Getting sick is a part of being alive.  Sometimes no matter what precautions you take, you still wake up one day with the dreaded cold or virus.  For many of us, we rush on over to the doctor, hoping to receive the magic pill that will make everything sunshiny once again.  And for many of us lucky folks, we get the same darn cold or illness every year at what seems to be the exact same time.

If you are like me, June equals allergy time.   At the first sign of stuffiness, we confidently walk into our doctor’s office expecting to receive the same medication that we always get.  Not so fast my tissue-needing friend; it often is the case that doctors will run more tests even when you are confident of your ailment.   Why would a doctor run tests, prolong your recovery, and generally increase the stress of everyone’s lives when we all clearly know what the problem is?

A new study shows that ninety-one percent of doctors agree that physicians over-treat and over-test patients for fear of medical malpractice suits.  In this sue-happy day and age, doctors are in constant fear that their patients will sue them for situations completely out of a doctor’s control.  It has gotten to the point where many doctors choose their practice location purely based on malpractice insurance costs.  In states like New Jersey, a doctor can easily pay one-hundred thousand dollars a year for insurance, which indicates just how many medical malpractice suits arise.

But why do I need a strep test when all that is wrong is that my stomach hurts?  The study reads that many doctors rather put a strain on the health care system than not cover all possibilities, not because they do not care, but because they feel they have no other choice.  When you receive a step test for a stomachache, it seems doctors are trying to protect themselves from that one instance where someone may have had an underlying strep throat issue, and then sues the doctor for not catching it after a strep-related complication arises.

What do you think?  Do doctors have a right to over-test as a result of increased medical malpractice suits?  Or should patients allow doctors to use judgment on “easy” cases and keep their eager malpractice lawyers at bay?

Either way, all these extra tests makes going to the doctor more exhausting with each visit.  “Do you have fatigue?”  “Now I sure do.”

Back in the days when we were innocent kids, many of us were dragged on what seemed like endless amounts of errands with our parents that would often end with a trip to the supermarket.  We would find ourselves swimming in a sea of adult legs, cold fluorescent lights beating down on unforgiving linoleum.

But amidst this foreign adult world, we found comfort and familiarity in the brightly colored boxes that shamelessly paraded our favorite cartoon characters.   Our parents could not understand how seeing Scooby or Mickey on a box of cereal could change their sweet, well-behaved child into a greedy, relentless monster.  Was this all a ploy from marketers to change “shopping time” into “grounding time?”

A recent study has shown that marketers really understand the child psyche.   Researchers at Yale University found that 85% of their child participants, ages four-six, were more likely to choose fruit snacks and graham crackers that had cartoons sprawled across the packaging.

You may be saying: “Ok, I do not see the big deal, anyone that is a parent could have told you this without spending money on doing a formal study.”  But what is interesting is that when given the same product in different packaging, 55% of children actually stated that these cartoon packaged items actually tasted better.  How can that be?  Before you start ranting on the evils of marketing, the participants on average were not significantly influenced by packaging for healthy items such as carrots.

It seems that the effectiveness of the food industry’s $1.6 billion youth-targeted marketing strategy extends only to certain types of foods, particularly those commonly referred to as “junk food.”  In an increasingly more market driven country, who should be responsible for the increase in child obesity and health related complications?  Should parents teach their children to eat healthier, or should the food industry stop preying on the easily manipulated minds of our country’s youth by enticing them with familiar cartoons on unhealthy products?

When it comes to the world of photography, many of us already have some inclination that photographers are bound to legal constructs.  If selling or displaying their work for the public to view, photographers may sometimes get caught up in tricky copyright and trademark infringement situations if they are not careful.  And by tricky, I mean sometimes downright nasty.

But most of us do not really contemplate how far the liability goes; is a model liable for a photographer’s legal “slips?”

Models should always tightly hold onto their secret weapon, their golden ticket: a release form.  Release forms are important for both the photographer and the model alike.  The photographer receives the rights to distribute the photograph of the model, while the model sets the terms for how the photo will be distributed.

Let’s say that after a shoot, the photographer combines your image with a copyrighted image that she doesn’t own.  Problem. You are sitting at home drinking a latte and suddenly you are slapped with a copyright infringement claim.  Don’t fret, you have a release form.  Generally, if the photographer uses the images in a way that the model did not authorize, the model is free from liability.  Even more, the model can actually sometimes then sue the photographer as well!  Good deal for the model, not so much for the photographer.

Do you think that a photographer faces too much liability for what may sometimes be an innocent mistake?  Are models too empowered, or do you think that they are afforded their rights appropriately?