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Thanks for sharing. Adding another podcast anecdote here — one that made me chuckle — from Scott Belsky in his interview on Tim Ferriss' podcast: > I remember
by trvlngwlbry 8y ago
Thanks for sharing. Adding another podcast anecdote here — one that made me chuckle — from Scott Belsky in his interview on Tim Ferriss' podcast:
> I remember my father, as an orthopedic surgeon, when he was a resident, he was working in one of those crazy, New York City hospitals where people would come in with like overdoses and shooting wounds and stuff like that. And he was telling me that the most often kind of prescribed [medicine], especially on the psychiatric stuff that came in, was 100cc of Obecalp, which is, of course, "placebo" spelled backwards. And how as soon as someone would be like, "Obecalp, stat, 100cc," that would, suddenly, switch something in a lot of these patients’ minds, in terms of where they felt they were in their hope. And that always stuck with me.
- bookofjoe 8y agoYes! I did my internship at Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center ("Big County") in 1974-75. In the ER, it was routine to give repeaters with no obvious source of pain (visits weekly, no other doctor) OBECALP BLACK. These were humongous (about 1" long x 0.5" diameter) shiny black capsules filled with powdered starch. We'd tell the patient, "These contain the strongest pain med that's legal." Worked more often than not in terms of relieving their pain in the E.R. Till next week...
- smaddox 8y agoIn such instances, giving a placebo definitely seems better than an opiod, but in my opinion, it definitely isn't helping the patient and is likely hurting them by distracting them from the underlying emotional cause. At least when given repeatedly...
- bookofjoe 8y agoIn the majority of those patients, the underlying cause was alcoholism and its myriad complications resulting from a store called Liquor Liquor being located across the street from the hospital.
- warent 8y agoLiquor Liquor? That sounds like a very healthy and reasonable store to have across from a hospital. Nothing unethical or distasteful there!
- bookofjoe 8y agoThe irony was not lost on us. The first thing those patients did after discharge was head to Liquor Liquor. It had a huge flashing colored neon sign — ALL CAPS.
- cr0sh 8y agoWe have a bar here in Phoenix, located almost directly across the street from a hospital, called "The Recovery Room": https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5240529,-112.1032385,3a,15y,237.82h,90.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJkYgSqRisFv1wD9VjK_xPQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5240529,-112.1032385,3a,15y,...
- masonic 8y agoblack capsules This reminds me of the "black capsule", the mythical suicide drug in the original film "MAS*H".