Shout Outs

Updated 3/2017-- photos and all links removed as many are no longer active and it was easier than checking each one.


Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, 33 charts, is the host for this week’s Grand Rounds! You can read this week’s edition here.

The reason I love grand rounds is that it offers me the opportunity to see stuff that I might normally overlook.

No themes here, per se.  Just some good stuff from around the web.  The response was great and all offered something unique.  I have chosen, however, to select some of the best material for your reading pleasure.  Rather than generate a massive dung heap of disconnected links that no one can practically manage, I have made the administrative decision to focus on some of the more compelling content.  I’ve also tried to place an emphasis on new, potentially understated blogs that might not otherwise see the light of day.

Buckle your seatbelt and keep your arms inside the vehicle.

. …………

……………………………

Kim, Emergiblog, is the host of the latest edition of Change of Shift (Vol 5, No 15)! You can find the schedule and the COS archives at Emergiblog. (photo credit)

Welcome to Change of Shift!
This is a miniature edition!
The quantity is tiny, the quality is superb!
Grab some coffee, kick back
Change of Shift is in da house!
**********

Editor’s Pick: At the AJN Off the Charts blog, Juliana Paradisi pens a fantastic post on privacy, both personal and for patients, in Nurses, Hospitals and Social Media: It Depends What Business You’re In.  …..

……………….………….

Dr. Itzhak Brook, My Voice, shares an essay at KevinMD:  A laryngectomy shakes this physician to the core

As an infectious diseases physician with a special interest in head and neck infections, I had extensive experience in otolaryngological illnesses. However, when I was exposed to new, different, and challenging experiences as a neck cancer patient, I had to deal with these as a patient — not as a physician. I endured the consequences of radiation, repeated surgeries, and prolonged hospitalizations. I confronted medical errors in my care, discrimination following loss of my vocal cords, and the hardships of regaining my ability to speak.  ………….

…………………………………

Listening to NPR last week, I caught Tina Brown discussing her Must Read selections for the week.  The one that caught my attention was the story of the 'The Man Who Saw Too Much'.  It profiles Michael Ferrara who suffered PTSD as a first responder. 

The original article in the January 2011 issue of Outside Magazine is by Hampton Sides:  “The Man Who Saw Too Much”

LOOKING BACK over his nearly 30 years as a highly decorated first responder in Colorado's Roaring Fork Valley, Michael Ferrara has trouble pinpointing the exact moment when his life began to unravel. His ordeal arrived not all at once but in a long spool of assaults on his soul and psyche. A plausible starting point, though, might be March 29, 2001, and a nightmare that occurred at the airport in Aspen. ………

Starting in March, to boost the profile of his First Responder Recovery Project, Ferrara plans to ski across the state of Alaska.

………………………………

Don’t forget to submit your nominations to MedGadget’s Medical Blog Awards -- 2010 Medical Weblog Awards!  This marks the 7th year of the competition. This year's competition is sponsored by Epocrates® and Lenovo. (photo credit)

While you’re at MedGadget’s, check out  how “handyscope Turns iPhone Into Professional Dermatoscope”

The handyscope is an optical attachment and an accompanying app that converts an iPhone into a practical dermatoscope. The attachment provides up to 20x magnification for the phone's camera and illuminates the skin with polarized light thanks to built-in LEDs and internal batteries. The iPhone app is used to store and examine encrypted images, as well as for sharing with other dermatologists for second opinions.

…………………………………….

From LITFL comes a great post which takes you through the management of a toddler’s oral burn:   Hot Lips (photo credit)

You may want to check out my post on the same topic from September 28, 2007, Electric Burns to the Mouth

………………….

KevinMD has written a commentary, Old Doctors Who Continue to Practice, which was inspired by the NYTimes article, Worry Grows About Aging Doctors’ Fitness to Practice.  The NY Times article begins this way:

About eight years ago, at the age of 78, a vascular surgeon in California operated on a woman who then developed a pulmonary embolism. The surgeon did not respond to urgent calls from the nurses, and the woman died.

…., he continued to perform operations for four years until the board finally referred him for a competency assessment …..
“We did a neuropsychological exam, and it was very abnormal,” said Dr. William Norcross, director of the physician assessment program there, who did not identify the surgeon. “This surgeon had visual-spatial abnormalities, could not do fine motor movements, could not retain information, and his verbal I.Q. was much lower than you’d expect.”

……………………………..

Jessica, Endless Knots, has a nice post on “Taking verbatim notes.”  She describes how she does just that when conducting interviews in a step-by-step process:

……….Which brings me to my method for taking verbatim notes, which I'm guessing a lot of other writers/consultants use but just in case you don't...here goes. ……...

1. Open your fave word processing program and …..

2. In Tools>Autocorrect, enter abbreviations for the words you're most likely to hear your interviewees say. Example: current project is in healthcare. I enter "hc" for healthcare; dr for doctor; emr for electronic medical record; clbrt for collaborate, etc. The easiest way to create your own shorthand is by drpng vwls. Got it?

……..

………………………………..

Medi-Smart.com is hosting the Scrubinator Photo Contest.  The contest is open to everyone from students to seasoned professionals.  It launched January 19, 2011 and will run until April 20, 2011.

To enter the contest, participants must submit photos of themselves in their creative scrub apparel for a chance to win a $250 gift card to Scrubs and Beyond.

The official rules can be found here.  Each month, two winning pictures will be selected and announced on the official website and across the site’s social media profiles. 

……………………………….

Dr Anonymous’ guest this week will be KevinMD  who will be talking at the Texas Medical Association meeting on Jan 29, 2011.  Dr. Anonymous will also talk about the future of the Doctor Anonymous Show on BlogTalkRadio.  The show begins at 9 pm EST.

You may want to listen to the shows in his Archives. Here are some to get you started:
GruntDoc, Sid Schwab, Dr. Val, Kevin MD, Rural Doctoring, Emergiblog, Crzegrl, Dr. Wes, TBTAM, Gwenn O'Keeffe, Bongi, Paul Levy, John Halamka, and ScanMan