Shout Outs

Updated 3/2017 -- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active.

Jackie, Dispatch From Second Base, is the host for this week’s  Grand Rounds.  You can read this week’s edition here.

I once worked with a psychiatrist who called listening the most underrated skill, and his words are truer now than ever. Listening is hard work; too often, we just wait for our turn to talk. And that’s if we’re being polite. We don’t talk to each other; we talk at each other or sometimes over each other in the loudest voice possible.

This trend is both sad and wrong, but there is hope, as evidenced by the thoughtful posts I received on all facets of communication. In the wonderful post The Hidden Pearls of Medicine: Stories From Our Patients, Medical Resident recalls a first patient encounter. MR calls hearing patient stories a privilege and ”has been left with a sense of wonder” after these encounters. On behalf of patients everywhere, thank you.

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Kim, Emergiblog, is the host of the latest edition of Change of Shift (Vol 5, No 3) which is in its 5th year!   You can find the schedule and the COS archives at Emergiblog. (photo credit)

Wow – another two weeks has flown by, which means it’s time for another edition of Change of Shift!
Once again, my nurse blogging colleagues have written an interesting, thoughtful group of posts for your perusal!
So ready…set…peruse!

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I have been following @krupali on twitter lately and following her blog, Krupali K. Tejura, MD.   She is currently on a mission trip to Uganda.   She has used twitter and her blog to help her obtain help for several of the people she has encountered there.  Here are two examples: 

Elephantitis. and Elephantitis Update

Baby needs Help--Omphalocele!

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Another physician I have been following on twitter @GregSmithMD blogs at Shrink Rapping.  Currently, he is doing a series “Psychiatry A to Z."   All of them have been good, but the one on grief is especially so.

"Your father has collapsed."
The call comes at the worst time possible. My mother-in-law is moving into a new house, we are moving into her house, we need to pack, someone needs to watch the kids.  ……….

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Dr Charles is hosting the first annual 2010 Charles Prize for Poetry.  Have you submitted one yet?  The entries have been amazing!

Open to everyone (patients, doctors, nurses, students, etc.). Limit 1 or 2 entries per person.

Poems should be related to experiencing, practicing, or reflecting upon a medical, scientific, or health-related matter……

Contest closes August 31st.

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The New York Times had this article by Roni Caryn Rabin  Feeding Dementia Patients with Dignity

First Alzheimer’s disease stole Rosemary DeFelice’s speech, mobility and independence. Then, at 75, she lost the ability to eat.

She would chew away at her food, coughing and sputtering and spitting up but swallowing very little, said her daughter, Cyndy Viveiros. And like many relatives caring for patients with advanced dementia, Ms. Viveiros had to decide whether or not to have a gastric feeding tube inserted. ….

But social workers advising Ms. Viveiros suggested another option: continuing to have her mother carefully fed by hand, giving her only as much as she wanted and stopping if she started choking or became agitated.  ………..

which promoted a wonderful post by TBTAM: We’re Feeding Dementia Patients with Feeding Tubes???

An article in this weeks NY Times entitled Feeding Demented Patients with Dignity suggests that hand feeding dementia patients may be a better option than tube feeding them.

My God, are we really putting feeding tubes in the elderly demented? When did this happen?

During college, I worked as a nurses aide in a nursing home outside Philadelphia. For 20 hours a week (40 hours in the summer) for two years, I cared for patients in all stages of dementia, from the walking confused through to the end stage, stiffened victims confined to wheelchairs or beds. But in all that time, I never, ever saw anyone with a feeding tube.  ……

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Via MedPage Today comes an update by Todd Neale:  Tweeting Surgery 

Have you ever wanted a play by play of a colorectal cancer operation on your mobile device of choice? Well, you're in luck.
This coming Tuesday, August 10, at 1 p.m., Southern Regional Health System in Georgia will post updates from a low anterior resection on Twitter (@srhsatlanta). …

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A tweet from @DrJonathan 

Mail carrier who delivered secrets recently retired,here's her blog entry about reading secrets: http://www.fromuktouswithlove.blogspot.com/

I had never heard of the PostSecret project until I followed the tweet and read Kathy’s post:  PostSecret

This is a post that I have been looking forward to writing for some time now. And it has nothing to do with the United Kingdom or the British! It is a project that I became involved in (unknowingly) a few years ago that has turned out to be a very interesting and unique experience. If you are unaware of PostSecret, let me start at the beginning...

As a mail carrier (in Germantown, MD) you get used to seeing unusual things go through the mail. …... But nothing prepared me for PostSecret!  ….

If we could be as open to each other as the people who pour out their secrets, I think it would be a more understanding world. But too often people are afraid to show their inhibitions, sufferings and well, their secrets. As long as we have PostSecret, there is an outlet for those want to share. I have no doubt that it has been a good thing.

Frank's website is one of the most visited websites in the whole world. www.postsecret.com  …….

Some of the “secrets” shared are very, very sad.  Others are equally funny.

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Dr Anonymous’ BTR show will be Pre-Med Student (@premedhellblog).

Upcoming shows (9pm ET)

8/19: 4th Year Med Student @DrJonathan
8/26: Dr. A Show 3rd Anniversary