Shout Outs

 Updated 3/2017-- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many are no longer active and it was easier than checking each one.

Amanda Brown, DVM is the host for this week’s Grand Rounds! You can read this week’s edition here (photo credit).

I'd like to welcome you all to the Thanksgiving 2010 edition of Grand Rounds (ok, actually this is Grand Rounds Vol. 7, No. 9 - but who's counting?) - it is VERY gratifying to me that so many of you have contributed, offered support, and generally welcomed me into this traditionally human-only medical blog carnival. At this time of year, I always stop and think about what I'm thankful for, and this year I'd say the medical blogging community is definitely on my list. And the office call drinking game! That, and Starbucks, of course. Triple grande nonfat latte FTW! Oh. Um. Sorry, I got a little carried away. I'm also incredibly grateful that my clinic microscope got tuned up today - I may actually have let the Nikon tech see me do the happy dance, in fact. So...anyway... Here we go!

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MedGadget is hosting a new contest:   Imagine Medicine: The Photography / Photoshop Contest

…………Welcome to the Imagine Medicine contest!

We are looking for fascinating medical photography that... imagines medicine.

Nothing is off the table: portraits, group shots, happy shots, tragic shots, clinical shots, photoshop illustrations, macro, micro, and anything in between. Can you imagine medicine, showcase it as art, and make us wonder?

Here's the lowdown. The contest is open to all. Upload your photograph(s) to Flickr, and tag them with "imaginemedicine" and "medgadget" keywords. Make sure you add at least one sentence describing your work. The deadline for submissions is 11:59pm ET on December 5, 2010. The winner will be announced on December 10th and the prize is a brand new 16GB iPad with Wi-Fi. ………

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I wish I could go see this exhibit of work from Street Anatomy at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, IL.  Initially, the exhibit was to run from September 3 through November 19, 2010, but has been extended to December 19th!  Congratulations, Vanessa! (photo/info credit)

  ………This exhibition, the latest in the Museum's ongoing "Anatomy in the Gallery" program, is guest curated by Vanessa Ruiz, the author of a popular niche blog, www.streetanatomy.com, that has covered the intersections between medicine, art, and design for the past two and a half years……

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Via tweeter: RT @blogborygmi RT @poisonreview: Did astronomer Tycho Brahe die of mercury poisoning or voluntary urinary retention? http://bbc.in/cfoRxU

BBC News article: Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe exhumed to solve mystery

Tycho Brahe was a Danish nobleman who served as royal mathematician to the Bohemian Emperor Rudolf II.

He was thought to have died of a bladder infection, but a previous exhumation found traces of mercury in his hair.

A team of Danish and Czech scientists hope to solve the mystery by analysing bone, hair and clothing samples. ……

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My siblings and I are very different.  I have always been fascinated and sometimes befuddled by this.  It’s probably why I enjoyed this piece on NPR by Alix Spiegel:  Siblings Share Genes, But Rarely Personalities

…………In fact, in terms of personality, we are similar to our siblings only about 20 percent of the time. Given the fact that we share genes, homes, routines and parents, this makes no sense. What makes children in the same family so different?…………

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I’m hoping to attend with a couple of friends --  Arkansas Women Bloggers Meetup Scheduled! (photo credit)

When: December 11, 2010 11am-1pm

Where: Museum of Discovery @ 500 President Clinton Avenue

Why: Meet other bloggers and help decide future activities/goals for AWB

We will keep you updated with event details as we pull them together.  

To RSVP, you can leave a comment on this post.  If you're on Facebook, you can RSVP and invite friends at the event page. You can also RSVP by emailing us at arkansasbloggers@gmail.com.

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The Alliance for American Quilts received 118 quilts for it’s “New from Old Quilt Contest Contest.” You can see all the quilts here. My entry was “Label Me” and is included in this weeks quilts being auctioned off.

Click on an auction week below to view or download an auction guide for that week.

Week Four: Monday, Nov. 29-Monday, Dec. 6

The bidding for each quilt will start at $50 and each 7-day auction week starts and ends at 9:00 pm Eastern.

All proceeds will support the AAQ and its projects.

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There does not seem to be any Dr Anonymous’ show scheduled for this week. 

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

Egg on My Face

Yesterday, Gizabeth, my husband, and I took a road trip to see the medical history exhibit at the Old Jail Museum in Greenwood, Arkansas. We had decided to make the museum for our daytrip after Google (yes, they share some of the egg – smile) maps put Greenwood just 8 miles from Altus and the Arkansas wineries.

We had a lovely day planned – leave Little Rock around 8:30 am, drive through McDonald’s for coffee (I love their coffee!), head to the museum which opened at 11 am (est time of first leg a little over 2 hr), have lunch at one of the winery restaurants, and then visit the flea market/farmer’s market in the Altus town square.

First error of the day: Greenwood, AR is NOT next to Altus, but there is a Greenwood Community located there. Notice the Greenwood, AR not marked by Google over to the west near Fort Smith and the Oklahoma- Arkansas border. That’s where we needed to be.

After stopping to ask directions in “Greenwood”, we got back on the road and headed west. We finally got to the museum which is located in an old jail, hence the name – Old Jailhouse Museum.

My second mistake – the medical history exhibit was in 2009, not this year. We enjoyed the visit anyway.

The museum grounds also has this wonderful dog-trot log cabin! At one time my grandmother on my father’s side lived in one of these. I loved the place. It is always cool in that center (dog-trot) area in the summer. Always has a nice breeze.

I did notice a couple of items with a medical bend. Here’s an old wooden wheelchair. Can you imagine having to use this?

This old wringer washing machine was the source of some horrible injuries to arms. I grew up using a wringer washing machine (a “newer” model than this). Mother got a non-wringer machine after I went to college.

This photo shows the damage tornados can do.

We ate a late lunch at a local diner, the Bulldog, then headed back to Little Rock. Glizabeth needed to be back by 5 pm (we were back by 5:20 pm) as she had a wedding to attend.

Even with the “egg on my face” stuff (or maybe because of it), we had a great day full of conversation, laughter, and music.

Medical Museums in Arkansas

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

Medgadget and Gruntdoc have challenged us to visit our local medical museums and write about it. I live in Little Rock, Arkansas – the state capital and home of the only medical school in Arkansas. So this past Friday after looking online to see if the medical school has a museum, I headed over to the campus library. Turns out the school has an Historical Research Center (HRC) rather than a true museum.

The HRC has an impressive website where all the “proceeded” items are listed and searchable. The holdings of the HRC include “books, papers, artifacts, photographs, and audio and video recordings dealing with the history of medicine primarily in Arkansas.”

The goal of the Historical Research Center is to preserve UAMS history and the history of the health sciences in Arkansas. See our animated timeline. This is accomplished by the collection and preservation of classics in the health sciences, i.e., the History of Medicine and associated collections; and by collecting and preserving the archives of UAMS and Arkansas health scientists.

Due to lack of space and storage, the HRC doesn’t actively add old medical equipment or gadgets. The HRC has a few small areas throughout the main UAMS library where displays can be done. If you need to do research a topic of medical history, the staff will willingly help you.

The digital collections of the UAMS Library Historical Research Center provide access to selected archival materials related to the history of UAMS and of health sciences in Arkansas. Visit the digital collection. Also see our list of resources for historical research.

In fact, Amanda Saar who gave me the tour of the HRC mentioned a few other “true” museums in the state and I did more “google” searching myself. Here are the ones I found. I have not visited them in person due to time and distance, but perhaps in the future I will.

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Old Country Doctor Museum is located in Lincoln, Arkansas and was founded in 1994 by Dr. Harold Boyer, the son of Dr. Herbert Boyer, to honor his father and other Arkansas country doctors for their heroism, selfless service and unique contributions to the people and history of Arkansas. The museum is the second country doctor museum in the United States.  They can also be found on Facebook.

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The Randolph County Heritage Museum is not solely a medical museum, but they do have quite a collection of old medical “stuff” as can be seen in this youtube tour of the museum. It is located in Pocahontas, Arkansas.……………………….

Museum of Chico County Arkansas (MOCCA) is located in Lake Village, Arkansas. You can see photos, including the one below, on their online tour.

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Siloam Springs Museum is located in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.

At the Siloam Springs Museum, you can explore the past through permanent and rotating exhibits highlighting Indian culture, pioneer life, medicine and many other facets of our history.

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Gann Museum is located in Benton, Arkansas. The museum is housed in a 1893 building which served as the office of Dr. Dewell Gann. The building was built by patients who could not afford to pay him for their care. When Dr. Gann retired, he donated the building to the city and asked that it be maintained as a library. In 1980 the building was turned from the library to the museum.

In order to pay they dug bauxite from a nearby farm, hand-sawed it into blocks, allowed it to harden and then built the Doctor a medical office. It is the only building in the world to have ever been constructed out of pink alumina block. This area was once one of the world’s largest aluminum mining operations. The ore of aluminum is called bauxite and it is pink with little round metallic beads and streaks of white running through it.

The patients worked out their debt at a rate of ten cents an hour. The Doctor also took such things as cows, chickens and wild honey as payment as did many of the other doctors of the day.

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The Old Jail Museum in Greenwood is an unusual place to find a glimpse into how Arkansas medicine has changed in the past 100-plus years.

The exhibit contains memorabilia of 13 highly regarded physicians who worked in south Sebastian County dating back to the 1800s. Metal braces for broken bones, old photographs, doctors' bags, medicine bottles, baby scales, patient logs and bills, as well as medical instruments are some of the items on display through October at the museum located southeast of the Town Square on Arkansas Highway 10…..

Other items of interest include a straight edge razor used to cut umbilical cords, tiny bottles of medicines, stainless steel syringes, and one of the first electric nebulizer sterilizers. There are also some late 19^th century medical textbooks with pictures and medical advertisements such as those advertising house calls for $2.50 and delivery of a baby for $1.25….

The museum also has the complete baby ledger of Charles Bailey, MD, from when he started practicing in 1953 to the last baby he delivered in the 1980s.

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St. Francis County Museum is located in Forrest City, Arkansas.

Located in the restored, historic Rush-Gates home; exhibits include the J.O. Rush relic collection, reconstructed doctor's office, geology and fossils from Crowley's Ridge, county, veterans, and African-American history. Temporary and seasonal exhibits year-round; also serves as the central visitors center for the Crowley's Ridge National Scenic byway