If you woke up this morning with a sore throat, what would you do? I bet many of you would get on the computer, type your symptoms into Google, and probably end up on WebMD trying to self-diagnose. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (maybe we should leave the diagnosing for the doctors), but it’s how most of us operate these days. We have a remarkable amount of medical information available at our fingertips, and WebMD, which is based in NYC with a significant presence in a number of other cities, is responsible for a lot of it. They consider themselves “the leading provider of health information services, serving consumers, physicians, other healthcare professionals, employers and health plans.” If you read that closely, you probably noticed that WebMD’s business goes well beyond their consumer facing website. Continue reading about WebMD…
One of the books that I’ve been reading lately is SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
I was traveling yesterday, so I scheduled yesterday’s post and hopped on a plane. Little did I know that my server would somehow forget to do what I told it. Sorry! If you’re looking for yesterday’s post, you can find it here. (Or if you’re reading by e-mail, just scroll down.)
There are a lot of people who aren’t very thrilled with healthcare in the United States. Yes, it can be atrociously expensive, but at least we have access to pretty much any medical procedure out there. Whether it’s something very basic or something that has never been tried before, the US certainly has the medical infrastructure to get the job done. There are plenty of countries in the world where even the most basic medical care is out of reach, and there are other countries where basic medical care becomes out of reach due to a crisis. That’s where New York City based Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) comes in. They provide “aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.” Doctors Without Borders does this by recruiting both medical and non-medical personnel to travel abroad to offer a level of medical assistance that is well beyond what is typically available. Continue reading about Doctors Without Borders…
Last night I went to an event for National Coaching Fellows (I’m on their board). It was held at an art gallery, and it went extremely well. For the past few years, the organization has been struggling to feel legitimate (that’s a common problem with startups, non-profit or for-profit). Holding an event at a place with expensive art on the walls made a drastic difference—it felt real. Even though I’m not all that interested in art, there was no doubt in my mind that the art on the walls played a huge role in the mood of the event. RxArt is a New York City based non-profit that is taking advantage of this effect in a very different way. They curate contemporary art exhibitions in healthcare facilities to “relieve stress and anxiety, while increasing appreciation for contemporary art” for patients and staff. Considering how cold hospitals and doctor’s offices usually feel, I think this is an amazing idea. Continue reading about RxArt…
There are countless celebrities who support charitable causes. There are many who throw their full support behind a single organization; however, few celebs are as personally invested in their charitable work as Michael J. Fox is. Why is he so invested? Because his life is on the line. He is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, “a degenerative disease of the brain that often impairs motor skills, speech, and other functions.” If you’ve seen Michael J. Fox on tv lately, you’ve seen what Parkinson’s does to the human body. It’s a tragic disease that will hopefully be cured due to the work of the New York City based Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. As an accomplished actor and someone who is living with Parkinson’s, Michael J. Fox is the perfect person to lead the fight against the disease. Continue reading about Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research…
Most scientific literature isn’t what I’d call an easy read, so I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you aren’t beating down the doors to get your hands on the newest research papers. Unless you are a big consumer of research literature, then you probably don’t care much about the openness of scientific and medical publishing, but you should. Open sharing of information can significantly promote innovation, and who can argue against wanting more advances in science and medicine? The Public Library of Science is all about open sharing, as they are a San Francisco, CA based “nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.” They were founded in 2000, and since then they’ve been pushing for scientific and medical journals that “are immediately available online, with no charges for access and no restrictions on subsequent redistribution or use.” Continue reading about Public Library of Science…
We hope you had a safe Independence Day. Unfortunately, every year people get hurt during the celebration. Fireworks are a lot of fun, but they can result in some really nasty burns and injuries. Since we encouraged you to blow stuff up yesterday, we thought we’d counter that by featuring a non-profit organization that helps children who endure severe burns. The Shriners Hospitals for Children do exactly that. Who are Shriners? They wear funny hats. They drive little cars in parades. They’re Freemasons. And most importantly, they help kids through their hospitals. That’s going to be our focus today, since college students likely aren’t that interested in being part of a fraternal organization that seems like it has an average age north of 60. Then again, you probably got all hot and bothered about your college’s greek organizations and secret societies. Continue reading about Shriners Hospitals for Children…
Ok, we realize that today’s internships are going to sound a lot like yesterdays. While the Heritage Foundation identifies itself as a conservative thinktank, The Cato Institute considers itself more of a non-profit libertarian public policy research foundation. We usually wouldn’t repeat, but we were running down the list of Greg Mankiw approved internships, and Cato’s internship website blew us away. It’s fantastic. Their deadline for Fall internships is July 1, so we couldn’t even save them for next weekend if we wanted to. Continue reading about Cato Institute…
Last week we wrote about Sarasota, FL based Animal Replacement Technologies on One Day, One Job. There was no indication that they were hiring new grads, but we really liked their story, so we encouraged our readers to take a look and inquire about jobs if they were so inclined. Soon after we posted, Animal Replacement Technologies founder Dr. Christopher Sakezles left a comment inviting our readers to apply for summer internships in engineering with his company (and also asking potential applicants not to cold call, but to e-mail instead). It was exciting for us to have one of Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Reader Favorites leave a comment on our website; moreover, we realized that it was a perfect opportunity for us to share the excitement with our internship searching readers. If you read One Day, One Job as well, we apologize for sometimes being redundant and talking about the same companies on both sites, but we want to make sure that the internships we talk about are some of the most interesting and most worthwhile out there. Continue reading about Animal Replacement Technologies…
