TED Community » Denise Bem David

More About Me

I'm passionate about

New ideas and ways to improve life on Earth , and happiness and well-being of humankind . People and exchange of ideas. Anything that has to do with medicine and improving health.

An idea worth spreading

Live a more simple life, focusing in connecting with people and increasing the quality of our human and cultural exchanges. Decrease the amount of energy and planetary resources we use in the developed Contries. Do we really need all that stuff to have a happy and fulfilling life?

Talk to me about

Science, biology medicine, homeopathy, mind and spiritual development, evolution, health, gastronomy, ethology, animals, humour, literature, visual arts, learning....

People don't know that I'm good at

Cooking. And organizing things in small spaces!

My TED Story

My aunt sent me a link for a TED talk, in 2007, introducing me to the best web site in the cyberspace! Since then I "spread the word " to literally hundreds of people worldwide. I send then links with the TED talks that I find most fascinating to dozens of friends, thinking of it as a precious gift.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +96.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +2

  A comment on Conversation: What if medical schools cultivated the art of healing along with knowledge acquisition.

  Feb 2 2012: Interesting to read these comments. Many patients seem to feel quite abandoned by their doctors.
  I have quite a different experience. During and after the Medical School we were constantly reminded that we were treating patients, not diseases, and that the patient care is the goal. I participated in groups to discuss medico-patient interaction during years. We knew that a clear communication between the MD and the patient is vital for the treatment. Otherwise you prescribe medication and the patient does not take it, for instance.
  I was never warned against my inner voice during my training, just that intuition should be backed by study, sound medical evidence, and experience. When I was worried with a patient that looked fine but made me feel somehow uneasy, I kept on paying attention, examining and caring very closely, and discussing with other colleagues the case. I learned that anxious, demanding patients can have concomitantly a serious clinical condition in parallel with the psychological condition, and both must be well cared for. Treat the cancer without dealing with the anxiety is bad, as is the other way round.
  I would say that most doctors are open to new information, and are not intellectually myopic - even if a great number of us are physically myopic and use glasses ;-)!
  It is not easy, and it is tiring to be a good doctor: long working hours, always studying, always putting patients first. Maybe the American system does not contribute to a culture of trust between the treating physician and the patient.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Brian Goldman: Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?

  Jan 30 2012: Kyle, doctors do follow established frameworks. Think about a medical or surgical condition, and search the guidelines and recommendations (you will see that the level of evidence associated to that recommedation is also clealy stated) for treating it. Try "cardiac Insufficiency", the case described in the talk, for a start.
  Medical treatments are based on extensively collected medical evidence and carefully designed clinical trials. Subjective perceptions, the "gut feelings", help to diagnose and understand the patient, but are not what determine the treatment. And of course, new discoveries and new evidence lead to changes and new treatments.
  Any patient's symptoms are always taken seriously and investigated, in a competent medical environment. So the patient smelling of alcohol may be less agreable to deal with, but he will be investigated for his chest pain, in my experience
  Neurotic patients happen to have cancer, concomitantly with their many anxieties and many complaints. A careful doctor will check and treat it all.

• A reply on Talk: Brian Goldman: Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?

  Jan 30 2012: You have clearly stated the important point: the difference before making a mistake, something normal and sadly inevitable in any human activity, and negligence.
  The open dialogue and team work that happends in most hospitals and clinical practices helps to avoid mistakes. Most doctors I know discuss openly their difficult cases.
  To the non-MDs in this forum, I would like to add the information that daily rounds and weekly meetings happen during the trainining period of young doctors, and the open discussions afterwards. Maybe I was trained in an outstandingly healthy and friendly medical environment, but the impressionn I have is that while mistakes do happen, the serious , fatal ones are quite rare (although even only one, is one too many...).

• A reply on Talk: Jay Bradner: Open-source cancer research

  Nov 2 2011: W. Mandell: this is unacceptable for many reasons. Briefly: we must ensure that the new compounds are not toxic at a short and long term (including in the progeny), and show the intended pharmacological action. For that they must be tested first in animals. Actually, it is necessary to test the compound in more than one animal species.
  When a molecule is cleared in animal models and the testing in humans starts (phase I, with small increasing doses where healthy individual are followed with careful clinical, biochemical and imagery check-ups to check how the drig circulated in the body, and their safety profile), some bad surprises still happen. So the prohibition to test in humans before having a clear toxicity/safety/efficacy profile in animals should be kept mandatory.

• A reply on Talk: Jay Bradner: Open-source cancer research

  Nov 2 2011: Randy Crawford, thanks for your post. I was going to write something on those lines. The pre-clinical and clinical development of a compound are the time-consuming (yes, around 8 to 10 years),and money-consuming part of any drug development (around 1 billion dollars).
  The problem with government funded drug development is that it virtually does not exist. The firms take the big risk, and lose the money if the drug is not approved or if it is a commercial flop. This creates a distortion where big Pharma companies want to invest in molecules that will have ensured the return of investment (ex: for cardiovascular diseases).
  A new drug approval process is heavy and long. Small companies working in niche areas or orphan diseases have a facilitated process - and this is fair (the cost of development is high for them too, and the earnings are much smaller).
  I agree with the post saying that the finantially driven Pharma research is deleterious for drug discovery, for the all reasons above mentioned. Look at the sad situation of antibiotic research, where there was a desinvestment in the last years (cardiovascular compounds bring more profit for the Companies). I fear that we will soon have a really bad super-bug, resistant to all antibiotics. People will die for lack of investment in this area.
  The nice idea of this TED talk is the open source - sharing the discovered molecules structure. But as you see, this research group has already founded a Company to do the drug development and is probably trying to get investors. So it is Pharma, big and small, back in the picture again.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Dean Kamen previews a new prosthetic arm

  Mar 6 2010: Remarkable work and remarkable inventor. I am also deeply moved by his generosity and his work (just browsed the DEKA site).