Personal stuff
If you enjoy watching someone deterioriate with age, I have a series of personal photos from 2007, 2005, 2003,2002, 2001, 1998, 1986, 1980, 1977, circa 1976, 1971, 1969, and 1968. The obsessive-compulsive reader can peruse some boring credentials on my curriculum vitae. Some brief moviereviews of mine are posted on the Internet Movie Database, and I have book and video reviews on my member page at Amazon.com. If you're interested in the Uthman family genealogy, check out the Charles Uthman page, dedicated to the memory of my uncle and other departed kin.
I am the owner or co-owner of several mailing lists, where you are welcome to join me:
- Carl Sagan YahooGroup is dedicated to the interests of the namesake astronomer and science popularizer. This is a highly free-form list that covers a lot of territory, just as Sagan's writings and utterences did. To subscribe, visit the YahooGroup site, or just send e-mail to carlsagan-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
- Sagan-Feynman YahooGroup is dedicated to the interests of Sagan and Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman. This list is slower than the Carl Sagan list, above, but more attuned to science-oriented messages. To subscribe, visit the YahooGroup site, or send e-mail to sagan-feynman-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
- PATHO-L, founded in 1994 by Vijay Varma, MD, is the oldest continuously active pathology-oriented online discussion group. This is an international list for individuals interested in the practice of anatomic pathology and laboratory medicine. We welcome not only pathologists, but also histo- and cytotechnologists, histologic technicians, practice administrators, risk managers, quality managers, and students looking into pathology as a career. I co-own this list with Vijay and two other pathologist, Dan Pankowsky, MD, and Ian Katz, MD. To subscribe, visit the Web interface and fill in the blanks there
I enjoy photography and have recently started posting images on my Flickr account.
At my Del.icio.us page there are lists of other Web sites I find useful.
Original pathology- andlab medicine-related resources
Everything in this section is free for noncommercial use, unlessotherwise stated.HTML documents
A Screenwriter's Guide to theAutopsy is a narrative account of a routine autopsyfor the use of novelists and screenwriters. I have gone into greatdetail as to sights, smells, and character sketches ["The classicUsenet FAQ for screenwriters" --Autopsy Tools is is photogallery and glossary of the instruments used by prosectors inperforming autopsies.
Lab Test Interpretation is anencyclopedic resource aimed at health professionals. It lists the majorroutine clinical lab tests offered in a chemistry profile and completeblood count and gives many of the diagnostic possibilities for abnormalvalues of each.
Gross Specimen Photography is an introduction to photography in general and isaimed at junior pathology residents who are confronted for the first time with having to take gross photographs of specimens. There are also a few links to other good photography Web resources.
ExoticInfections is a companion piece to my sophomore med studentlecture covering Lyme disease, non-venereal treponematoses, plague,cholera, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, rickettsialpox, andehrlichiosis, with extensive historical notes.
Forensic Pathology is acompanion to an introductory lecture on the subject for medicalstudents. It is very basic.
Forensic Pathology Careers:Frequently Asked Questions is something I put together in responseto all the folks who have written me about their desire to look into acareer in forensic pathology. Be warned: these are my opinions only.You may also wish to check out the Web site of the The Biopsy Report: A Patient'sGuide is a patient education piece for those who would like totry their hand at understanding their biopsy report. It deals withtypes of biopsies, tissue processing and examination, and gross andmicroscopic descriptions. It also has a glossary of pathologic terms. Tips For Making Good PapSmears is a brief piece on how to get a good smear and minimizethe number of smears unnecessarily classified as atypical. This isaimed at gynecologists, primary care physicians, midwives, nurses, andothers who collect Paps. The Red Cell and Anemia is a series of 5 HTML documents. For thedownloadable .PDF version see below. Hematopathologic PhenotypesMade Mockingly Simple: A Remedy For CDphobia, by Margaret Uthman, MD(artwork and layout by me) consists of two flow charts that attempt toimpose some order on the cacophony of cluster designators used in thediagnostic evaluation of lymphomas and leukemias. This is aimed atpathology residents, general pathologists, and flow cytometry labstaffers. UnderstandingAnemia, my first book, is now available in hardback and paper.The publisher has graciously allowed me to post the full text ofChapter 1 online. You can access it through the book outline at thislink. Longevity of U.S.Presidents. Did 20th century health care help modern presidentslive longer than their 19th century counterparts? You may be surprised. Elemental Composition ofthe Body is a simple table that lists, in descending order of abundance,all 59 chemical elements present in measurable amounts in the human body. Foreach element, the table shows 1) the weight of element present in a 70-kilogramperson, 2) the volume occupied by that much of the purified element, and 3) howbig a cube made up of that quantity of purified element would be.
"The Red Cell and Anemia" is a companion to a sophomore med studentlecture I give on this subject. It is 51 pages long, 19000 words, andhas line drawings and tables. It is just about everything you wouldneed to teach red cell diseases to med students and medical technologystudents. 228K. "Hematologic Infections", co-written with my wife,Margaret, is a lecturesyllabus covering granulomatous lymphadenitis (fungal and bacterial),cat scratch disease, toxoplasmosis, Epstein-Barr virus (includinginfectious mononucleosis, Burkitt's lymphoma, and post-transplantlymphoproliferative disorder), visceral leishmaniasis, malaria,lymphatic filariasis, parvovirus B19, HTLV-1, and a little bit on HIV.11 pages, 4200 words, 34K. "Bacterial Sepsis" is the syllabus fora lecture on bacterial sepsis aimed at second-year medical students. 8pages, 3300 words, 27K. "Pathology For Colon & Rectal Surgeons" is much more than that.Written by my erudite partner, Gerry del Junco, MD, this 73-pageformatted document is the ultimate pathology Board-review resource inintestinal pathology. Just add photos, and you've got the equivalent ofa $200 subspecialty textbook for free (non-commercial use only,please). This is the 2002 revision. 393K. "Surgical Pathology Quality Assurance Score Sheet" is a weightedscoring form for reporting QA case reviews in surgical pathology. Everycase starts with a "zero" score and gets points deducted for variousdeficiencies. Guidelines are given for how many points to deduct foreach peccadillo. There is also a nativeversion of this 8K file in Microsoft Wordformat, for those who wish to edit it. Since my ISP limits my space here severely, I have begun to add specimen
images to a
section in my Flickr account. The images there have much higher resolution than
those here. "Placenta" is adownloadable Stuffitarchive containing my spreadsheet for calculating normal ranges ofplacental weights and plotting an individual patient's placental weighton the resulting nomogram. The spreadsheet can be modified with yourinstitution's logo and your personal signature line by anyone who has abit of working knowledge of "Grouper" (version 2.1) is aMicrosoft Excel worksheet that accepts up to 1000 numerical datapoints,calculates descriptive statistics of the sample, collates the data intoa user- specified number of groups, and draws a histogram of thegrouped data. It can also accept user-specified exclusion criteria,allowing outliers to be filtered out of the dataset before thehistogram is constructed. I developed it as an aid to determine labtest reference ranges. This is a Stuffit archive containing the spreadsheet, GROUPER.XLS, and thedocumentation, GROUPER.TXT. Public domain, 56K. "A Taxonomic Guide to the Pathology Kingdom" is aPowerPoint presentation on pathology as a career, comparing the world of academicpathology with that of private practice. This will be pretty obscure foranyone who is not fascinated by scientific names of biological species. Youhave been warned. 44K. What would a home page be without rants? The following are shortopinion pieces on various subjects, mostly concerning pathology andlaboratory medicine: This is a trashcan section that I will be using as a depository for stuff thatI write that has nothing to do with medicine. Abolish the Electoral College? Dream On.
So, you think we should elect the US president by direct popular vote? I've done the
numbers. Read 'em and weep.
Interesting Facts About the Byzantine Emperorscame from some reading I was doing about ten years ago. At that time, I concluded(correctly, as it turns out) that I would never remember any of it unless I tooknotes. Commencement Address, 1994 Medical LaboratoryTechnician Class, Wharton County (Texas) Junior College. OK, so maybe this does havesomething to do with medicine, but it's really just my first attempt to write a semi-serious inspirational/motivational speech. Was I successful? Decide for yourself. Newton's Times is aone-page Microsoft Word document that shows a timeline ofscientific and technical advancement during the life of Isaac Newton(25 Dec 1642 - 20 Mar 1727). This is the handout from a brief talk Igave on Newton. Feel free to e-mail me, but pleaseread the following first:.PDF documents
The following are downloadable documents in Adobe'sAcrobat .PDF format. Most modern browsers can view themdirectly, but if you have trouble, you can view or print themusing Adobe's freeAcrobat Reader software. Note that many computers now come withAcrobat Reader pre-installed, so check your hard drive before youdownload it.Pathology images
This is a collection of specimen images that I have released into thepublic domain. The index page is here. The image files are all JPEG with longest dimension between 550 and 650 pixels.
Other binary files
Rants!And now for something completely different...Contact
