Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

Dreams sure can be weird, can’t they? Now, I rarely remember dreams for long once the day starts, but last week one was so odd that it made quite an impression.

A group of people (I don’t actually know who) and I are walking through the hospital and a newborn baby boy is being pushed by in a bassinet. He’s a beautiful, big, strong looking kid with the sweetest bright eyed face and black hair. As I pass he turns his head to the right and I see that on the back of his head is a second face! Just as cute, eyes as bright, and no one but me seems concerned!

I mention the “unusual” nature of this baby to the nurse who is with him and she assures me “Oh, that. That happens all the time. In a few weeks it’ll dry up and fall off.” My alarm clock rings and Thursday is upon us.

Now there is a congenital medical condition called diprosopus in which a newborn has duplicated elements of facial features — very rare in humans, more common in cats. These kittens are called “Janus” cats after the Roman god Janus depicted as having 2 faces, one facing front and one back. Janus is the god of comings and goings, of starting and finishing, of gates, portals, thresholds and transportation.

What’s the point of all this rambling?

I propose that we make Janus the Roman patron god of the internet. Why? Because like Janus, the information on the web has two faces. We’re blessed to have an instantly available repository of data, facts, interpretations, guidelines, images and recommendations from all of our world’s best and brightest medical professional. I and my colleagues use it constantly. Textbooks are online and constantly updated, paper journals are rapidly fading as online access allows immediate review of information that used to take hours of library research to locate, but there are monsters lurking in this garden of erudition!

There’s lots and lots of junk science out there. Anyone with a computer, web access, blog or URL can get to you with advice that seems definitive and convincing.

I’m shocked and dismayed at how many really smart people believe really weird stuff from really weird sources. Like when a friend was hesitant to apply sunscreen before we went out in the mid-day sun in Florida (to play golf — she did great, me — not so great) because “Sally Noname,” a blogger, had an article in 2008 denouncing all sunscreens as a commie plot to poison us all and take over the world.

Now I fully admit that I am the prototype of conventional, white-bread, Western medicine. Trained at Johns Hopkins for college, medical school, general surgery internship and residency, cardiothoracic surgery fellowship, surgical critical care and then two years on the faculty there, with a six-month stint at Sloan-Kettering and a few courses at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Nevertheless I try to be open minded to many alternative ways of interpreting the world. I’ve seen chest operations done under acupuncture anesthesia, I believe that music, massage, meditation are enormously useful in many situations. I admire the knowledge and skills of many “traditional” healers from many cultures. I’m willing to learn from even the oddest source, but be careful. There are a lot of crazies on the web.

Focus on sites with gravitas — authoritative, national groups with strong professional credentials.

Read whatever you’d like; but be careful before discarding the American College of Cardiology recommendations for George from Whoknowswhere, Arizona’s rantings on his “I hate cardiology” blog.

Keep an open mind but you can take these to the bank: smoking kills, inactivity is dangerous, there’s no shortcut to losing weight, too much booze is bad, seat belts are good, driving requires all your attention, drinking water beats drinking soda, too much sun causes skin cancer, a good relationship with a medical practitioner is the best form of medical insurance, the best treatment for chest pain is calling 911, moderation in diet is a virtue, smoking kills (worth repeating) and, most importantly, the love of friends and family makes all things better.

Don’t get sucked into the muck by the crazies. Use your good sense.

Now excuse me while I go ask a psychiatrist about that baby. Or, maybe I should find a good “Reader and Advisor?”

Alfred Casale To Your Health
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_casale.jpg.optimal.jpgAlfred Casale To Your Health

By Alfred Casale

To Your Health

Dr. Alfred Casale is chairman of surgery for the Geisinger Heart Institute, co-director of the Cardiovascular Service Line for the Geisinger Health System and Associate Chief Medical Officer for the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. Readers may write to him via [email protected].