Mastodon Grand Rounds ~ Pallimed

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Grand Rounds

Welcome to another edition of Grand Rounds (v 5.5), the best of the medical blogosphere. Below I have taken the liberty to edit down to what I considered the most provocative, most interesting, or most literary posts published in the last week. I have included all submissions in the first comment of this post so that everyone can see all the posts submitted. (As far as the topic of changing goals of care, there were not enough posts that really focused on the topic so it will be shelved until next time.)

Question: What do you call physicians who write?

Answer: Physicians.

The best post I read in the past week comes from the The Literature Arts and Medicine blog and writer Jay Baruch. In "The Story Always Comes First", the physician-writer is clearly a must read for any physician-blogger and a great one to start off this Grand Rounds. Find yourself 10 minutes of peace and quiet and enjoy the ride.

The Cream of the Crop

Happy Hospitalist defines a population familiar to those who have ever worked in a hospital more than a month: "the hospital junkie." The commenters try to come up with the DSM criteria that may fit these frequent fliers.

A primary care physician at In My Humble Opinon gives an eloquent example of the many things you can say to a family when a patient dies.

A medical student in Australia has anti-abortion protesters outside the classroom and gives us a few thoughts on the potential overturing of legal abortion laws in the Australian Government. A good read over at Degranulated.

Laika's MedLibLog gives a great review of Addison's disease with a personal touch about her experience and missed opportunities for diagnosis.

Laurie Edwards at A Chronic Dose explores the importance of health care for voting in the upcoming election.

Bongi dazzles with tales of treating victims of violence by things with tails. Damn beasts!

Dr. Wes takes sitcom silliness and helps you understand why a 'Best Practice Alert' can cause alarm fatigue.

Sam Solomon at Canadian Medicine Blog posts a great interview with the Canadian Health Minister about the future of Canadian Health Care Reform. The best part of the interview:
TONY CLEMENT:...That's like wishing the sky were purple.

SAM SOLOMON: Do you wish the sky were purple?

TONY CLEMENT: No, I like to wish for things that are realistic.

Pallimed Select
Below are my own choices from blogs that I frequently read and think deserve a little more attention or posts that just happened to come upon my radar screen.

Dr. Shock consistently comes up with some very interesting journal articles. I really appreciated his take on impact of medical student biases towards patients with mental illness.

Maurice Bernstein at the Bioethics Discussion Blog discusses the role of hope for patients in many different variations: miracles, hopelessness, false hope, and more. The first comment makes great reading for Greek Mythology buffs.

Dethmama the hospice nurse shows how to win over the patient who doesn't trust you. Call his cat Tripod!

Leo Levy an ICU nurse at DNR/DNI shares that some trauma nurses don't wear seat belts because they have a desire to avoid being hospitalized like some of the very patients they treat.

William Lee at BMJ Blogs attended a public presentation by Dr Philip Nitschke, director of an Australian pro-euthanasia group, regarding the legal obstacles to getting medically hastened death approved in various countries. Lee highlights how his palliative care view of medicine contrasted with some of the claims made by Nitschke.

PookieMD provides an excellent rant-alysis of the missing pieces from the recent JAMA article on the Professional Ethics of Billing and Collections written by two lawyers aimed at physicians. (HT: Kevin MD )

Thanks to everyone who submitted. If you did not see your post above check the comments for all of the submissions this week. See you next time at Emerigblog!
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