The Incredible Voyage (2010 version)

For those of you who don't know about this, Google Labs has just created a human body browser -- called "Google Body Browser."

It's a fun little software to look through bones, muscles, organs, neural segments, etc. Happily, it is has a search box in the upper right corner, so you can type it in and find out just exactly WHERE your hippocampus is! (And you thought it was a field of hippopotamuses, yes?)

"Medical Acupuncture" -- acupuncture training for M.D.s

I came across this interesting post discussing the abbreviated acupuncture training for M.D.s and the viewpoint that it creates under-trained practitioners, with a shallow understanding of the theoretical foundations of the science of acupuncture.

The author, Dr. Marilyn Walkey, has an impressive background -- she has been a medical doctor for more than 20 years, who initially took a "medical acupuncture" training course, and then actually enrolled in AOM school to become a fully-qualified acupuncture practitioner.

(For those of you who don't know, acupuncture practitioner training in the U.S. is 2000+ hours of didactic & clinical training -- usually this is a graduate degree academic program. This is in contrast to medical acupuncture courses, which are usually 200-300 hours of training -- although chiropractors in the state of Florida can qualify for chiropractic acupuncture certification after 100 hours of additional training -- as per the DOH's Acupuncture Certification Application.)

Dr. Walkey's view is that the profession of acupuncture in the U.S. is being under-represented by the sub-field of "medical acupuncture" and that patients who are being treated by it may be missing the benefits of this medicine.