grand rounds

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 H�bert'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.