Shout Outs

Updated 3/2017--photos and all links removed as many no longer active. 

Peggy (@tbtam), TBTAM, is this week’s host of Grand Rounds.  You can read this week’s twitter edition here. 

ONCE UPON  TIME…

Before Facebook and Twitter and Google+, and long before the word “social media” became religion, something called the Medical Blogging made its appearance on the world-wide web.

In those days, there was a small, close-knit community of medical bloggers ……..

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H/T @jilltomlinson  for the link to this Lost Angeles, CA blog post which gives a great viewpoint on disfigurement, identity, perception & reconstructive surgery.  It is from December 2010 but worth the read:  MIRRORINGS: The late great Lucy Grealy on her face, tragedy, beauty and identity

There was a long period of time, almost a year, during which I never looked in a mirror. It wasn’t easy, for I’d never suspected just how omnipresent are our own images. I began by merely avoiding mirrors, but by the end of the year I found myself with an acute knowledge of the reflected image,  …….

Long-term plastic surgery is not like in the movies. There is no one single operation that will change everything, and there is certainly no slow unwrapping of the gauze in order to view the final, remarkable result………

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Medpage Today’s article by Michael Smith, Face Transplants Offer High Yield With One Procedure:

Despite enormous complexity, full-face transplants can repair functional defects and improve major surface deficits that would otherwise take multiple reconstructive procedures if they were possible to do at all, researchers reported.

That conclusion comes in a report, online in the New England Journal of Medicine, on three full-face procedures carried out this year at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston…….

The NEJM article:  Pomahac B, et al "Three patients with full facial transplantation" N Engl J Med 2011.

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H/T to @jordangrumet for the heads up on a new blog by @WilliamDale_MD.  The blog is entitled WilliamDaleMD.  His nice first post is Medical Health Record:  a Personal Journey Down the Rabbit Hole

The Problem
“They told me I had to get the information myself,” she said.
“What? Why?”  I responded, annoyed.
“They said it wasn’t in their computer, and that I’d have to get it myself. They said since you’re a doctor here, you could easily check the computer yourself and get it from medical records,” my wife continued.
“That’s crazy! I’m not allowed to look at the computer records; I could lose my job!  And it’s much easier for them to get the paper records than me! ” I was incensed.…………….

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From DinoDoc, Musings of a Dinosaur , comes a thoughtful post:  In the Trenches: Quality of Life

Why is it easier to talk about quality of life with patients who are dying? Why don’t we factor these considerations into the decision-making for patients with conditions that aren’t fatal?

The presence of a terminal illness serves to focus everyone’s attentions. Widespread cancer metastases? Concerns about tight blood glucose control fade away. End-stage liver disease? Blood pressure control doesn’t matter so much any more. Bony pain from prostate cancer? Narcotic and sleeping pill addiction doesn’t even occur to anyone. …….

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H/T to @tbtam for this tweet:  “The year in street photography wp.me/p1Gna5-gh via @wordpressdotcom A young photographer hones her craft. I envy her.”  So do I.  Please check out her photography (better on a screen larger than your iPhone).

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A couple of weeks ago CBS Sunday Morning had a nice feature segment on the art of shopping bags.   Check this out:  The Museum of Bags