Shout Outs

Updated 3/2017 -- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active and it was easier than checking each one. 

Dr Deb  is this week's host of Grand Rounds.   The “iPod” edition! You can read it here (photo credit).

Welcome to Grand Rounds 5.9 - a weekly rotation of blogposts in the medical and health fields. I am delighted to be your host again, and present to you the following for your listening pleasure.

Emily, CrzeGrl, Flight Nurse, is the host of the current issue of Change of Shift (Vol 3, No 10).   You can find the schedule and the COS archives at Emergiblog.  Go check it out (photo credit)

Welcome to Change of Shift Vol. 3, No. 10. I have the honor and privilege to be co-hosting this edition with his excellence Zippy the Lobster!

For those of you unaware of Zippy’s adventures in his quest to raise money for Children’s Brain Cancer research, check him out at FunWithZippy.com.

Dr Judy Paley, Denver Doc,  needs your help:

I am collaborating with my friend and colleague Gail Harrison (who has been there/done that cancer journey) on a book for newly diagnosed cancer patients. Please consider sharing your stories if you have been down that road as well, or pass this questionnaire on to a friend or family member who has been through this experience.

Via Medical Industry News Impact comes a link to this article, Retiring physician Bill Lippy passing on his knowledge via an online library by Mary Vanac.  Very nice!

He, his partner Dr. Leonard Berenholz, and his son, David, have created a video library about stapedectomy and otosclerosis for doctors everywhere. The Lippy Library is available online at Thelippylibrary.com.

Felice Aull, Ph.D., M.A. (Literature, Arts, and Medicine Blog) has posted a syllabus for her humanities course online.  It is amazing.  I plan to sample it and maybe work my way through the entire thing.  I hope you will check it out.

Now that I’m semi-retired, an elective course that I developed and taught for fourth-year medical students is retiring with me. I’m writing about it here, in the hope that other medical humanities educators might wish to adapt it for their teaching — it was very well received by participating students and, I think, served a useful function. (I believe Linda Raphael has introduced a version at George Washington University School of Medicine). I taught “Betwixt and Between: Borderlands and Medicine,” for seven consecutive years at NYU School of Medicine, modifying it somewhat each year. The idea of adapting a borderlands theme to an examination of the medical profession came to me while studying the work of Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldua as I was working toward a master’s degree in humanities and social thought (35 years after getting a Ph.D. in medical science). Below I summarize my motivation for developing the four-week course and elaborate on the syllabus. References annotated in the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database are linked. Full reading references are listed alphabetically.

Steven Novella, Science-Based Medicine, discusses the "debate about off-label prescriptions".  Really worth the time it takes to read the entire post.

So-called off-label uses of prescription drugs is an enduring controversy - probably because it involves a trade-off of competing value judgments.The FDA is considering loosening its monitoring of off-label prescriptions, but critics are charging that, if anything, regulations should be tightened. Many issues of science-based medicine are at the core of this controversy………

The core dilemma stems from the conflict between freedom and regulation for quality control. We want to protect the public from the misuse of medications, but at the same time allow physicians to use the best available scientific evidence to make individual medical decisions with their patients…….

Via Dr Wes, who feels that Ben Brewer, MD  is talking sense as he “lays out his proposal to treat our health care crisis”.  I agree with him.  Read Dr Brewer’s article.  Here is part of what Dr Wes says at the end of his post (talking sense):

So I can hear it now: "What will happen to all of those people paid to collect the data? They might become unemployed at this time of our colossal economic downturn! Our unemployment numbers will go up! We can't have that!"

Please.

We cannot afford NOT to make a significant change to the way we do health care today. I am convinced as Americans consider the options ahead of them, that they'll make the right choice and realize the consequences if they don't. Dr. Brewer's proposal makes a lot of sense.

Michael Carroll will be the guest on the Dr Anonymous' Blog Talk Radio show this week.  I hope you will check it out.

I also hope you will join us this Thursday night at 8 pm CST (or 1 am GMT) both to listen to the show and to participate in the chat room. That's where all the fun is.