On August 23, 2014, Sara Khatib checked off another achievement on her life list of hopes and wishes. She spoke at a TEDx in Beirut, Lebanon. The theme of the TEDx was ‘how would you fill a time capsule?’ So Sara brought along four items related to the lessons she learned while “battling cancer.” “Sometimes giving up...
Read More9 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Infertility and IVF
Learning about “the birds and the bees” may be the way your parents described getting pregnant but it’s a lot more complicated than you think. And for many couples, trying to have a baby is a result of science and technology that has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. In 2015, 3,978,497 babies were born in the US and...
Read MoreChicken Pox Again? No, It’s Shingles
If you have had chicken pox, you might get shingles later in life. Shingles is caused by the herpes zoster virus (also called the varicella zoster virus). After you have had chicken pox, the zoster virus stays in your body and lying dormant. For 1 in 3 people in the US, the virus activates and causes shingles. The symptoms of shingles are pain,...
Read MoreBeing Judged: The Swinging Pendulum and Pain Management
Did you know that before the year 2000, poor pain management was called a major medical problem and was synonymous with poor medical care in the US? On January 1, 2001, Congress declared 2001 to 2010 the Decade of Pain Control and Research. Assuring that effective pain management occurred in hospitals, in 2003, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of...
Read More5 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Your Spleen
Someone next to you in the elevator is coughing, sneezing and hacking away. Meanwhile, inside your body, your spleen is busily producing the lymphocytes (white blood cells) that create antibodies to attack the viruses and bacteria to which you are being exposed. This organ is between four and five inches long (about the size of a fist) and located on the...
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