In a recent poll by The Physicians Foundation, more than six in 10 doctors surveyed said their patients were influenced by misinformation and/or disinformation at least a moderate amount over the past year.

Rural physicians appeared to experience the phenomenon more often than urban doctors.

Nine out of 10 doctors said the problem is that medical misinformation gleaned from the internet has increased over the past five years.

Half of doctors said they felt confident they could identify and correct patients' bad information when they met them during appointments, but a larger issue remains unresolved: It's a lot easier to get medical information (good or bad) on the web than it is to see a doctor.

Body of Knowledge

Your liver has at least 500 known functions.

Stories for the Waiting Room

In 2015, a 52-year-old tourist was swimming in the Red Sea when he collided with a school of fish. It was quite a sight. The same can't be said for what happened next: A few days later, the man developed a swollen and droopy eyelid that wouldn't heal.

A doctor's visit revealed an area of inflammation called a granuloma on his eyelid. Granulomas are small clusters of macrophage cells that congregate to wall off foreign substances or infections that the immune system cannot eliminate. The man underwent surgery to correct the issue.

But doctors ended up removing more than the granuloma. They found two mysterious "tubular structures," which a biologist later identified as the jawbones of a halfbeak, a small fish that dwells in shallow, warm coastal waters. The fish get their name from their distinctive jaws: The lower jaw juts out significantly farther than the upper, resembling a long needle. Like a chin, it does not move but instead serves as a specialized sensory device for detecting prey.

The halfbeak jawbones had become embedded in the muscles controlling the man's eyelid, immobilizing it and causing it to drop. Once removed, the patient's eyelid recovered quickly.

No word on what happened to the hapless halfbeaks, but they probably weren't smiling.

Doc Talk

Trepanation: The deliberate drilling, cutting or scraping of a hole into the human skull. As the oldest known surgical procedure in human history, it has been performed for millennia for both medical purposes (like relieving pressure from traumatic brain injuries) and spiritual or ritualistic reasons. One of the oldest examples dates to 7,300 B.C. at the site of the village of Vasilyevka in Azerbaijan.

Mania of the Week

Habromania: A form of insanity characterized by delusions of a pleasing nature

Life in Big Macs

One hour of showering burns 136 calories (based on a 150-pound person) or the equivalent of 0.2 Big Macs. It also wastes more than 130 gallons of water.

Best Medicine

Wife: Well, what did the doctor say?

Husband: He said I've got attention deficit something or other.

Observation

"I like long walks, especially when they're taken by people who annoy me." — Comedian Fred Allen (1894-1956)

Medical History

This week in 1867, the first U.S. gallstone operation was performed by Dr. John Stough Bobbs, known as "the father of gallbladder surgery," in Indianapolis, Indiana. While operating on his patient, Mary E. Wiggins, for a suspected ovarian cyst, Bobbs found the gallbladder to be inflamed and containing structures like "several solid ordinary rifle bullets."

He opened the sac and removed multiple gallstones but left the gallbladder in place after closing the defect (cholecystostomy). Wiggins recovered and outlived Bobbs.

Perishable Publications

Many, if not most, published research papers have titles that defy comprehension. They use specialized jargon, complex words and opaque phrases like "nonlinear dynamics." Sometimes they don't, yet they're still hard to figure out. Here's an actual title of actual published research study: "The Perils of Bungee Jumping" by Marc J. Shapiro et al. published in Clinical Communications.

At the time of publication in 1995, bungee jumping was a relatively new recreational phenomenon. Apart from the pretty obvious peril of jumping off high places while attached to an oversized rubber band, the researchers found that injuries like bungee-related strains, bruising and perhaps the occasional stress attack were possible. They did note that the chance of serious injury was at least 1,000 times greater among parachutists than among bungee jumpers.

Self-Exam

Q: Do you know your normal body temperature, Celsius-wise?

1) 37 degrees C

2) 20 degrees C

3) 99 degrees C

4) 50 degrees C

A: 37 degrees C (98.6 F)

Epitaphs

"I am a busy man. I don't have time for this." — Wayne Everett Strickland (1927-2005)

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Solen Feyissa at Unsplash