Jambalaya: LizTruss vs TrussLiz etc.
The Woman Who Would be Prime Minister, a webinar on the Tuskegee Experiment, and the University of Maryland spreads telehealth
Liz Trussell’s response to the Swedish prime minister’s errant good wishes on her elevation to the prime ministership of the United Kingdom.
TRUSS AND TRUSSELL: The United Kingdom has a new prime minister—Liz Truss. But the best part of the story—and the most British part, according to a British friend—is that on Twitter, congratulations are mistakenly rolling in to @LizTruss, who seems to be an ordinary person named Liz Trussell. (The new prime minister’s correct Twitter handle is @TrussLiz.) Ms. Trussell is having great fun of it. The Swedish prime minister sent congratulations and a promise of “deep and comprehensive cooperation” between their respective countries; Ms. Trussell responded that she looks forward to a visit and asked the Swedish PM to “Get the Meatballs ready.” In another tweet, she said she was heading up to Balmoral for her audience with the Queen and added that she was looking forward to meeting the corgis. Some tweeter suggested that there must be a way for the Queen to accidentally appoint Trussell rather than Truss, and the pretender responded “Yes!!!!!! Me & Queen Liz would deffo be besties.” Making this all the better is the fact that Trussell’s Twitter account had apparently been dormant since 2018 until the felicitations began pinging her account yesterday.
TUSKEGEE WEBINAR: On Thursday, September 8, 2022, 7:00-8:30 PM EDT, FAIR in Medicine will host a webinar, “What Can We Learn from Tuskegee? A Discussion on Pro-Human Medicine.” REGISTER HERE to attend. Last week, I wrote an essay, Lessons from the Tuskegee Study, on the infamous “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,” the horrifically unethical experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1932 to 1972. My essay focused on why Tuskegee is still relevant to those of us living in 2022 and in future years. Dr. Mark Buchanan will moderate the discussion, and panelists will include Dr. Marilyn Singleton, past-president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, MD/PhD candidate Cullen Clairmont, and political scientist Dr. Wilfred Reilly, who writes widely on research methodology and on popular misunderstandings of race in America.
TELEHEALTH FOR ALL: The University of Maryland Medical Center health system is seeking to spread telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) to patients whose access to these technologies has been limited by geography and lack of technological savvy. Over the COVID-19 pandemic, remote patient-provider technologies have been a lifesaving godsend. But physical distance and discomfort with technology has lessened the impact of these tools in some communities. The Maryland-based healthcare system is seeking to break down these barriers with the help of federal grants. According to an article in Healthcare IT News:
University of Maryland Medical Center was awarded $977,066 from the FCC telehealth grant program for the purchase of laptops, internet services, mobile telehealth carts, equipment for vaccine outreach, and vaccine hotline and remote patient monitoring equipment to provide telehealth.
"Our FCC telehealth equipment grant supported virtual care of patients through the University of Maryland School of Medicine Family Medicine and Psychiatry Departments," Reeves said. "We have utilized the funds to purchase equipment and internet hotspots to support connectivity.”
I have often heard people—physicians among them—express skepticism about health technologies on the grounds that not every patient has access the necessary equipment or the technical know-how to use such equipment. I like to point out that that has been the case with virtually every new technolgy in history. As an example, I love pointing out that in 1940, the Bell System felt it necessary to produce a 20-minute film explaining rotary dialing to terrified technophobes across America. (In hindsight, the film is pretty hilarious.)
And in case one was still confused ten years later, here's another film from 1950:
