Like it or not, Facebook has expanded from a website exclusively for college students to embrace each of us – professors and students alike. Whilst the social networking by Facebook has become addiction in our society, there is recent uproar about the intrusive nature of its News Feed. It’s as if our activity and personal affairs are suddenly broadcast everywhere, grabbing away our privacy and leaving us naked in front of nosey parkers.
I made a casual comment on this question last week during the lunch with my interns. When I went home to finish the book “Vital Lies, Simple Truths”, I began to change my mind after reading the chapter on social lies. Within the social realm, we get used to keeping silence on certain taboos or shying away from topics that do not conform to the norm. Oh, sure, who would bother to list the Playboy as the “Books I’m reading”? Inevitably, we write and make wall posts in an attempt to bury painful memories or stories. If anything, we're disclosing our best posed photos and images by virtue of self-censorship.
Peeping tom upsets people by spying on us when we are naked. No, going to Facebook is a totally different story; we simply go and take a good look at someone else’s wardrobe where their best clothes are being displayed.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Kept in the Dark
I have often wondered what makes dark chocolate lovely. Now I know and I wish I didn't.
Over the last six months, dark chocolate hit the headlines of at least two top medical journals (including the Journal of the American Medical Association and Circulation); researchers have shown that eating dark chocolate can improve our blood vessels and lower our blood pressure, by virtue of its flavanol content. Surely this good news is fantastic if you - like my wife - happen to be a lover of dark chocolate. That seems too good to be true, "Sweetheart, I bought you a box of chocolate that protects your heart..."
As I go on to read more on the subject of dark chocolate, I realise the fallible nature of dark chocolate myths. The catch is that when chocolate manufacturers make confectionary, the natural cocoa solids can be darkened and the flavanols, which are bitter, removed. During the process of chocolate manufactureing, there is an alkalization step called "Dutching", named after the Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten who discovered that adding alkali salts to cocoa nibs would enhance the taste, texture, and appearance of the cocoa. Dutched cocoa has the bitterness eliminated - together with most of the active flavanols. It ends up with a dark-looking chocolate without flavanol. In a nutshell, there is nothing about the color of the chocolate that will tell us the flavanol content.
Alas, I quickly ran to grab my chocolate Christmas gift. I was drumstruck to find out that flavanol content of the dark chocolate is not even listed on its product label at all.
With that, I put down the chocolate and set out on my jogging exercise.
Over the last six months, dark chocolate hit the headlines of at least two top medical journals (including the Journal of the American Medical Association and Circulation); researchers have shown that eating dark chocolate can improve our blood vessels and lower our blood pressure, by virtue of its flavanol content. Surely this good news is fantastic if you - like my wife - happen to be a lover of dark chocolate. That seems too good to be true, "Sweetheart, I bought you a box of chocolate that protects your heart..."
As I go on to read more on the subject of dark chocolate, I realise the fallible nature of dark chocolate myths. The catch is that when chocolate manufacturers make confectionary, the natural cocoa solids can be darkened and the flavanols, which are bitter, removed. During the process of chocolate manufactureing, there is an alkalization step called "Dutching", named after the Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten who discovered that adding alkali salts to cocoa nibs would enhance the taste, texture, and appearance of the cocoa. Dutched cocoa has the bitterness eliminated - together with most of the active flavanols. It ends up with a dark-looking chocolate without flavanol. In a nutshell, there is nothing about the color of the chocolate that will tell us the flavanol content.
Alas, I quickly ran to grab my chocolate Christmas gift. I was drumstruck to find out that flavanol content of the dark chocolate is not even listed on its product label at all.
With that, I put down the chocolate and set out on my jogging exercise.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Silent Night
Every boy, girl and grown-up knows very well the sparks of gratitude upon receiving a gift on the Christmas festival. When we make a wrong choice of "gift", the resulting ripple can be far-reaching, though.
On the Christmas Eve, I made a phone call to my patient, a young lady who recovered from a stormy hospital course with a disease called systemic lupus erythematosus, after receiving her magnetic resonance images (MRI). "Good afternoon, Ms L, this is Dr. KM Chow who saw you last Tuesday and requested a MRI of your painful left hip. Should I go on?" With that, I then said, frankly, "The films did show a lot of destruction at your hip joint. Yes, quite badly damaged. Simply put, the previous steroid drug treatment led to permanent loss of blood supply to the bones. Without blood, the bone tissue dies and the bone at your hip collapses. Do you follow me?"
Before I had any chance to go on telling her the joint replacement for the injured bone, Ms L broke into tears.
I have since come to realize that breaking bad news on the Christmas eve is one of the stupidest things a doctor want to do. The Herculean task of giving her words of comfort was never easy after the stupid conversation on the Christmas eve.
"Silent Night..." the music goes on around me and seems to remind me the holy grail of keeping silent.
Lesson learned.
On the Christmas Eve, I made a phone call to my patient, a young lady who recovered from a stormy hospital course with a disease called systemic lupus erythematosus, after receiving her magnetic resonance images (MRI). "Good afternoon, Ms L, this is Dr. KM Chow who saw you last Tuesday and requested a MRI of your painful left hip. Should I go on?" With that, I then said, frankly, "The films did show a lot of destruction at your hip joint. Yes, quite badly damaged. Simply put, the previous steroid drug treatment led to permanent loss of blood supply to the bones. Without blood, the bone tissue dies and the bone at your hip collapses. Do you follow me?"
Before I had any chance to go on telling her the joint replacement for the injured bone, Ms L broke into tears.
I have since come to realize that breaking bad news on the Christmas eve is one of the stupidest things a doctor want to do. The Herculean task of giving her words of comfort was never easy after the stupid conversation on the Christmas eve.
"Silent Night..." the music goes on around me and seems to remind me the holy grail of keeping silent.
Lesson learned.
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