Shout Outs

Updated 3/2017 -- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active. 

MDiTV is the host for this week’s Grand Rounds.   It’s the “best edition ever, maybe” edition.  You can read this week’s edition here.

Thanks to everyone who submitted to this week’s edition of Grand Rounds.  After following the weekly blog carnival for  months, submitting a few times and now playing the role as host has been immensely gratifying. The submissions covered a wide-range of topics; from surgical procedures to how the progression of 80’s music mirrors the evolution of birth control (seriously). ….. Thanks again to everyone that participated and I hope you all enjoy this week’s picks of the best medical blog reads as much as I did!

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Medical schools across the country have been holding their graduation ceremonies and white coat burning ceremonies.  JAMA has include a wonderful essay by Sunita Puri, MD MS on her coat:  Worn

I never thought this day would come.

The meaning of the day struck me at the oddest of moments. I was rushing around my apartment, picking up bedsheets, pillowcases, towels, jeans, gym clothes, all badly in need of a whirl in the washing machine. Oddly, it was always an afterthought to add my short white coat to my pile of laundry. And today, as I placed it at the top of the pile, I suddenly remembered that I never needed to wash it again. I had just returned from my last day of my last clinical rotation as a medical student. The last day I ever had to wear this short, awkward coat.

I began my usual prelaundry ritual of examining my white coat. I emptied its pockets,…….. Yet in surveying the coat now, I was moved by the memories that each imperfection indexed. …..

Mrs J gave me the pen that later leaked, bruising my right lower pocket with a black splotch. …….

Ms A's mother gave me the turquoise necklace that I kept in my lower left coat pocket. …...

I had to retire the coat with the spray of coffee on its entire left side. Mr D was my patient only briefly, in his shuffle between the surgery, medicine, and ICU services, but I had been the one to call and tell his wife that she should drive to the hospital soon. …….

Over the course of this two-year introduction to clinical medicine, my white coats served as time capsules and canvases. Their physical appearance changed as an intoxicated patient's blood splattered during my first attempt at an arterial blood draw …….

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Dinah, Shrink Rap, asked readers for Shrinky Book recommendations and has compiled the full list of recommendations:  Our Readers' List of Best Shrinky Books.  Here are just a few of the suggested books.  Check out the post for the full list.

Existential Psychotherapy, by Irvin Yalom

Shoot the Damn Dog by Sally Brampton

Darkness Visible by William Styron

An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamieson

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

In Session by Deborah A. Lott
The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner
In a House of Dreams and Glass By Robert Klitzman, MD
I had a black dog - Matthew Johnstone

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Another list of books.  This one is summer reading suggestions from the New Yorker: If You Liked My Book, You'll Love These.  The list includes suggestions from six writers, genre by genre.

In the science section:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Crown),  by Rebecca Skloot, has spent fifteen weeks (and counting) on the Times best-sellers list.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales (1985)  by Oliver Sacks
Confessions of a Knife (1979) by Richard Selzer
Love at Goon Park (2002) by Deborah Blum
A wonderful character study of Harry Harlow, the dark, eccentric scientist whose amazing, often disturbing research on primates led to much of our understanding of child-rearing.
His Brother’s Keeper: A Story From the Edge of Medicine (2004) by Jonathan Weiner
The tale of a mechanical engineer who turned himself into a geneticist with hopes of saving his brother’s life.

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LockupDoc has written a nice post:  How doctors can use their own feelings to provide better care

……..But, wait. There’s an invaluable clinical pearl that physicians can borrow from the world of psychotherapy to help them to better hone this “sixth sense.”

I’ll explain.

Have you ever been around a negative, depressed person for too long? Or too many negative, depressed people in a short period of time?……………..

And that’s the “secret”–it’s actually quite simple: The feelings that others elicit in you are often reflections of their own internal mood states. So, how you feel in the presence of someone very well might be similar to what they are feeling……

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 Threads has a nice tutorial by Kenneth King on Ribbon Braid. 

This little braid is one I learned a few years ago while flying to a teaching gig. It’s what is called a “two element” braid, which means there are two strands that go into the making of it. For the demonstration, I’m choosing to use white and black ribbon for clarity, but you can use either the same colors for both elements, or a different color……………

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Dr Anonymous’ BTR show guest this week will be Ray Saputelli, NJ Academy of Family Physician. The show begins at 9 pm ET.

Upcoming shows (9pm ET)

6/10: Ray Saputelli, NJ Academy of Family Physicians
6/17: Family Physician Dr. Kim Yu
6/24: Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, 33 Charts
Jul-Aug: Summer Break
8/26: Dr. A Show 3rd Anniversary