How Doctors Think

On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds.
In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment.
Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong -- with catastrophic consequences.
In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make.
Groopman explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can -- with our help -- avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health.
This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking and reveal how new technologies may actually hinder accurate diagnoses.
How Doctors Think offers direct, intelligent questions patients can ask their doctors to help them get back on track.
For more information about the title How Doctors Think, 

Irritability, Anger Indicators of Complex, Severe Depression

Symptoms of irritability and anger during a major depressive episode (MDE) appear to be clinical markers for a significantly more complex, chronic, and severe form of major depressive disorder, a new study indicates.

http://maxcdn.scienceblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/depressed_in_paris.jpg

Results from the longitudinal observational investigation of patients with unipolar MDEs showed that those with current overt irritability/anger were significantly more likely to have increased depressive severity, longer duration of the index MDE, poorer impulse control, and a more chronic and severe long-term course of illness.
Overt irritability and anger were also associated with higher rates of lifetime co-morbid substance abuse and anxiety disorder, more antisocial and personality disorders, greater psychosocial impairment, reduced life satisfaction, and a higher rate of bipolar II disorder in relatives.
The study findings strongly suggest that "concurrent anger/irritability symptoms are important indicators of increased severity, chronicity, and complexity of unipolar major depression," the authors, led by Lewis L. Judd, MD, University of California, San Diego, write.

Why is yawning contagious?

Rather than being a precursor to sleep, yawning is designed to keep us awake, say US researchers. But why does seeing someone else yawn make you to do the same? Yawning is an involuntary action that everyone does. We start before we are born and most creatures on the planet do it - even snakes and fish.
New research suggests rather than being a precursor to sleep, the purpose of yawning is to cool the brain so it operates more efficiently and keeps you awake.
The theory could explain a puzzling question about subconscious human behaviour - why many of us yawn when we see or hear another person doing it, or even read about it or even just think about it?

sleeping times

The brain cooling theory says that when we contagiously yawn we are participating in an ancient, hardwired ritual that evolved to help groups stay alert and detect danger.
It's not copying another person's sleepiness, say scientists at the University of Albany in New York, who are behind the latest research.
"We think contagious yawning is triggered by empathic mechanisms which function to maintain group vigilance," says Dr Gordon Gallup, a leading researcher at the university.
'Herding behaviour'
The belief is further supported by the observation of University of Maryland's Robert Provine that paratroopers report yawning before jumping.
But there are other theories. It's been suggested contagious yawning could be a result of an unconscious herding behaviour - a subtle way to communicate to those around us, similar to when flocks of birds take flight at the same time.
Another theory suggests contagious yawning might have helped early humans communicate their alertness levels and co-ordinate sleeping times.
Basically, if one decided it was time to sleep they would tell the others by yawning and they would do it in return to show they agreed.
Chimpanzees also suffer from contagious yawning, according to researchers at Kyoto University in Japan. They are thought to be the only other creatures, apart from humans, who do so.
The rest of the animal kingdom - including birds, snakes and hippos - yawn for other reasons. Dogs yawn to stay calm in certain situations, says Turid Rugaas, author of On talking Terms with Dogs.
Anyone who gets to the end of this article without yawning may wish to think of themselves as a medical aberration. In fact, only about half of adult humans are prone to contagious yawning.