“In tomorrow’s New England Journal of Medicine, a first-year internal medicine resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, writes an eye-opening essay about his experience treating a critically ill patient who, against medical advice, decided to leave the hospital.” (Boston Globe)

Today Is…: “July 19 is Flitch Day, a surviving relic from Medieval England in which married couples appear before a “mock court.” Those who can prove that they had “lived in harmony and fidelity” for the past twelve months were awarded a flitch, defined as a “salted and cured side of bacon.” According to Thinkquest.org, “very few [couples] ‘took home the bacon.’”” (Freakonomics Blog)

“The chair of the British International Doctors’ Association called the involvement of doctors ‘beyond belief.’

But is it? Walter Laqueur, perhaps the foremost scholar of the darkest crimes of the 20th century and the rise of terrorism, first observed that doctors were disproportionately represented among the ranks of terrorists. George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the man behind the aircraft hijackings of Black September, was a doctor. Mohammed al-Hindi received his medical degree in Cairo in 1980, returning to his native Gaza the following year to form Islamic Jihad. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s number-two leader and ‘spokesman,’ is a surgeon…

But Muslim doctors are certainly not the only ones who have become involved in terrorism…” (New England Journal of Medicine)

A Front-Runner’s Political Baggage: “With the same rootless confidence that causes people to ignore hurricane warnings, many social conservatives remain in denial about Rudy Giuliani’s chances of winning the Republican nomination.

But with three debates and eight months as the Republican front-runner under his belt, Giuliani’s political strength cannot be dismissed as a fad or a fluke. His skills as a campaigner are considerable. His political strategy is plausible: Play down Iowa and New Hampshire, win Florida on Jan. 29, and sweep the big states (New York, California, Illinois) on Feb. 5, securing the nomination before a social-conservative reaction can set in. The Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney camps have their own victory scenarios, but they are not more likely.

So it is not too early for Republicans to consider some consequences of a Giuliani nomination.” — Michael Gerson (Washington Post)