Ramblings of an Emergency Physician in Texas

Archive for May, 2009

Obama’s Magical Mystery Tour of Health Care Savings – Megan McArdle

Posted by GruntDoc on 11th May 2009

Obama’s Magical Mystery Tour of Health Care Savings – Megan McArdle

This is all very well as political theater; politicians convene never-never working groups all the time. But, being perhaps too cynical, I suspect that the announced plan to save $2 trillion is going to be used to sell Obama’s healthcare plan as if we’d already found it. Then when oh, darn, the SEIU doesn’t agree to hold down wages or eliminate jobs, and pharma ratchets up the average price it charges the private sector to make sure it doesn’t lose too much on its mandatory Medicaid discounts, etc, well, we’ll all just have to dig into our pockets to pay for it, won’t we?

Well, now that the economists are on board, full speed ahead!

Posted in Policy | Comments Off

Anybody Wanna Buy A Bridge? « WhiteCoat’s Call Room

Posted by GruntDoc on 10th May 2009

Anybody Wanna Buy A Bridge? « WhiteCoat’s Call Room

What he said. The Devil’s in the Details.

Posted in Policy | Comments Off

Little Rock Baptist Celebrates 25 Years of their Helo Service

Posted by GruntDoc on 7th May 2009

I know the doc in Green. He’s a med school chum, an occasional commenter, and hasn’t gained a pound since medical school. Nice toupee, BTW.

I put it below the fold, because I cannot get it to stop the auto-run.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Amusements, Medical | 2 Comments »

What ED’s look like

Posted by GruntDoc on 6th May 2009

IMG_0156

 

So typical a colleague remarked on it.

Posted in Emergency | 13 Comments »

Before and After of a face transplant

Posted by GruntDoc on 5th May 2009

Good for her

Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

Dexter Season 3

Posted by GruntDoc on 5th May 2009

now available on iTunes.

See you in a few days.

Posted in Announcements | Comments Off

China’s ultimatum: smoke or be fined | Weird True Freaky | News.com.au

Posted by GruntDoc on 4th May 2009

China’s ultimatum: smoke or be fined | Weird True Freaky | News.com.au
OFFICIALS in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter million packs of locally made cigarettes annually or risk being fined, state media reports.

“The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax,” said Chen Nianzu, a member of the Gong’an cigarette market supervision team, according to the paper.

Stimulating local business, increasing tax revenues. Additionally, early deaths mean fewer on retirement. Sounds like the perfect amoral economists’ scheme.

Posted in Amusements | 1 Comment »

How to ameliorate flu panic

Posted by GruntDoc on 3rd May 2009

Flu developments | Fort Worth | Star-Telegram.com
Only a fraction of the nearly 2,500 nasal swabs sent to the state health department lab have been tested. The Austin lab had tested 181 of the 2,492 nasal swabs received from counties around the state by Friday. The lab’s single testing machine was overwhelmed Wednesday.

Don’t test the swabs. Then the count doesn’t go up when everybody’s twitchy.

Posted in Amusements, Current Affairs | 6 Comments »

I’m Seven today

Posted by GruntDoc on 2nd May 2009

Nearly missed my own blog birthday.

Seven years of nothingness in the internet wilderness.

Thanks for reading!

Posted in Announcements | 12 Comments »

SciGuy: Want to sell more fries? Put salads on the menu

Posted by GruntDoc on 2nd May 2009

SciGuy: Want to sell more fries? Put salads on the menu

From the annals of unintuitive results…

Posted in Amusements | Comments Off

Flu and Pooh « WhiteCoat’s Call Room

Posted by GruntDoc on 2nd May 2009

Flu and Pooh « WhiteCoat’s Call Room

Heh.

Posted in Amusements | Comments Off

Swine Flu / H1N1 is an email virus

Posted by GruntDoc on 1st May 2009

To paraphrase a friend, ‘swine flu is definitely an email virus’.

As someone who is getting a lot (and certainly not all) of the internal emails about ED planning, preparation, CDC recommendations, State Health Department memos, it certainly seems like it.

We’ve certainly had more meetings about swine flu than cases of it. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Posted in Amusements | 4 Comments »