DNGILB: Trust me, I'm a doctor.

I saw someone yawning yesterday... I forced myself to look, to watch from start to finish, the contagious yawn. I felt a peculiar sensation in the musculature of my jaw for a good two minutes afterward. A yawn was trying to raise up from deep within... I kept suppressing it, not wanting to yield to the primordial reflexes. I did manage to suppress. But I thought it so peculiar that we are wired this way. What sociologic benefit is there to the reproduction of someone else's yawn? Most things that we do not reason into existence are remnants of evolutionary psychology. Impulses, feelings... they are there because they helped the individuals within a species survive and thrive, yes... natural selection. Yet, I find no potential reason why the contagiousness of a yawn should propogate itself through centuries of humanity. Anyone have ideas? dngilb

Ever since Vanessa had developed her health issues, with abdominal pain, shifting diagnoses that have all so far turned out to not quite be right, and thoughts of the upcoming endoscopies... I still see the effects of these events changing the way I practice medicine. Many patients are dismissed as malingerers or psycho-somaticizers, however I see them as patients potentially suffering from a uncommon condition. I find myself holding patients a day longer, running an extra $4000 of tests. So far, nearly everyone whom I suspected to be psychosomatic have all been psychosomatic. Am I wasting money? perhaps. But psychosomatic pain, etc. is truly a diagnosis of exclusion... and I wonder if I wasn't Vanessa's husband... would doctors have just dismissed her as "crazy"?? I admit, I did fear that this was all in her head. In hind sight I know without doubt it is clearly not. There are still items on the differential which haven't been ruled out. There are still disorders