Does Education Stifle Creativity?

I was having a conversation with Jerry Fahri last week over his thoughts about how bureaucracy may be stifling innovation. As it relates to the profession of pharmacy, I can understand his reasoning, and it makes sense - at least to me.

Having graduated from a COP that I felt provided a stifling and restrictive environment, I find that this videoed speech from the perspective of Woz does a good job of explaining how the higher-education system could be contributing to that lack of creativity.

Arizona's Anti-Vaccination Epidemic

Parents, you're making a HUGE mistake by not vaccinating your children.

By not vaccinating yourself and your children, you're not only exposing them to potentially lethal diseases, but you're also extending that risk to your friends and neighbors who may not share your beliefs. Is that what you really want?

An Arizona Daily Star investigative report on vaccinations in Arizona show that one in three Arizona schools last year had kindergarten classes with vaccination rates so low children were left vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks such as measles, mumps or pertussis.

According to that same report, by far the worst offenders are charter and private schools, some with vaccination rates as low as 50 percent in Pima County and under 30 percent in Maricopa County. Rates need to be 80 percent to 95 percent, depending on the disease, to prevent the spread of infection through herd immunity.

Please don't listen to the quacks or vaccine conspiracy theorists, get your children vaccinated ASAP! Any local pharmacy can do it for you quickly and conveniently.

Image Source: Daily Fitz Cartoon: Plague

Tali Sharot: The Optimism Bias

Are we born to be optimistic, rather than realistic? Tali Sharot shares new research that suggests our brains are wired to look on the bright side -- and how that can be both dangerous and beneficial.


Source: TED: Ideas worth spreading

The Bookeeper Of Death

If you're any type of humanities history buff like I am, or if recent history has already proven it to you, then you should know that the organizers and leaders of massive crimes against humanity or society rarely suffer any consequences from their horrific deeds.

Many of these criminal leaders eventually get off Scot-free or with minimal punishment once they're brought to "justice". And it's usually only the people who foolishly listened to them, then followed and carried-out the orders from these psychopaths, who ever get severely punished for these crimes.

But yet, to this day, many people continue to follow the orders of such psychopathic leaders and enable their crimes, no matter how horrific. Just how these psychopaths are still able to convince educated people of the world to blindly do what they say continues to amaze me.

People just do not have the ability to say "NO!" in these type of situations and will always place their own selfish interests above anything else, even if to the point of torture, murder, and even genocide.

If any of my previous posts haven't convinced you of that yet, then watch the story of Comrade Duch (Kaing Guek Eav) a Cambodian mathematician who served as the Khmer Rouge commandant at Tuol Sleng prison in the late 1970s and who oversaw the torture and murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. Out of an estimated 17,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, there were only seven known survivors.

In this documentary Comrade Duch is brought up on charges of crimes against humanity at a special UN tribunal, and three of the prison’s seven survivors describe what they endured at Tuol Sleng.

Watching wrenching footage of his own brutality and facing the distraught families of his victims, Duch apologizes—leaving many to question his sincerity and raising the issue of forgiveness in the name of reconciliation. The full documentary can be seen on Global Voices, through June 19th or on your local PBS station.

Trying To Get Over

Even after the too-numerous-to-count news reports coming out of the state of Florida about pill mills and prescription drug abuse over the past five-years, there's still reports of highly-educated, superfly, healthcare professionals thinking that they're going to get over on "The Man".

According to the U.S. Attorney's Middle-District Office in Florida -

Tampa, FL - U.S. Attorney Robert E. O'Neill announces that U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore yesterday sentenced Dr. Sanjeev Grover (49, Lutz) to five years in federal prison for dispensing and distributing Oxycodone pills outside the professional scope of professional practice. He pled guilty on February 14, 2012.

According to court documents, Dr. Grover sold prescriptions for Oxycodone pills to a confidential informant and to an undercover agent on five occasions, between April and June 2011.

Dr. Grover met the confidential informant twice in a Burger King parking lot in Lutz, FL. The first sale involved four separate prescriptions, each for 60 eighty-milligram pills. The second sale included eight prescriptions, each for 180 thirty-milligram pills. On two other occasions, Dr. Grover met with the confidential informant and the undercover agent in a business center parking lot in Palm Harbor, Florida. During the first meeting, he sold six prescriptions. Four of the prescriptions were for 180 thirty-milligram pills and the other two for 180 fifteen-milligram pills. During the second meeting, he sold them twelve separate prescriptions, each for 180 thirty-milligram pills. On the fifth occasion, Dr. Grover sold six prescriptions to the undercover agent in a Walgreens parking lot in Palm Harbor. Each prescription was for 180 thirty-milligram pills.

Here's Mr. O'Neill's video report to the news media about this case -

When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going

I was watching one of my favorite old television shows at home recently, and saw this chain pharmacy commercial. It seemed to me to be attempting to sell both product and subliminally trying to motivate pharmacists to fight for a role in providing MTM services. But, I could be wrong. What do you think?


Source: South Park Studios

The Lost Wizard

The tragic story of one of the greatest inventors known to mankind, Nikola Tesla.