By Tracie, 6:30 PM on Thu Jun 26 2008, 4,393 views (Edit post, Set to draft, Slurp)

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Prepare to be horrified: This is a podcast interview with Atul Gawande, who wrote an article in the most recent New Yorker called "The Itch" about people who can't stop from scratching themselves, to the point of compulsion. Here's an excerpt from the podcast, describing one woman who had woken up one morning with a "greenish liquid" pouring down her face: "Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night—and all the way into her brain." AHHHHHH! [New Yorker via Boing Boing]