Neurologist. CommunityHealth-Chicago Expat Yinzer. @umich At @pennmedicine when Ben Franklin asked if we could keep our Republic. At BlueSky, same user name.
Winnetka, IL
Joined February 2009
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Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
Rabin, who said things like this, was assassinated by the kind of Jewish extremist that runs Israel’s government today.
She Was Racked With Anxiety and Crushed by Insomnia. Finally She Understood Why. nytimes.com/2026/10/30/well/… via @NYTimes
@DrAnnieHickox @ProfRobHoward @dawso007 @sanilrege @tylerblack32 @jonathanstea
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
Best thing I've read all week. Conservatism lives. nationalreview.com/corner/a-…
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
This Australian's reply to Trump's rant about “NATO not being there for America” is perfect.
"Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban in Afghanistan thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
'NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your f----- mouth."
Credit to: Jim Keller
This is one powerful editorial.
Trump Has Failed. Hold Him to Account. nytimes.com/2026/10/27/opini… via @NYTOpinion
“Metabolic psychiatry” coming to the NIMH under RFK, Jr.-@ShebaniMD
Just when you thought they couldn’t do any more harm to the mental health system, this…
@tylerblack32 @jonathanstea @dawso007 @DrAnnieHickox @afshineemrani @awaisaftab @ProfRobHoward
science.org/content/article/…
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
Moderna and Merck’s personalized mRNA cancer vaccine reduced melanoma recurrence by 42%. We already have a vaccine that prevents cancer (HPV). Now we’re going to have vaccines individually targeted to treat your cancer. This is the same technology that our government cut NIH support by $500 million. statnews.com/2026/10/22/esmo… via @statnews
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
Insight isn’t a cure, even Freud spelled that out long ago.
And severe depression very often involves biological changes that no amount of self-help can treat.
See also untreated depression in women which is so often triggered by hormonal changes.
The Dodgers may come back from 0-3 with Dave Roberts, just as the Red Sox came back from 0-3 against the Yankees in 2004. In that game, Roberts, as a pinch runner in game 4, stole 2nd and the Red Sox won the series. What an irony that would be.
As of Oct 18 it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get drugs from Canadian online pharmacies. Patients on DOACs like Eliquis will be paying more than double, and many will not be able to afford them.
beckershospitalreview.com/ph…
‘Zombified’ C.D.C., Hobbled by Cuts, Struggles to Fulfill Scientific Mission nytimes.com/2026/09/26/healt… via @NYTimes
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
AI is changing medical practice, as @RBMD1982 points out @nytopinion
But there are certainly concerns regarding deskilling and never-skilling among younger physicians, trainees, and students (w/@AdamRodmanMD)
"Now, the chatbot in my pocket reassures me that I will always know enough, or have access to the cloud-based intelligence that generally does."
nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opini…
Being a Doctor Will Never Be the Same After A.I. nytimes.com/2026/09/25/opini… via @NYTOpinion
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
The iPhone 18 Pro Max went on sale 3 days ago. $1,199.
Millions of people bought it this weekend. Most of them upgraded from an iPhone 15 or 16. Some upgraded from last year's 17 Pro Max.
A tech reviewer who's tested every iPhone since the original spent 72 hours with the 18 Pro Max. He told me something Apple would never say at a keynote:
"This is the most impressive iPhone ever built — and most people who bought it this weekend didn't need to."
"The variable aperture camera is genuinely revolutionary. The battery life is absurd. The A20 Pro chip is a monster. But Apple spent 90 minutes on stage telling you what's new — and 0 minutes telling you what actually matters to the person holding it."
"They didn't tell you the 3 situations where this phone is a life-changing upgrade. They didn't tell you the 4 situations where your iPhone 16 does the same job. They didn't tell you the one spec they buried that changes how long this phone lasts. And they definitely didn't tell you the 10 features already on this phone that you'll never open — because they'd rather sell you the iPhone 19 next year than teach you the 18 you just bought."
Here are 10 things about the iPhone 18 Pro Max that Apple didn't say on stage — the honest truth about who should buy it, who shouldn't, and how to actually use the phone you just paid $1,199 for:🧵
Good, balanced discussion about SSRIs. The comments, of which there are many, dispel the notion that they don’t help most patients. Adverse effects are acknowledged.
Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About S.S.R.I.s nytimes.com/2026/09/16/opini… via @NYTOpinion
He’s probably right. Hopefully we will get one, one of these days.
Trump Says a Smart President Is All That’s Needed to Rein In A.I. nytimes.com/2026/09/14/us/po… via @NYTimes
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
2)
The unenhanced CT was easy to under-call.
No large bleed.
No dense MCA.
No surgical mass.
Just a slightly full, slightly hypodense medial temporal lobe on one side.
Insular ribbon a little blurred.
The other side looking like a control image.
That is how herpes encephalitis fools a night list.
The first CT can look “almost normal” while the virus is already in the cortex.
3)
What I refused to call “just oedema”:
1. Unilateral swelling of the medial temporal lobe and insula
2. Sparing of the putamen when the insula is involved
3. A story of fever, odd behaviour, and new olfactory hallucinations
Psychiatric labels do not explain an asymmetric mesial temporal lobe.
4)
MRI made it obvious.
T2 / FLAIR lighting up cortex and insula.
Restricted diffusion in the same ribbon.
A little haemorrhage creeping in.
The “psychiatric case” was HSV until the PCR said otherwise.
5)
That is why we do not wait for a perfect scan.
Aciclovir starts on suspicion.
Imaging supports the call.
A delayed MRI is not a reason to delay treatment if the CT and the story already fit.
6)
Three imaging rules I use on every febrile encephalopathy:
1. Unilateral temporal + insula, putamen spared → herpes until PCR is negative
2. CT can lag — a “near-normal” scan does not clear the diagnosis
3. Bilateral involvement later does not mean you were wrong on day one
7)
Most odd behaviour is still not encephalitis.
Most low-grade fevers still have a normal head CT.
Burnt-toast smells, a new personality, and one swollen temporal lobe is not a psychiatry discharge until the mesial temporal lobes have been looked at properly.
Follow for more cases ; help repost and like the posts 🙏🙏
Kenneth A. Vatz retweeted
Let me be clear about one thing. Donald J. Trump is the worst human being alive. He is the most pathetic and incompetent president in America history. People who still support him are the most pathetic person ever. I'm sure I've left out quite a few things. What do you think?
