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In The Hospital To Rest And Recover, Right?

MSU Coach: Mark DantonioNobody is in the hospital these days feeling good. Regulations have made it so sick people are hospitalized and not-so-sick people are usually outpatients. People who are horizontal are there to have procedures, take heavy duty meds, rest and, hopefully, get better.

Hospitals have increasingly put in sophisticated television systems so you can be in bed and distracted and entertained. But that is not restful for everyone. Here’s an example from this past weekend that stands out:

Mark Dantonio, the coach of the Big Ten’s Michigan State Spartan college football team, was diagnosed with a heart attack right after last week’s game. Boom. He was hospitalized. Boom. He had a stent put in to unblock at least one artery. This past Saturday he was still in the hospital resting and recovering, right? In the hospital, yes. Resting, no! Are you kidding? Keep the coach down during the big game against Wisconsin, a Big Ten rival? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*

Mental Illness On Sesame Street

ZDoggMD, a hospitalist in California, gives us Diagnosis: Sesame Street a “cluster of mental illness, all on one urban inner-city avenue.” Enjoy.

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

“Step Away From The Chart Or I’ll Be Forced To Give You Chemo”

*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*

Successful Care: Grandmother Knows Best

ATS "Year of the Lung" logoWant to know the secret to successful care of ICU patients? Think back to the advice your grandmother always gave, joked American Thoracic Society conference speaker Renee Stapleton, M.D., recently:

– Wash your hands.
– You can’t sleep your life away.
– Get some exercise.
– Sit up straight.
– Take your medicine.
– If you can’t remember it, write it down.

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*

Healthcare Training In High School

Yep, you read that right. The Chicago Public Schools, not exactly known for quality education, have a plan for training our future healthcare providers — high school:

Chicago Public Schools this fall will open the city’s first high school specializing in healthcare, a move local hospitals hope will help relieve chronic workforce shortages.

The school, which recently used a lottery system to enroll a freshman class of 160, will have a heavy emphasis on math and science. Juniors and seniors will be able to earn credits by shadowing hospital workers and interning as assistant nurses and in other professions.

Planners aim to prepare students for health- and science-related college programs and certify them for entry-level jobs in healthcare, such as pharmacy technicians or assistant physical therapists.

So this is what the Department of Labor had in mind for their healthcare education funds? Wow.

-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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