Ramblings of an Emergency Physician in Texas
The polls are now open in the Seventh Annual Medical Weblog Awards Sponsored by Epocrates and Lenovo!
Voting will close 23:59:59 on Sunday, February 13, 2011 (EST).
via Polls Are Open in The 2010 Medical Weblog Awards Sponsored by Epocrates and Lenovo.
Many thanks to MedGadget for continuing this yearly award. They don’t get rich doing it, but they keep on anyway.
There are a lot of terrific blogs in there, please go vote early and often, the Chicago way.
Frank Woodruff Buckles, America’s last living veteran from World War I, celebrated his 110th birthday at his West Virginia farm on Tuesday, reading hundreds of birthday cards from around the world.
via Bill Lohmann: Last U.S. WWI vet approaches 110 | Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Thanks for your service, Mr. Buckles. May you live as long as you wish.
via In From The Cold, where I agree with the first commenter. That, via Ace.
Well, here it is at long last! My third book. It’s called The Practice Test, and it’s about how we can face the struggles of medical practice with more balance and perspective. How many docs knew every scientific and clinical question necessary to pass board, but were never prepared for life as a doctor? Most, I’d say.
My book is set up like a parody of board exam questions, and it’s suitable for aspiring physicians, retiring physicians, practicing physicians, medical students, residents, medical spouses, educators, policy-makers and even patients who want to understand their doctors a little better. And if they want to buy one for their physicians, I won’t mind a bit!
Here’s a link to read about it, look inside and order it if you desire.
Hope he doesn’t mind me swiping nearly all of that post! He’s a terrific writer, and I’m willing to bet his book will be excellent. Follow the link, and order away!
The 2010 Medical Weblog Awards Sponsored by Epocrates and Lenovo
Welcome to the 2010 Medical Weblog Awards! It is time to celebrate and showcase the original reporting, engaging writing and discussion, breathtaking multimedia, and the spirit of community in the medical blogosphere. This is the seventh year of the competition and these awards are designed to highlight the exciting and useful role that the medical blogosphere plays in medicine and society. This year’s competition is sponsored by Epocrates® and Lenovo®.
via The 2010 Medical Weblog Awards Sponsored by Epocrates and Lenovo.
Yes, I’ll be helping judge even though they got my name wrong (fixed). Bad pub better than none? You decide. (Why do I get to help judge? Because I won the first one, that’s why. I think.)
BTW, go THERE to leave submissions, not here. And may the Best Blogs win!
KERMIT Two Winkler County officials and the former hospital board administrator were indicted Thursday on charges related to the 2009-’10 case of the two whistle-blowing Winkler County nurses, according to court documents obtained by CBS 7.
County Attorney Scott Tidwell and Sheriff Robert Roberts were indicted by a grand jury on two counts each of third-degree felony misuse of official information and retaliation, and two counts of official oppression, a class A misdemeanor.
Stan Wiley, who resigned from Winkler County Hospital in October, was indicted on two counts of retaliation.
The indictments, which come from the Texas attorney general’s office, result from the criminal investigation of nurses Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle. They were fired from Winkler County Memorial Hospital and were indicted and arrested by local authorities in 2009 in connection with misuse of official information after sending a letter to state medical regulators. The letter outlined concerns including Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles’ supposed attempt to use hospital supplies for at-home procedures.
via Top Winkler officials indicted | indicted, winkler, officials – Government – Odessa American Online.
There’s some quote about ‘you can get a Grand Jury to indict a sandwich’ or somesuch, so while this isn’t a conviction it does bode well for some actual justice…
Just when it seems the scandal cant get any worse, it does.According to new research published in todays BMJ, Wakefields motive for the fraud was money — and lots of it. Wakefield "planned secret businesses intended to make huge sums of money, in Britain and America, from his now-discredited allegations," according to a BMJ press release.
via Anti-Vaccine Doctor Planned to Profit from Scare : Discovery News.
I have a friend whose answer to things that dont make sense is “follow the money”. He’s usually right.
I cannot tell you the thrill I have knowing this contemptible scum has picked my State to work from.
My yearly Christmas favorite, reposted:
Courtesy of the British National Health Service:
NSFW. Funny, but Unsafe for work, unless your work involves STD’s in which case it’s required.
It’s my seasonal favorite post, and I hope it’s one of yours.
Not the STD’s, the funny song with equally amusing illustrations. The backstory, from a previous blog post:
I have seen several searches of this blog for the British National Health Services’ “12 STI’s of Christmas“, and wondered why. The answer: the NHS site no longer carries the wonderful show, for reasons unknown to me. As for the searches, I guess the Christmas season has people thinking about sexually transmitted infections (diseases on this side of the Pond) set to Christmas tunes.
Merry Christmas!
Most of that older content has been behind an access-control wall. By knocking down that barrier, we are making available 10 years of full content and several years more of selected earlier articles. All told, about 15,000 articles now can be searched and read.
We invite our readers to visit the archives and link to our articles from their own sites, blogs and posts.
via amednews: Editorial – Welcome to our archives :: Nov. 22, 2010 … American Medical News.
Thanks, AMedNews! I suppose an I told you so would be rude, so, I won’t.
Medicine rocks! It makes the sick heal, pain go away, and healers proud and happy. Medicine is an art, where the instruments are medical technologies, warm hands, and learned minds. Many of us see medicine everyday: in ERs, ORs, ICUs, PACUs, PICUs, and SICUs. We see medicine through our eyes and our hearts. But what about your camera?Welcome to the Imagine Medicine contest! We are looking for fascinating medical photography that… imagines medicine. Nothing is off the table: portraits, group shots, happy shots, tragic shots, clinical shots, photoshop illustrations, macro, micro, and anything in between. Can you imagine medicine, showcase it as art, and make us wonder?Here’s the lowdown. The contest is open to all. Upload your photographs to Flickr, and tag them with “imaginemedicine” and “medgadget” keywords. Make sure you add at least one sentence describing your work. The deadline for submissions is 11:59pm ET on December 5, 2010. The winner will be announced on December 10th and the prize is a brand new 16GB iPad with Wi-Fi.
MedGadget is having another contest. This time, though, it’s not medical fiction (which was a lot of fun to read and judge) but is medical photography.
An iPad is first prize, and I’m please to be one of the judges.
Hie thee over to MedGadgets‘ place, read the rules, and get to snappin those photos!
Doc Gurley (who’s been going to Haiti since at least the first earthquake relief started) wrote a post today about cholera (currently hitting Haiti hard).
She found there were very few YouTube videos about how to make Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) fluid, which is the mainstay of cholera treatment. Simply put, if you can replace orally what you’re losing from the far end, you get to live. It’s cheap, it’s easy, but you have to know what to do for it to work.
ORT is super cheap and amazingly easy to make. Thanks to Doc Gurley, there is now an illiterate (as in language independent) how to video: Recipe for Life!
While it seems graphic, I think it makes perfect sense. Here’s hoping it helps!
Per Doc Gurley, swipe the video! Repost it everywhere! She says Haitians have cell phones, and the more universal this knowledge is the more likely it is to help.
By Kevin Pho
When I ask new patients how they found me, frequently they say on the Internet through search engines such as Google.Out of curiosity, I recently Googled myself. Numerous ads appeared, promising readers a “detailed background report” or a “profile” of me. Among the search results was information about my practice, whether I was board certified, had any lawsuits against me, and reviews from online doctor rating sites. Thankfully, most were favorable, but some were not.
via Online doctor ratings aren’t very helpful – USATODAY.com.
Kevin, MD, who else?
Great work Kevin! (I shook his hand once, might have been my brush with fame).
Joe Gibson Memorial Foundation – Home.
I hadn’t heard about this, and while it’s probably a little late to start training for a 10K race being held tomorrow in Arizona, this looks to be a worthy foundation and a regular event.
What got my attention:
Joe Gibson, MD was a Phoenix Emergency Medicine Physician who had dedicated his life to saving and helping people in need. He was known to have a happy, infectious personality and a zest for life. A lifetime athlete, Joe spent time training and participating in triathlons and running races to balance his life and to stay healthy.
On December 29th, while on a training run in Phoenix, Joe was hit by a car. He sustained massive head injury and brain death. Even after this tragedy, Joe continued to give back as he became an organ donor and was able to save 4 lives with this last parting gift.
He was obviously loved, and he lives on through this foundation. Inspiring.
This is a pretty neat tool for docs. I’ve signed up (free), have it on my iPhone, and will see if it’s super-useful. Maybe not for an EM doc, but time will tell. It’s at Doximity.com
The biggest plus I see right off is the HIPAA compliant SMS texting, which would make some communications available we just cannot now.
At any rate, check it out and see if you like it. I find the web interface easier for adding colleagues, but maybe that’s just me.
One happy thing I got from this is a list of all my medschool classmates, and where they are now. A surprising number are in my area, and more than a few are in EM!
