Hot MedFax

I tend to take risks.  Speak up (loudly) about not getting paid for an assignment.  When my son has a teacher who loses his test, then yells at him because she can't find it.  When my late mother-in-law insisted I wear a dress that made me look like a beached whale to her grandson's bar mitzvah (not). On the other hand, my husband is super-cautious.  Won't send it back when a server mistakenly places the wrong order in front of him.   Panics when a patient leaves a message (he's a dentist) and says it's urgent. Refused to get married for years because of his fear of divorce (we've been married for 22). Now a new study is asking, is risk contagious? In my house, not so much. In the study, 24 volunteers repeatedly participated in three types of trials: a "self" trial, in which the participants were asked to choose between taking a guaranteed $10 or making a risky gamble with a potentially higher payoff; an "observe" trial, in which...

I found this pretty interesting. A new study has found that not all narcissists are risk-takers.  Donald Trump immediately came to mind. Experts say he will drop out of the presidential race before the primaries because he won't take any chances of losing, or going down in the polls.  I think that's a good call.  At heart, he's a quitter. Many studies have found that narcissists often make volatile and risky decisions, possibly because they tend to have inflated views of their own abilities and achievements, according to newswise.com. But in a series of three experiments, researchers found that people who scored higher on measures of narcissism were no more likely than others to make risky choices in lab-based tasks.  “I thought that narcissists, given that they are impulsive and have high opinions of themselves, would take bigger risks. That’s what other research would have suggested,” says one of the researchers.“But any association between narcis...

I've always wished that my son would be more daring.  When he was a little boy, his best friend climbed trees (to the top), snowboarded only on slopes marked with black diamonds, and wasn't afraid to trade barbs with kids who were 20 pounds heavier and meaner. Instead, Phillip would stand anxiously by, ready to call 911. I've always loved that about him, that he's a caretaker, but I also, at times when he was smaller, found myself hoping that he'd be just a tad more open to risk.  I'm not talking skydiving or swimming in a thunderstorm, but  riding a bike with the training wheels off? But that's just who he is.  A teacher recently described him as "very cerebral," and maybe people who think a lot about what can go wrong don't do things that may be dangerous This winter he's been scared when I go running.  Last year I fell on the ice and broke my wrist.  "You're actually going running?" he says nervously to me as the sn...

I blog I visit a lot recently asked a very interesting question.  How risky is it to be uninsured ? I particularly want to know because my husband, 64 but healthy, does not have health insurance, and never has.  (Of course, he also never goes to the doctor.) But Chris Conover at forbes.com, who poses that question, says a couple of things.  Some studies show you have an elevated risk of dying without insurance.  Try about 25% more.  But others, sifting similar data, find the risk statistically insignificant. Why?  People who smoke and/or are obese are more likely to be uninsured, sure risks for an early death. It's possible they're more comfortable taking risks and might speed or not wear seat belts, too.  Young people, who also often do not buy insurance (they'll live forever, remember?), have as one of their greatest causes of death, automobile accidents, Conover points out.  So, are they dying young from being hospitalized without insuran...