Shout Outs

Updated 3/2017-- photos and all links removed as many are no longer active and it was easier than checking each one.

FDAzilla blog is the host for this week’s Grand Rounds!   You can read this week’s edition here.

When when I read the posts from this week’s grand rounds, I am astounded at how advanced, how intense, how personal, how vast, and also how amazingly complicated health care here in America is.  It’s so complicated that probably only the most astute health care observers will even understand every post below.

As you read through the best posts from the medical blogosphere for the week, just think about how amazing all of this is -  health care leads to all kinds of misconceptions, frustrations, discoveries, inspiration, opportunities, tragedy, and humor. …………

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Kim, Emergiblog, is the host of the latest edition of Change of Shift (Vol 5, No 14)! You can find the schedule and the COS archives at Emergiblog. (photo credit)

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the first 2011 edition of Change of Shift, the bi-weekly nursing blog carnival!

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Let’s get started!
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This is so the Editor’s Pick of the new year! The Muse, RN reminds us that there is …No “I” in “Team”, and believe me, it’s not what you think!!!  …..

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Need any good reading material?  Here are some suggestions from fellow bloggers:
Dr. Marya Zilberberg, Heathcare, etc:  Radium, dopamine and innovation: Name your poison

Reading Deborah Blum's "The Poisoner's Handbook" is an intellectual treat. Although non-fiction, it paints in understated sepia tones the crevices of New York City at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, where bootlegged booze and poisons were fare of the day, homicides went unpunished and the corrupt coroner system basked in the glow of its own willful ignorance and political approval. ……..

Fizzy, Mothers in Medicine:  Doctor chick lit?

…….  I'm mildly embarrassed to admit it, but I LOVE chick lit. I don't know why, because I hate fashion and flowers and jewelry and everything else girly. But I love these books….. .

……..I recently discovered a list of the ultimate top 100 chick lit novels and noting that I've already read and enjoyed 7 of the top 10, I've decided to make it my mission for 2011 to work my way through the list. Come on, who's with me?

Gizabeth Shyder, Methodical Madness:  Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

……Yup, absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I missed the hell out of my kids last week and was glad to have four books (I recommend Little Bee by Chris Cleave, Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon, and Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow - and I won't mention the other because if you don't have anything nice to say don't say it, right???) to read at night and lots of work to keep me busy all week and weekend. ……

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A couple of funny posts of kids making up new words ---
From Dino Doc:  Word of the Day
From TBTAM:  The “B” Word

A friend of mine was teaching her 4 year old daughter the nuances of feminine hygiene the other day. Here’s how it went down …….  

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I’ve received a few thank you notes from patients, but never as cool as this one Impacted ED Nurse received:  setting a new standard in thank you cards

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Via tweeter:  fnyc @precordialthump via @antidoped Cool way to practice or teach intraosseous cannulation http://tinyurl.com/crunchie-bone

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Via tweeter @MedicalNews Down the Hatch and Straight Into Medical History http://nyti.ms/fgDhLO

…… But Dr. Chevalier Jackson went much further than most.

A laryngologist who worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he preserved more than 2,000 objects that people had swallowed or inhaled: nails and bolts, miniature binoculars, a radiator key, a child’s perfect-attendance pin, a medallion that says “Carry me for good luck.”

Jackson retrieved these objects from people’s upper torsos, generally with little or no anesthesia. He was so intent on assembling his collection that he once refused to return a swallowed quarter, …….

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Threads has a nice tutorial article:  Weave a Celtic Knot (photo credit)

One day while browsing in a fabric store, I came across an appealing piece of English trim made from charmeuse bias tubes laid out in a design reminiscent of interlaced Celtic patterns. I decided to use this technique to make embellishment pieces for cuffs, collars, and pockets starting with Celtic designs from clip art. It’s not that complicated, as long as you get your work mapped out initially. I will show you how.  …….

Find Your Inner Guru

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


Here is another essay from Dr. Robert Goldwyn (full references below).  It shows his sense of humor.

Be More Than You Are

Many years ago, I heard the legendary Mario Gonzalez-Ulloa exhort his audience with the words: Be More Than You Are. After the ovation, he left the auditorium but what he said has remained. I am still pondering its meaning. In the heat of the moment, the message seemed clear: rise above your perceived talents and personality; go beyond your supposed limitations, as did, for example, Schindler under more terrible circumstances.

In this world, where the haves possess much materially and little spiritually, a desperate need exists for guidance. Gurus, usually self-proclaimed, flourish in the vacuum. Some grow obscenely rich. Society seizes their utterances, which may be sentient or zany or both. The trick is to say something that combines the obscure and the obvious, the true and the false. If it has an inner contradiction (Be More Than You Are), it will stimulate thought or, at least, bewilderment.

Here are a few; readers will likely supply better ones.

Anticipate yourself (or, Be before you are.).

Live in the present, but remain in the past.

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A door can be open or closed.

We forget what we cannot remember.

Be extraordinary in an ordinary way.

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Remember who you are even though it is of no consequence.

There are three steps to everything: one, two, three.

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Be yourself but not quite yourself.

This may be the end, but it could be the beginning.

So do any of you have an inner guru?  What “advise” or “wisdom” would you give to us?


REFERENCES
Be More Than You Are; Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 103(1):299, January 1999;  Goldwyn, Robert M.
Be More Than You Are; Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 114():136, October 2004;  Goldwyn, Robert M.

Texting Abbreviations May Lead to Confusion

My husband and I had breakfast at iHOP with his father yesterday morning.  While driving there I text messaged my sister who’s husband is in the VA Hospital to ask “how are things this am.”  We ended up inviting her to join us for breakfast.  She and her running buddy “S” joined us.  During the conversation over breakfast we got on the topic of texting. 

“S” is a fitness coach, married with children who are tied to their phones texting friends who sit right next to them.  My sister is an occupational therapist with two children (17 yo daughter, 21 yo son) who do a lot of texting and got her into it.  She is the one who introduced me to it.

“S” told a texting story on my sister.  Apparently, my sister once texted her “getting a pt ready for Sx”

“S” said, “I couldn’t think of any reason an OT would be getting a patient ready for sex, so I had to text her back and ask what she meant.”

My sister said, “I thought it made sense.  Dx for diagnosis, Tx for treatment, Rx for prescription.”

I said, “I think maybe that confusion is why you don’t see surgery shortened to Sx.  We tend to use surg or OR.”

We all enjoyed the laughter.

Do any of you have any funny texting stories?

Some Shout Outs

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

As we near the birth(day) of our nation, I'd like to direct you to a few humorous "birth" stories. The first over at White Coat Rants is "priceless". It incorporates the mayhem of the first two weeks of July (new interns) and the credit card list of item/cost.

Getting back to the story … mind you that this story is hearsay, but it comes from a friend of mine who worked as a secretary on an OB floor, so I consider her a pretty reliable source. I also did an internet search to make sure that I’m not perpetuating some urban legend and I couldn’t find anything. So here goes:

Medical school education: $240,000
Brand new white lab jacket with embroidered name: $37.50
Four pack of Red Bull to keep you up all night during your first call: $9.00 ...............

The second birth story involves a cow and is told by Jeffery, The Gypsy Scholar, in his post "Mad Cow Syndrome". I learned about Jeffery's blog from a mutual friend. He grew up with Charley Peters Hale and I went to college (fellow physics student) with him. I hope you will check out this story. The comments from the grandchildren are "priceless".

In an email yesterday, my Uncle Cran owned up to his "ineptitude as a veterinarian practitioner" in his attempts at dealing with a very pregnant cow whose 'inner calf' was turned around the wrong way in the uterus and needed some redirecting toward the light of reality.

Now, birth is never an easy process, and my personal view is that the doctor should be professional, the midwife should be experienced, and the father may be present . . . but should the doctor invite his own family? Well, that's what 'Doc' Cran did -- despite not even requesting the father-bull's presence as a comfort to the mother-cow -- so the following 'procedure' took place under the curious eyes of Aunt Gay and four grandkids:

Then if you haven't discovered her already, there is Theresa, Rural Doctoring. She has done several insightful posts on the economics of practicing medicine, but also has a series on Birth Stories. This one on Open Adoption is not only a good story (more thoughtful than humorous), but also a book review.

I'm reading a great book entitled The Girls Who Went Away, by Ann Fessler. It's social history of birth mothers in the United States during the post-WWII years until Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973. During that time, unmarried women were frequently sent to maternity homes to await the birth of their child, then were pressured to surrender the baby for adoption. These young women rarely received adequate counseling about pregnancy, childbirth, social services, or alternatives to adoption..........

Reading The Girls Who Went Away got me thinking about a young woman whose birth I attended a couple of years ago. Let's say her name was Caroline.

She was about 20 years old and she and her boyfriend, Eli, had been together for a couple of years and were a dedicated couple. When Caroline got pregnant, they realized they weren't prepared to be parents. They both wanted to travel for a while, then Caroline wanted to go to college. At the beginning of the pregnancy, Caroline considered an abortion but decided against it. She and Eli went to an adoption agency and began the process of an open adoption. They interviewed a number of potential adoptive couples and decided on Dan and Amy, both businesspeople in Los Angeles who'd been trying to have children for several years................

The "birth" of another new medical/personal blog. This one is written by another female surgeon. The blog is surgery, cooking, art... life. passionately. It may end up being like The Blog That Ate Manhattan. I would like to welcome her and wish her well. She has written about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Papaya Quick Bread, and birds. In this post, she is taking action to keep the mother bird from "nesting" on her balcony.

Over the weekend, Sabado learned to fly... today, I regained my balcony. Well, not entirely, but as much as I could, for the moment.

You see, the little family will still come here; they still call this "home." But, enough is enough. Call me mean, self-serving, whatever, but when I saw Mommy nesting again (!?!?), I knew something had to be done. And no, it doesn't make sense that she will lay more eggs this season. For all I know, the nest is simply a comfy place in which to rest her little feathered butt. ...........

Reminds me of the post Happy Hospitalist did earlier this spring on the bird nesting in his grill. You can read (watch) it here.