Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Grand Rounds


Welcome to the Grand Rounds Vol. 2. No.20. This carnival has certainly grown!

I decided to include all the entries that were submitted this week (I understand some hosts may prefer to make more of an editorial choice, which is fine). After all, I am a biologist, not a Doctor or a Nurse (though my wife is a MICU nurse and my personal hero), so I may not be the best arbiter on some of the topics. If you disagree with someone, blast them in their comments threads!

I am eager to get started and I hope you are, too, so, here is the carnival, organized into some (very) losely defined categories.

Humor

I like to start a carnival with humor, to break the ice. So, we'll begin with Robin from the Internet Institute for the Easily Amused who exclaimed: Help, I've Been Shot... By a Nurse!

Doc Shazam of Mr. Hassle's Long Underpants wrote a post that is the marriage of two of her favorite topics, Brain Imaging and the Pittsburgh Steelers: Ventriculus Quartus and the Steel Industry!

From the The Daily Rhino, irreverent as usual, Medical Student Teaching #4.

Medicine in Action: Cool Cases, Nursing and Patient Care


Milliner's Dream is a nurse in training. The other day, she had a very interesting patient. Read more in Diamonds (and cats) are a girl's best friend....

How many bits and pieces we have to leave in a child at the end of a heart surgery? GeekNurse tells it in Pieces of Plastic.

From Kim of Emergiblog, every day a surprise! This title is a little bit odd, but it's about her first experience with psych patients so it makes sense if you read it! Dorothy Hamill and Andy Gibb = One Theraputic Relationship.

Dr Dork sent a patient tale that personally touched him, from when he worked in palliative medicine: Palliating Ron. Part I and Palliating Ron. Part II.

Doctor provides an analysis of the types of injury likely suffered by reporter Bob Woodruff in Bob Woodruff: A Look at the Injuries, with a follow-up in Woodruff and Vogt: an Update.

From Doctor Hébert's Medical Gumbo a lovely post: Good Moon Rising is about practicing medicine and the nocturnal life, about how his late working hours are now affecting his life.

Doc Around the Clock sent a post about his experience in treating two cancer patients, each with similar diagnoses, but with whom he had two completely different interactions: Tale of 2 Patients.

Teaching, Learning, and Educating the Public


Tara Smith of Aetiology is enjoying her new digs on Seed Magazine's ScienceBlogs. She looks at the reception, in the USA, of the possibility of Quarantine in case of an avian flu outbreak.

From Orac of Respectful Insolence, one of his last submissions from the Blogspot domain before his move to the Seed Magazine's new stable of ScienceBlogs. As usual, Orac debunks medical quackery and pseudoscience in two posts: Ineffective alternative medicine is not always harmless and Coretta Scott King: A victim of alternative medicine?

Barbados Butterfly is an Australian surgical registrar (and the host of the previous edition of Grand Rounds). Here, Barb launches into song to educate her interns on the appropriate time to Call a Code.

Today is NHS Blog Doctor's birthday. His post, Sex education: don't wait for it, attracted a lot of comments which went from medical confidentiality, to children’s rights and somehow got onto ID and pornography.

Clinical Cases and Images - Blog asks Do We Need a Free Medical Encyclopedia? What do you think?

From HealthyConcerns, two posts. The first one is more technical, a comparison of the same health-related search across three search engines, Google and two health-specific search tools: An alternative to WebMD: HealthLine. The second is a story about a friend who is frustrated by her ill friend's reliance on "alternative" approaches to treat her cancer. Even though she has some alternative theories on illness herself: Healthy Story: 'give me healing energy and drive me to the doctor'.

Science and Research: What's New In Medicine?


From DiseaseProof an interesting study on Reversing Heart Disease with a Nutrient Dense Diet.

There was quite a lot of commentary around the blogs concerning the geography and genetics of ear wax. But The Blog That Ate Manhattan remembered something from the past and did some digging through the literature, discovering the potential connection between ear wax and breast cancer risk in Gene For Ear Wax.

From A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure two posts: I Have Trouble Remembering Which End to Use...... and Goodbye to the Finger Wave...

On my other blog, Circadiana I gave a little primer on the Seasonal Affective Disorder - The Basics.

From the BioTech Weblog, something close to my heart: Sleep Regulator Melatonin Lowers Blood Pressure.

Dr.Charles lets us into a secret about Propranolol. More people should know about this since it has the power to affect their lives for the better.

From Sumer's Radiology Site comes MRI- A New Test of truth telling and deception. Is polygraph the thing of the past?

Dr Emer of Parallel Universes says that getting angry has its price. Don't Be Angry! is a commentary on the new study that shows a raised risk of injury when people are extremely angry. Also, 'Wowowee' Tragedy: Reactions, Causes, and Why? summarizes reactions, comments, and possible reasons why a stampede that killed 73 people happened early Saturday morning in the Philippines.

From the Kidney Notes, two entries: The Strange Story of the Drug Aprotinin (Trasylol): from 'This Drug is Safe, Why Do We Need to Study This Further?' to 'This Drug Kills People' and Efficacy and Safety of Benazepril for Advanced Chronic Renal Insufficiency.

Now, this from Interested-Participant is really strange: Sense of Smell Linked to Body Position. A research team at McGill University's Montreal Neurological Institute, led by post-doctoral researcher Johan Lundstrom, has found that a person's sense of smell is more acute when sitting or standing compared to when he/she is reclining. But...why?

Two recent studies challenge the fear of interference from cell phones on sensitive medical equipment. On The Wards takes a look: Are Mobile Phones Safe Around Medical Equipment?

In Depression Treatments and Sexual Dysfunction, Dr. William Hapworth of the Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments blog looks at sexual dysfunction and the difficulties that it can pose in the treatment of depression.

The Healthcare System: Business, Administration and Politics

From Odd Time Signatures a personal look at Insurance: Caremark: Our New Doctor.

The Healthcare IT Guy is concerned with security, especially concerning patient data. Two cases of stolen data occured recently, and the IT Guy covered them, as well as some common-sense security advice, in How to manage tape backups in health IT shops and How we carry $10,000 cash versus patient data backup tapes worth much, much more.

From the Diabetes Mine blog, on the fuzzy state of diabetes statistics in the US: Counfounded Statistics and on "patient reaction" to the approval of inhaled insulin: Inhaled Insulin Approved by the FDA: Speaking for the OC?

From Hospital Impact, two posts: Our Healthcare System and Ford vs. Toyota is about how our healthcare system is making Toyota more competitive than Ford. The second post, So, what do you do? 'I'm in healthcare' asks: "how do we explain the problems of healthcare in 30 seconds at a cocktail party?"

From Marcus of Fixin' Healthcare (my fellow North Carolinian) comes The Lifestyle Chronicles - Balance and Stability, somewhat of a summary of the health care system in the USA, speaks to the current situation and outlines a course of action with orientation to the local community.

The so-called "donut hole" in Medicare Part D is not just a problem, it's a "unique" problem. InsureBlog explores how and why in Speaking of Donut Holes .

Stuart of Medviews gives his own annual speech: State of Health.

Is it the The End of Primary Care?, asks the California Medicine Man.

Is GruntDoc Grinding to a Halt? No, but the US HealthCare system may be. Very long and interesting comment thread to dig through....

Over on The Health Care Blog Matthew Holt wonders about Wellpoint: Too much fawning over Len Schaeffer?.

David E. Williams of the Health business blog wrote Excuse me while I second guess you, Doc.

The Cheerful Oncologist's latest, Controversial Cancer Countermeasures Cost Considerably! (but check the permalink for the alternative title) is about Canada's difficulties in deciding whether or not to pay for expensive new anti-cancer targeted therapy agents.

Retail Clinics: How Can Primary Care Docs Compete? is a post from The Medical Blog Network. It should be read in the context of the newsletter with all the contributors of the MBN: Weekly Digest: Issue #2.

From Niels Olson of The Haversian Canal, comes Rally For Charity Hospital. There will be a rally to save Charity Hospital in New Orleans on 25 March in front of the hospital. The citizens of New Orleans, the doctors, staff, and all those who are there helping to rebuild, desparately need the state and federal governments to stop bickering and open the doors of the region's trauma center, which has been closed since Katrina.

Believe it or not - that's it! I think - the more the merrier. I hope that there is something here for everyone.

Next week, Grand Rounds will be hosted by Intueri so send your entries to maria at intueri dot org by next Monday.

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