Celebs

BDC Now: Joan Rivers’ Doctor Might Be In Trouble

By Doug Saffir

September 17, 2014

5 minutes to read

Taking selfies in the operating room and performing procedures a patient hasn’t authorized are not generally the marks of a good doctor. That means that if a CNN source is right, Joan Rivers’ doctor might not have been such a good doctor. That, Twitter solving crimes, and much more, today on BDC Now.

What About ‘Don’t Take Selfies in the Operating Room’ is So Hard to Understand?

The investigation into Joan Rivers’ death has reportedly turned up alleged medical misstep and what, if true, would be one of the most ill-conceived selfies of all time. CNN is on the case and quoted a source as claiming that after Rivers underwent a scheduled endoscopy, her personal ear, nose, and throat doctor allegedly performed an unauthorized biopsy of her vocal cords. The report says investigators believe this may have contributed to swelling in her vocal cords that cut off her oxygen and led to a heart attack one week before the comedian died. The source also claims that before the procedures, while Rivers was under anesthesia, that same ear, nose, and throat doctor allegedly took a selfie in the operating room. This report leads to so many questions, but all we really want to know is why. Why in the world would you take a selfie in the operating room while a patient is on the table? Why would you perform an unauthorized procedure on an 81-year-old woman? Neither of those things sound like good ideas.

Virtual Reality is Here and It Never Looked So Stupid

Deep down, we all probably knew that this time would come. The technology is too good. Our love of staring at screens is becoming too strong. It was inevitable. So now we have to reconcile the fact that there is a Kickstarter from Canadian design firm Metatecure pledging to create a headset that will allow you to strap your iPad or iPhone to your face and use it as a virtual reality simulator. Now, at face value that may sound like a cool idea, but we implore you to go this Kickstarter page and look at some of the pictures. Go. Right now. We’ll Wait.

Do you see? Do you see how ridiculous this looks? Do any of you really want to live in a world where people do this? There has got to be a better way. Heck, even our airlines are trying to find better ways. Airbus just patented a virtual reality helmet that can help give you “sensorial isolation’’ in order to “improve the commercial flying environment.’’ Great idea, decent execution – a helmet is far superior to what Metatecture is going for. So please, do not encourage the strapping of Apple devices to people’s faces. Nobody wants that.

Twitter: The Last and Highest Court of Appeal in Detection

Twitter has proven itself as a useful tool in a lot of situations: Sparking revolution in the Middle East, breaking news that impacts the lives of millions of people, and sharing videos of goats learning to say “what, what.’’ But this might be the first time that Twitter has been used to help investigate a hate crime. When Philadelphia police released a YouTube video of 10 to 12 suspects accused in an assault and robbery being described as a hate crime, they probably didn’t expect that a few Twitter users would combine to use crowdsourcing and create a break in the case within a few hours. But that appears to be what happened. The police video led to one user’s picture of the suspects at a restaurant which led to another user confirming name of that restaurant which led to the suspects checking in at the restaurant via Facebook which, of course, led to the suspects’ Facebook profiles and names. The Twitter sleuthing was so impressive that a detective with the Philadelphia Police Department actually shouted out to some of the users involved and thanked them. As of last night, there still had not been any arrests in the case, but at least this proves that not every crowdsourced investigation ends in “very negative consequences for innocent parties.’’ Internet people can do some things right sometimes!

Yellowstone is About to Cull 900 Bison (That Means Kill Them)

Yellowstone National Park apparently has a bit of a bison problem. With approximately 4,900 bison in the park, the population exceeds the desired population of 3,000 to 3,500. So what happens when the bison get a little too frisky and give us more bison than we bargained for? Apparently we just kill the ones that stray outside the park. This year, about 900 of them are likely going down. It’s called culling and it involves the organized shipping of wayward bison to Native American tribes so the animals can be slaughtered. Federal and state wildlife officials plan on culling 900 bison this winter in order to get closer to that target population and prevent the spread of a disease bison carry that can cause miscarriages in cows. And yes, 900 bison does sound like a lot, but it could be worse. In 2007, they killed off more than 1,600.

Pop-Tarts Turn 50, Were Never Meant to Be a Complete Breakfast

Breakfast gets a bit of a raw deal. Since it’s stuck in between sleep and work, most of us just cram it into a spare 30 seconds we somehow find in between waking up after our third snooze and narrowly catching the last train that gets us to the office on time. That’s where the Pop-Tart comes in. Our rectangular savior lets us jam some minimal amount of nutritional value into our food holes so that we can coast the rest of the morning on the always-pleasant mix of coffee and more coffee. But as it turns out, our friend the Pop-Tart wasn’t necessarily meant to be the catch-all breakfast on the go that we’ve turned it into. The Kellogg brand of pastries turns 50 this year and back when they were first hitting the shelves, they were seen very differently. Grocery stores were advised by Kellogg that “In no way should this product be sold as a substitute for cereal.’’ Oops. That makes sense since Kellogg has a bit of a vested interest in cereal’s success, but we live in a world where pretty much nobody has time to get bowls or utensils involved in their breakfast routine. So thank you, Pop-Tarts, for completely ignoring your purpose and becoming both the only reason most of us eat anything before noon and the perfect excuse to consume something S’mores flavored at 8 a.m. Happy birthday.