5 Things that Helped Me Last Week (2021August23-29)
For Members of the Cellular Medicine Association
Hello!
Here are 5 things that helped me last week…
1. Idea/business book that helped me last week…
Propaganda, Bernays 1928. I just had to pull this one out again. No one would ever say, “Hey, let’s make a plan where we have our enemy make a circle around us; also, we can let the enemy mix with civilians so if they do something dangerous, we can’t shoot back.”
But, if things went unexpectedly, and that scenario happened, Bernays would have said, let’s reframe it with propaganda: “We have a common interest with our enemy; our enemy who surrounds us is now our “partner” to help keep us safe.”
When in reality, we are safe as long as we do what our “protection” demands.
The word “Propaganda” eventually got a bad reputation (Bernays wrote this book in 1928). But, Bernays (who was Sigmund Freud’s nephew) pioneered the idea and wrote some of the seminal works about influencing public opinion.
We covered another one of his books a few weeks ago (Crystallizing Public Opinion). Read them both if you want to find a good feel for the basics of propaganda.
Like any influence, propaganda can be used for good or bad. Whatever your political disposition, it’s best if you learn to recognize when it’s being used, study it, and then think of ways to use the same techniques to influence people to practice good health practices.
2. Video that encouraged me last week…
I interview or at least converse with other physicians almost daily. But, I found this interview with Brenda Scaggs really snuck up on me and touched me. Brenda worked as a forensic nurse during her ER years to help women who had been raped. Now, she’s come up with a wonderful way of Helping women who have suffered from genital mutilation. The first part of the video is me going over the research; skip that part if you want (the research is listed below the video). But, do not watch the last part of this video unless you want to be touched by Brenda’s story about how she helped a woman who had her clitoris cut off when she was 8 years old (along with her friends).
3. Most important research I read this week —
We’ve been using the P-Shot® to help men who have failed the usual post prostate surgery penile rehabilitation. Not all recover, but many do. The following article interestingly makes a positive case for what we do, and the has the usual and expected criticism that the variety of ways that people isolate PRP makes comparative studies difficult. And, then uses as an argument against the strategy that people are making money doing it. I’m always interested when “commercialization” is used as a criticism. Another way of saying the same thing is “Unless insurance pays for it, then it’s probably not good medicine.” Any physician who struggles to get insurance to pay for needed therapies knows the folly of this attitude; yet, most physicians still use what’s financed by insurance as a guide to what works. Anyway, that’s a side topic—but the following review article about cellular therapies to help after prostate surgery still encouraged me since the discussion has at least begun. Remember, it takes 20 years for a new medical procedure to be widely accepted…so we have another 9 years at least before the P-Shot® will be routine as part of the Penile rehabilitation protocol post-prostatectomy. Here’s a link to the article…Chung, Eric. “Regenerative Technology to Restore and Preserve Erectile Function in Men Following Prostate Cancer Treatment: Evidence for Penile Rehabilitation in the Context of Prostate Cancer Survivorship.” Therapeutic Advances in Urology 13 (January 1, 2021): 17562872211026420. https://doi.org/10.1177/17562872211026421.
4. App I Used Every Day
For the past 5 years at least, I kept my literature searches organized in Mendeley. But, recently, I found FREE software that makes both the importing and the documenting in a written paper both your footnotes and bibliography easier than ever. I love this software: Zotero. If you’re writing in Word, you can literally click and drag into the paper and the references are formatted in whatever format you desire.
5. Quote I’m pondering —
Walt Whitman Speaks, Walt Whitman…
“The woman who has denied the best of herself—the woman who has discredited the animal want, the eager physical hunger, the wish of that which though we will not allow it to be freely spoken of is still the basis of all that makes life worthwhile and advances the horizon of discovery. Sex: sex: sex; whether you sing or make a machine, or go to the North Pole, or love your mother, or build a house, or black shoes, or anything—anything at all—it’s sex, sex, sex: sex is the root of it all: sex—the coming together of men and women: sex: sex.”
And, please give me feedback: hit “reply” and shoot me an email, or on our membership sites.
Have a great week!
Charles
P.S. The last book I launched could be of help to your patients who suffer from premature ejaculation: Extend Sex: The 30-Second Trick. You’ll notice that my trick makes use of the functional anatomy, even though I did not know the anatomy when I dreamed this up 40 years ago.