The Blog Has Moved

Happy New Year, my fellow bloggers and blogees! Welcome to the first Grand Rounds of the New Year!

Yes, the voice of the masses (all 30-something of you) has spoken and you have made my work a bit harder by voting for exploding things as the theme of this year’s inaugural grand rounds. I am a little bit worried about the mindset of the voters; but be that as it may, I will do my best to…uh…start the year off with a bang.

To set the mood, I am including the 1812 Overture that you can play while you are reading this. As you are aware, it is one fine piece of music with lots of explosions (in fact, actual cannons are sometimes used to provide realistic sound). It is also about the Napoleonic war of 1812, not the one between the Americans and British (FYI). Also Note, this piece is 15 minutes long and the explosions come later in the piece.

[Audio:1812.mp3|autostart=no]

Or, if you prefer:

• Burning Down the House, by the Talking Heads:
  [Audio:Burning Down the House.mp3|autostart=no]
• Crossfire, buy Stevie Ray Vaughn (May he rest in peace):
  [Audio:Crossfire.mp3|autostart=no]

So on to the task at hand!

Editors Choice:

The best part of hosting Grand Rounds is the chance to read some really good stuff. Here are my favorites of the many submissions:

• In her article, His Eyes, Sandra Miller of A Shot in the Dark tells of her diabetic son’s recent eye exam, underlining the need for good communication skills by physicians as well as the resiliency of children.
• Sam Blackman of BlogMD discusses the struggles of giving bad news to patients and how much of our struggle is due to us, not the patient.
• Two Years After the Tsunami is the story (in the blog Med Valley High) of a Canadian med student’s visit to Indonesia and the heroism of the healthcare workers there.
• Moreena at The Wait and Wonder shares two articles about the case of a mentally retarded person denied a kidney transplant (article one and two). Since Moreena has a child who has had more than one transplant, this raises poignant issues for her.

Mentos and Diet Coke:

My 14-year old suddenly became obsessed with Mentos this past year. While I thought he was becoming diabetic or had fallen prey to the hypnotic effects of advertising, it was for a far more innocent reason:

Mentos + (Diet) Coke = Explosion.

Why do I say this? Diabetes, of course. It is my lame attempt at segueing to diabetes while including some reference to explosions:

Diabetes + Mentos = Ketones (plus a hint of mint)

Hey, I didn’t choose the theme! Besides, it is kind of cool to see the explosive combination. I have included pictures of the evil concoction at the end of Grand Rounds.

Here are diabetes-related articles of note:

• Amy at Diabetes Mine writes about the year in review, bringing attention to the booms and busts, including new medications (like Exubera) and new types of insulin pumps. A very good review.
• Lyrecha from The Sweetness Within writes about her life with diabetes, including her pregnancy, with an interesting perspective about actually visiting the doctor for something besides diabetes.
• Finally, Laurie at A Chronic Dose laments the ignorance of a radio personality who suggests diabetics would be more responsible if they did not have children. Given her chronic medical problems, this hits very close to Laurie’s heart. Ignorance can be very scary.

Trying to keep yourself from blowing up:

Furious? Frustrated? Sad? There are situations in medicine that cause great frustration and confusion. A number of blogs have written articles about dealing with these problems.

• Dia DiCristino has had to deal with 11 brain surgeries, two healthcare systems, and a lot of second-guessing. In her article, Stages, she struggles with the emotions tied to this.
• Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good brings up an interesting perspective on patients taking unnecessary visits to the ER.
• Meloukhia, from This ain’t livin’ writes about being ostracized for a chronic disease, feeling especially alienated when it comes to the human touch.
• Phillip from Tales from the Womb writes about foreign medical workers convicted in Libya of infecting children with HIV while the evidence points squarely against this claim. He ponders the reasons for upholding such obvious falsehoods.
• Vitum Medicinus shares about the trials of being a first-year medical student along with all of the “am I doing the right thing” questions.
• Patient Anonymous ponders the need for gadgets to help with ADD. The problem is, you keep losing them.
• Marcia from Ants Marching writes a touching letter to the family of the donor of a heart that her cousin received. As hard as it is to hope for tragedy for others, it has redeemed the tragedy for it to result in the life of her loved one.

I would like to point out that no one submitted anything about humans exploding. Now, there are some publications, such as the Weekly World News that report an alarming increase in humans bursting into flames. One theory revolves around the role of global warming on this phenomenon.

Personally, I think it has more to do with those Blue Tooth devices for cell phones that make you look like that guy on the Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (see right). I am still working on proving this theory.

A Short Polka Interlude:

To lighten things up, play a little polka music. It did come in second in the voting. See what you are missing?

[Audio:Bicycle Polka.mp3|autostart=no]

A System Worthy of Demolition:

Healthcare is a mess, if you haven’t already noticed. We are paid more to do bad than we are to do good (at least primary care doctors in the US are). While it may be tempting to solve the problem via smart bombs aimed at insurance carriers (or the NHS, or other care-obstructors), that solution would be better left to the professionals. The rest of us ponder what should we do now or what can be done to fix the problems in our system(s).

• Topher at The Rumors Were True ponders what someone coming out of medical school should to to best fit into a broken system. Do you pick and choose what insurances (if any) to accept? Do you get an MBA?
• “Power to the Masses” cries Annie from Universal Health, or at least power to the nurses and physicians who should be in charge of the system. She makes some practical suggestions on how to foment a rebellion. I’ve got my musket ready!
• Henry at InsureBlog tells of a meeting with Senator Wyden recently (along with a number of other bloggers) to discuss the senator’s bill, the Healthy Americans Act. Henry brings a good perspective to the meeting.
• In Tales from the Emergency Room and Beyond, the author discusses the issue of the 80-hour work week for residents in Canada.

Hazardous Emissions:

For some reason (maybe they read my blog), I got a number of submissions centering around…errr…”bodily emissions.” Some of these come in an explosive manner, others don’t:

• From The Nurse Practitioner’s Place comes the explosive tale of nasogastric suction gone awry.
• Shinga, from Breath Spa for Kids, tells of ways to avoid having snotty-nosed kids at home. It is actually very helpful advice and can provide hours of entertainment at home.
• The issue of Poop in the Delivery Room is raised by Dr. Kenneth Trofatter from Healthline (he also has a nice comment about New Jersey). He uses a humorous reference to raise a more serious issue of the deterioration of the situation in the Delivery Room.

Patient Care:

It is really hard for me to tie every section into the explosion theme. There are only so many bad puns a person can take. Hence, this section will be hosted by llamas. Why? Llamas are very patient creatures, are highly influential in government affairs, and make wonderful hosts. It fits perfectly!

• Kim at Emergiblog writes about encountering a “typical Alzheimer’s patient” that turned out to affect her more than she expected.
• Paul Auerbach from Healthline writes about the bad mix of alcohol and the great outdoors. No, Pete Coors, it is not that you should not drink outside, but that boating, climbing, swimming, or skiing are far more dangerous when alcohol is added to the mix.
• A great article on practicing nursing (which applies to doctoring as well) is at ImpactEDNurse.
• Dr. Dork shares about the need to put on a facade at times for the sake of our patients. Is that a bad thing? I agree with his assessment.
• Sandy at Junkfood Science tells about the upcoming “blockbuster” drug for weight loss, cutting through the hype and ending up underwhelmed.
• Did you know that Monty Python and the Holy Grail was produced by Ralph the Wonder Llama? Obviously Doc Around the Clock was aware of this when he wrote his controversial article on Fibromyalgia. He begins and ends with a famous quote from that movie. Which kind of Fibromyalgia, African or European?

Strange:

I know that sounds odd coming from me (it takes one to know one, right?), but there were a couple of very unique submissions that really should stand on their own.

• Dr. Charles (from The Examining Room of Dr. Charles) recently discovered that UN Ambassador John Bolton’s moustache attracted an invitation from Team USA of the World Beard and Moustache Competition. I am sure that ESPN will eventually cover this thing. Anyhow, Dr. Charles made an offer to be the team physician and someone from the team actually commented on the blog.
• Bertalan Meskó from ScienceRoll submitted a bunch of very interesting posts. The one that caught my eye was one of a baker from Thailand who bakes bread in the shape of human body parts. What is intriguing is how realistic (and gruesome) these creations appear. I took the liberty of commenting with a bunch of bad puns.

Well, that’s a wrap. I hope you all enjoyed my version of Grand Rounds. I hereby pass the baton to Dr. John LaPuma who is hosting next week. I have enjoyed corresponding with all of you and have really enjoyed reading all of the wonderful articles. Thanks a lot.

Rob

And now it is time for the Penguin on top of your Television to explode. [Audio:amissile4.mp3|autostart=no]

Addendum: Having a Blast

Found at Legeros.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 1:00 am and is filed under Grand Rounds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.