Physician, heal thyself? Supporting physician mental health - Nature

My former a16z partner Chris Dixon wrote a now-famous post talking about how the next big things in technology often start out being dismissed as “toys” – they look silly, immature relative to the current state of the art, are limited in utility, and full of security concerns or other bugs. Chris was writing about why market incumbents often get surprised – and ultimately lapped or completely wiped out – by innovations in technology (often developed by much smaller and earlier-stage technology startups). The cardinal mistake, according to Chris, is to over-train on the limitations of the technology today – it’s too slow, it’s buggy, it lacks enterprise security features or application integration capabilities, it consumes too much energy, compute power, etc. I could go on. For example, when the telephone first arrived in the late 1870s, it could carry a voice call a very short distance (about a mile or two). Western Union, then the dominant communications company in America, passed on the chance to buy it. Its customers were businesses and railroads, and the phone didn’t seem useful to either. By the standards of the day, the telephone was perceived as a toy.

Studying a condition after being diagnosed with it can be rewarding but also presents some ethical and psychological challenges. Josie Glausiusz is a journalist who writes for Nature from the Middle East. Bluesky: @josiegz.bsky.social

Residents are being encouraged to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated against influenza and COVID-19 as Saskatchewan prepares for another respiratory illness season. Medical Health Officer Dr. Hortense Tabien says people should not wait until flu activity begins to increase before booking their immunization appointments.

As the debate season kicked off in Iowa’s heated gubernatorial race, one question seemed to animate and, in some ways, unify the candidates.

A small device that delivers gentle electrical pulses through the ear could offer a new approach to treating stubborn high blood pressure. In a clinical trial led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London, the technology proved safe, well tolerated, and practical for patients to use at home. Although the treatment did not significantly lower blood pressure compared with a placebo device across all participants, researchers observed encouraging results in patients with more severe hypertension. The findings suggest that stimulating nerves in the ear could eventually help certain people whose blood pressure remains elevated despite taking medication.

Joe Szostak talks with his wife Cindy at their home in Dundas, Ont. In desperation, Szostak enrolled in an early-stage clinical trial at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre to treat his metastatic cancer. Joe Szostak was in the middle of a family vacation in Florida in February of 2023 when, while getting changed one morning, he noticed a peculiar lump in his right armpit, the size of a ping-pong ball. Over the next two weeks, Szostak said the lump swelled to the size of an orange. By April, it had grown to the size of a grapefruit: “I couldn’t even hold my arm up properly.”