I found this article about a website where you can check the disciplinary records of physicians. It’s important when choosing a physician to make an informed decision. Physicians may have disciplinary action taken if they have provided incompetent or negligent care, over-prescribed drugs, committed sexual misconduct or if other things, such as substance abuse problems, compromise their ability to provide competent care to their patients.

The Castle Connelly website offers a search facility that will search individual states or all 46 states and the District of Columbia. Four states, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina and South Dakota, are not included.

I ran a few test searches on the website, both in single state and nationwide. Parts of the site seem to still be under construction and a 46-state search only returned an error screen. I was able to perform single state searches, however.

To verify that the information contained on the site is up-to-date, I checked with my state’s Board of Registration in Medicine for the names of physicians who have been disciplined in the last year. I tried several searches on names of physicians that I know have had disciplinary action taken by the board – in one case, a doctor who has had his license to practice medicine revoked by the state board. Unfortunately, in each case, the Castle Connelly search turned up no information regarding any disciplinary action. I decided to try the website of the American Medical Association, which offers a doctor-finder search facility for patients.

The AMA website wasn’t much help either as it didn’t return any information on doctors who are not AMA members. The doctor who had his license revoked apparently was an AMA member and so his name did bring search results, but no mention was made of any disciplinary action and he seemed to be a member in good stead. The AMA doctor finder even provided a link to this physician’s website, in spite of the fact that his license to practice is under complete revocation and has been for four months. The physician in question is an orthopedic surgeon.

The four states not included in the Castle Connelly search facility have their own state-wide physican profile page. In fact, many states do make public the disciplinary and malpractice records of physcians licensed in that state. In most cases these can be easily found by googling “Board of Medicine+your state’s name”. The information found on these pages is usually current and verifiable. If your state doesn’t provide physician profiles online, usually you will be able to contact the state board in charge of licensure and registration of medical doctors by phone. Check your state’s government website for information.

When searching for a specialist or even a new primary care physican, take the time to research your choices and find the best match for your health issues.

The FDA has issued another alert to consumers about purchasing drugs via internet websites after a number of consumers received drugs containing haloperidol, a powerful anti-psychotic.

Consumers who placed orders for specific drugs – Ambien, Xanax, Lexipro and Ativan – instead received products that contained the haloperidol, a drug used to treat schizophrenia. Reports show that several consumers suffered symptoms such as difficulty in breathing, muscle spasms and muscle stiffness after ingesting the suspect product and sought emergency medical treatment.

The FDA wants to caution consumers about the dangers of ordering prescription drugs online and states that consumers should consult the FDA website before buying medication over the Internet.

Photos of the of the tablets in question and the shipping packages can be seen here.

Continuing with my series on computer games that can be downloaded from the internet, we could have a look at jigsaw puzzles. Most allow you to set the level of difficulty and also use your own photographs to create new jigsaws. But finding a free program that works well is impossible. If you want a good jigsaw program on your computer, you will have to pay a small amount at least.

My own favorite is Jigs@w Puzzle Platinum, a shareware program that gives you 60 minutes of playing time to decide whether you like it or not before buying. It costs only $19.99 and, to true jigsaw addicts, it is well worth the price.

As well as doing everything expected of such software, creating new puzzles, allowing you to decide how many pieces are in a puzzle, it has a very smooth interface and a gallery where you can hang your completed pictures. I used it for years before it ever became “platinum” and it never crashed or faltered.

The alternative to owning a program is to play online. There are many sites that provide jigsaws free of charge but they do have their drawbacks. Most use either Java or Shockwave to create the puzzle and, on my machine, that makes them jerky in operation. If you are determined to play for free, however, they are usable, at least.

The sites I looked at are:

Free Jigsaw Puzzles

Jigzone

Puzzle House

Again, you can choose how difficult you want the puzzle to be, although this means picking the picture that contains the right number of pieces. The puzzles tend to be very simple, however; probably not quite what the real jigsaw devotee wants. But, as they say, you get what you pay for!

The old song says, “No, they can’t take that away from me” and that is certainly true for Les Loken, a 94-year-old World War II veteran. He has been recording his memories on video and putting them up on YouTube.

YouTube is one of those new-fangled things on the internet, essentially a library of all kinds of videos that people can add to and others watch. It is the latest thing with the young, of course, but Les has shown that it’s for older people too.

His series of videos deals with his early life, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, the war in the Pacific and the occupation of Japan. As eye witness accounts, they are both interesting and revealing, as well as being a potentially rich source for historians. In fact, so interesting are Les’ videos that young people have found them and begun to respond in videos of their own. There is still some respect for the past, it seems.

If you have a broadband internet connection, I recommend that you click on the links below and enjoy Les and his memories.

Les Loken – Part 1 (Pearl Harbor)

Les Loken – Part 2 (War in the Pacific)

Les Loken – Part 3 (Occupation of Japan)

Les Loken – Part 4 (Friendship with Namikawa)

Les Loken – Part 5 (Occupied Japan)

Les Loken – Part 6 (Earliest years)

Les Loken – Part 7 (The Great Depression)

Les Loken – Part 8 (Military career)

Les Loken – Part 9 (More WWII experiences)