in order to finance new federal spending-a tax increase of hundreds of billions of dollars, and one that many Republicans may not support.
Quote: "Add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years."
Fact: The Congressional Budget Office, in its score of H.R. 3200 as introduced, found that the legislation would spend approximately $1.6 trillion over ten years-nearly double the President's estimate.
Quote: "I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open."
Fact: On May 13, House Republican leaders all wrote the President a letter reading in part: "We write to you today to express our sincere desire to work with you and find common ground on the issue of health care reform....We respectfully request a meeting with you to discuss areas for potential common ground on health care reform." Nearly four months later, that meeting has yet to take place.
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