The Friday Post #46: That old Cardiac Rythmn, Medical Fiction and Jude Law

This is the Friday Post #46 for Feb 5 2010.  Let’s consider matters of the human heart because St. Valentine’s Day will be here soon, and because this is National Wear Red Day, a public service campaign aimed toward women which promotes awareness of cardiovascular health and fitness, sponsored by the American Heart Association.

Systole/Diastole Song

…. Ha ha ~  It’s a bit repetitious

Video Source/Credit: YouTube.com – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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The Mad Professor does the ECG Dance

What a way to learn Normal Sinus Rhythm!

Video Source/Credit: YouTube.com – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

My goodness, don’t his arms get tired?

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Finally:  It’s no secret that this blogger needs some good strong coffee in the morning in order to get moving, wake up and be productive.  It snowed on Wednesday morning here in the Northeast, making for an ugly, accident-ridden commute.  Getting to work a bit late, and getting a cup of French Roast, I sat down to my computer to check my email and the latest medical news online.

Then I checked my blog statistics, which linked to an item on the Health Blog from Wall Street Journal, which led me to a news item on Digg advertising something called “The Union“.

(Disclaimer:  This is about medical fiction, Hollywood style, folks!)

Image Source: http://Digg.com – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

It gets weirder: The link opens a website named UnionCares.com, a glossy page with sincere video testimonials, lush graphics and a catalog of high-tech mechanical human organs for sale, at high-cost and extreme profit to the ruthless company that created them.  And payment plans.

The fictional items “for sale” look like they were manufactured by the same industrial designers who created the Terminator.

Image Credit: http://www.theunioncares.com/ – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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This site gave me a nasty shock… did I miss hearing about something really big having to do with trends in transplantation?!  Was this a French Roast-coffee-deprivation thing clouding my reasoning abilities at 930am?

Thank God they’re not real.  The whole site is a promotion for a film (whew) due to be released in March 2010, called Repo Men.

This is not the same movie as the classic 1984 film, Repo Man, or the 2008 musical.  And Jude Law is in this film… !

However, seeing that artificial liver left me feeling a bit sick… so I finished the coffee, skipped the donut.

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That’s the Friday Post #46 for Feb 5 2010, folks.  Have a great weekend and good luck on exams next week!

News, Public Health, Disease Prevention: World Cancer Day – Feb 4 2010 and a Very Special Cat

Today is World Cancer Day 2010 – Feb 4 2010

International Union Against Cancer (UICC) is the principal sponsor for World Cancer Day and is responsible for organizing the annual World Cancer Campaign and World Cancer Summit (held every two years).

The theme for the 2010 campaign is “Cancer can be prevented too”.  The public health message promotes practical lifestyle choices or modifications to lower the risk of  developing cancer, such as avoiding tobacco use, limiting alcohol consumption or exposure to the sun’s rays (or tanning booths), maintaining a healthy weight and take preventative measures against cancer-causing infections.

World Cancer Day began in 2006, and is held every year on Feb 4th.

Here are some additional facts about the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), from their “About” page:

” In 1933, cancer researchers recognized the need to share knowledge and expertise globally and so founded the International Union Against Cancer (UICC). Since then, UICC has grown to embrace organizations engaged in all aspects of cancer prevention and control: voluntary cancer societies, research and treatment centres, public health authorities, patient support networks andadvocacy groups, and ministries of health “.

” UICC works closely with the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT), and has consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council. It offers corporate partners a unique opportunity to demonstrate social responsibility on a global scale. Every two years, UICC brings together key stakeholders in a World Cancer Summit. “

Text Source: http://www.uicc.org/ – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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It probably isn’t correct to say that any cat has a “mission” in life… other than eating, looking for tuna, seeking out sunny spots, sleeping, batting balls around or searching for insects to chew on.  But anyone who has ever lived with a feline knows how comforting a warm, purring cat can be in times of trouble or stress.

This month, the press has picked up on the story of one spotted cat from Providence, RI  that does seem to have a purpose and meaning in his behaviors, as documented by David Dosa, MD.

Dr. Dosa is an associate professor of medicine at Brown University and a gerontologist at Steere House Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Providence. Oscar is a therapy cat and lives at the facility on the third floor where there is a 41-bed unit for patients with dementia. The staff has noticed that, over time, Oscar has purposely chosen to enter rooms  of patients who are near death and will stay with them until they’ve passed on.

The doctor has written a book about the cat, entitled “Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of An Ordinary Cat” which was published by Hyperion Books on Feb 2 2010.  Earlier, an essay he wrote about the cat was published the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2007.

In the Medical Subject Headings List (MeSH) I found that the term “animal assisted therapy” was added to PubMed only recently (in 2010).  Link here to a group of recent citations found on Medline about therapeutic human-animal relationships.

Reporters from The Providence Journal visited with Dr. Dosa and Oscar recently, and the video link is here (Jan 31 2010). Some of the other news videos about this story are regrettably sensationalistic, even calling him the furry “angel of death” or other silly stuff.

And today, I learned that Oscar now has a Facebook page!

News, Blogs I Like, Eye Candy: Collecting Library Blogs

Dave Pattern, Library Systems Manager at University of Huddersfield (UK) and technologist, created an automatic blog called Hot Stuff 2.0, which he describes as an:

“… automated WordPress blog that tracks around 800 library related blogs, looking for the latest trends and hot topics.   The purpose of the site is to track content in the biblioblogosphere and the harvested blog posts are indexed to provide word clouds, emotional content, geographical data, etc.”

“A daily blog post is generated using a single word that has seen a marked increase in usage over the last few days. A “Word Wheel” image shows the strength of the links between that word and other words that have also recently seen an increase in usage. “

As Mr. Pattern writes:  “This can sometimes help to put to the words into context, but mostly it’s just an excuse for some eye candy.”

Text Source: http://www.daveyp.com/ and http://www.daveyp.com/hotstuff/ – All rights reserved-  Copyright 2010

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The Word Wheel is, indeed, an elegant piece of code. 

Eye Candy is the good way to describe these luscious images:

Image Credit/Source: http://161.112.232.18/hotstuff/14635.png – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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A post about Haiti found on this blog was collected by the Word Wheel on Jan 26 2010, when the Word of the Day was “Earning” (shown above).

It is an interesting list of library-related blogs he has aggregated for the Word Wheel; you can take at look at the collection here:  Dave Pattern’s Hot or Not List.

Finally: Take a look at the word cloud, and blog-hits, found recently for a search on the term “EBM“.

News, Medical & Technology Blogs: A Great Crop of “Best Medical Blogs”

MedGadget.com annually stages a “Best Medical Blog” award.  Their selections are always interesting to review for new – and well-established – writers.  This is the sixth year which the competition has been held.

This years’ nominees for the 2009 “Best Medical Blog” -  in seven different categories – represent many new bloggers, as well as some classic, veteran writers.  Each writer on the list represents a refreshing point of view in their own particular specialty, be it as a technologist, physician, research scientist, nurse, patient or librarian.

If you like, you can visit the site to review and vote for your choice(s) for the 2009 Medical Weblogs awards.  The online voting began Jan 27 and polls will remain open until Feb 14 2010.

Someday, maybe this blog will make it onto the list 

Clinical Reasoning, Mobile Computing, Point of Care Tools: Medical Knowledge in Your Pocket

This month, the second-year medical students at UCHC are in the process of selecting and purchasing their mobile computing devices (PDAs or SmartPhones) in preparation for the beginning of their clinical clerkship year when they’ll be using them to keep a log of patient encounters, check for drug interactions, calculate laboratory test results, look up point-of-care medical/reference facts or other essential activities like checking email and sharing files.

I’ve noticed that quite a few of the first-year medical students are already using PDAs, Blackberries and iPhones, thus getting ahead of the learning curve.  Several are already using EpocratesRX, a basic mobile drug reference resource available at no cost from Epocrates.com.

Other free downloads popular with medical students are Diagnosaurus 2.0, a differential diagnosis tool from McGraw-Hill, and Archimedes, a medical calculator, provided by Skyscape.

A desirable feature when evaluating potential new library subscription products is the availability of a mobile computing version.  Examples of highly-useful clinical resources which come with a mobile version are DynaMed, Essential Evidence Plus, Lexi-Comp, Micromedex, MD-Consult/First Consult, and two integrative-complementary-alternative medicines resources, Natural Medicines and Natural Standard.

These last two resources are especially important when clinicians need to determine potentially hazardous drug interactions between “over-the-counter” homeopathic or dietary supplements and allopathic prescription medicines.

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It is a rapidly changing world of devices, products, access, cost (and choices).  To review more of what is available in hand-helds for medical applications, visit a few pages* written for UCHC students by library staff :

• A good place to start: Lyman Maynard Stowe Library Mobile Computing Page
• UCHC Computer Education Center: PDA Faqs and Product Comparisons
• Software Recommended for UCHC Students
• Software for Practicing Evidence Based Medicine
• Discussion on Smartphones
• Basic Tutorial on How to Sync
  

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Wikipedia.org has a page about Open Source Healthcare Software.

Recently I came across a free clinical calculator site which anyone can use: MD+Calc.  Thanks to Graham Walker for putting this site up. Below is a screenshot of the topic page “Endocrine/Metabolic“:

Image/Source credit: http://www.mdcalc.com/ – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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Finally, here is a brief list of other free clinically-oriented sites**:

• MedCalc 3000
• Martindale’s Calculators Online Center
• The Medical Algorithms Project (Registration to log-in – recommended)
• GlobalRPH.com
• MedCalc
• Andrew Yee’s Medical Eponym Page (updated Aug 2009)
  

• Medical Calculators Page – Weill Medical College – Cornell Univ.
• Johns Hopkins ABX Guide and also see POC-IT (Point of Care Guides).  Registration and log-in is required to view the full content of the site – just go ahead and do it, as there is a great deal of information here.
• University of Washington – Health Links PDA and Mobile Resources

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* Note: Access to the clinical subscription databases described here is limited to UCHC students, staff and faculty.

** These links are provided for educational use only – not for clinical decision-making in the care of actual patients.

The Friday Post #45: Hapless Medical Student, StoryBird and Moonbows

This is the Friday Post #45 for Jan 22 2010.

First, thanks to Educational Origami (a favorite blog/wikis for educational and instructional ideas) for the link to StoryBird where you can sign up to create your own story, or collaborate with others to create a shared story.  The artwork is fabulous!

http://storybird.com/create/

Very cool

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Next: A Day in the Life of a 3rd Year Medical Student who essentially can’t do much of anything right.

Source Credit:  Youtube.com – All rights reserved – Copyright 2009

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Finally:  Take a moment and watch this amazing Time-Elapsed Moonbow

Source Credit:  Youtube.com – All rights reserved – Copyright 2009

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That’s the Friday Post #45, folks.  Enjoy your weekend!

Public Health, Health Infrastructure, Humanitarian Aid: Health Crisis in Haiti

The recent major earthquake in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Jan 12 2010 has been a catastrophic and life-altering event for those living there.  The death toll climbed this week to an estimated 200,000 people.  For world leaders (and regular citizens), viewing the news reporting and photos from afar, the downtown area resembles a post-nuclear landscape.  Thankfully, many millions of people worldwide have donated monies toward the relief effort currently gearing up for their aid.

Watching the grim news from this poor Caribbean country unfold,  it seems unfortunately predictable as a sober demonstration of what happens when a government does (next to) nothing for a few days after a major catastrophe.  “No one” was in charge of managing the after-effects of this disaster.  Bodies piled up in the streets, people trapped under rubble – and whom might have lived had they been pulled away from the buildings which collapsed around them – were not rescued, roads are not cleared, the government was not visible. The infrastructure failed.

Injured people waited in pain and fear for help which only began to arrive on Friday, Jan 15th.   Those folks lucky enough to walk out of fallen buildings with non life-threatening injuries – an estimated 1.1 million people survived the Jan 12th quake in Port-Au-Prince – are now homeless.  Growing civil unrest is gaining hold.

This is the second wave of their public health emergency.

The public health infrastructure in Haiti was thin to begin with, but now with the city’s port severely damaged, roads blocked by fallen debris, scant fuel supplies, no functional communication networks and a lack of coordination among international aid agencies, newly-arrived emergency health personnel* and security forces ready to distribute aid are hard-pressed to get it quickly to those most in need.

An NPR reporter on the ground on Sunday Jan 17 was quoted as saying: “Money means little here right now.  People are dying from exposure, lack of drinking water and from injuries which are now infected… the stench of death and raw sewage is everywhere“.  Age-old scourges – communicable diseases (measles, meningitis, tetanus or malaria),  secondary infections (such as gangrene) from untreated traumatic injuries, dehydration, psychological shock, lack of food or medicine and rising criminal activities by a few – will be working against those survivors who have been literally camped out, sleeping on the ground for six nights. Click here to read an article dated Jan 17 2010 about a field hospital in Port-au-Prince, where Sanjay Gupta, physician and medical correspondent for CNN, stayed to treat patients after Belgian health personnel left due to security threats.

In most places, the infrastructure works (until it does not). So much about public health is essential yet unglamorous, addressing basic human needs: adequate and safe food, clean water, shelter from the elements, a means of earning a living, sewage and waste management, knowledge of basic healthcare practices, and the means to implement them, a chance for an education, safety from danger or interpersonal violence, peace of mind if possible.

There will be little of that (peace of mind, that is) on the island of Haiti in the near-term, but as one of of the many Haitian politicians interviewed on a news programs stated last week: “Maybe now we can rebuild a new Haiti”.

That would be a great public health opportunity for the citizens of this devastated country.

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* One charitable international volunteer agency, Medicins sans Frontiere, filed this report on Jan 19 2010 regarding the work of their medical staff(s) in Port-au-Prince.

** Link here to an assortment of non-profit international agencies coordinating aid to the population in Haiti, collected by Google.

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Addendum #1: On the morning of Jan 20 2010, a second earthquake of 6.1 magnitude struck near Port-au-Prince.  Read a brief report about this new quake from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Addendum #2: On Thurs Jan 21, this entry was added:  Dr. Robert Fuller, director of Emergency Medicine at UCHC, is currently in Haiti as a volunteer physician for International Medical Corps. Dr. Fuller spoke with with CNN reporter Wolf Blitzen on Jan 19 2010 about the medical rescue efforts in Port au Prince (link here for video).

News, Awards: VP and Dean Cato Laurencin honored at the White House

Besides serving as an educational administrator, Dr. Cato Laurencin, Dean of UConn School of Medicine and Vice President for Health Affairs, is also an orthopaedic surgeon, inventor and biomedical engineer, holds a PhD (from MIT) and an MD degree (from Harvard), and has 20 patents registered under his name.  He has been at UCHC since August 2008.  He even finds time to write a blog!

Dr. Laurencin was selected in 2009 as one of twenty-two recipients of the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, an award given to those who mentor students in science and mathematics (at any grade level).

Award winners were announced in July 2009 by the White House (press release – link here).

Dr. Laurencin and other honorees attended an awards ceremonies at the White House on Jan 6 2010, which was hosted by President Barack Obama.

The Friday Post #44: Cephalopods, Coconuts, Cold Iguanas, Pinched

This is the first Friday Post #44 for 2010

Anyone who reads this blog might recall that I’m fond of cephalopods. Why? They’re smart (if not huggable), beautiful in their alien-marine type of way, their skin reflects their emotional states and there is still so much for humans to discover about their wily Octopus behaviors.  So, this Friday Post celebrates the Cephalopod class of Molluska.

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Octopus Adopts a Significant Other (in this case, a coconut)

Video Credit/Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/museumvictoria – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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… and who knew Octopus could moon-walk?!

Video Credit/Source: http://youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tteigkXaj6k – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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An online library exhibit found on the Marine Biological Laboratory – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute website features the exquisite anatomical illustrations of 19th Century German scientist, Rudolph Leuckart (1822-1890), who was considered the “Father of Parasitology” and a very influential zoologist in his era.

This virtual exhibit shows many of Dr. Leuckart’s beautiful, classic color illustrations; the chart below features a Cephalopod:

Molluska

Image credit: http://www.mblwhoilibrary.org/exhibits/leuckart/wall_charts.html – All rights reserved – Copyright 2010

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Watch where you walk

Although I have a number of relatives who live in Florida (where the license plates read “the Sunshine State“), none of them ever mentioned  kamikaze lizards, a species that has been severely affected by this week’s prolonged severe cold weather in the South. (News story from JustNews.com – WPLG Channel 10, Broward County, Florida). And these guys are big and green!

This could be the stuff of nightmares for some people.

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Writings about this American Recession

In regards to money (or lack thereof), there is an interesting series of writings on Salon.com entitled Pinched.  A recent post by Ken Ilgunas (Dec 6 2009) relates his experience of living in a used 1994 van in order to afford to attend graduate school at Duke University.  He lives without running water, and with no certain address, but he is debt-free.  Worth reading, and especially for his discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of living simply.

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That’s the Friday Post #44 for Jan 8 2010.

Enjoy your weekend!

News, American Healthcare Reform, Legislation: Comparison of US Healthcare Proposals

On their Health Reform website, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has made available a page listing factual details of two health care reform proposals from the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.

The two bills are titled: “Senate Bill – Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590)” or “House Bill – Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962)”.

To view specific details from each of the proposals, click on “Side-by-Side Comparison of Major Health Care Reform Proposals” (last updated Jan 4 2010).

The above link will open a 24-page PDF document that is freely available for anyone to read or download.