April 10th, 2009 by RamonaBatesMD in Announcements, Better Health Network
Tags: April, Dr. Ramona Bates, National Donor Month, Organ Donation, Organ Donor, Organ Transplants, US
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I was reminded that April is National Donor Month by a post over at Donorcycle. I am a strong organ donation advocate. My driver’s license is signed. My family has been informed of my wishes.
It is a point of a contention in my family, hopefully a small one that will be resolved (or never come up for real). My niece, K, who is in nursing school has signed her driver’s license to be an organ donor. Her mother, my sister, J, will not give her permission if asked – not readily anyway. “I don’t want my baby cut up.” That is her reason.
My niece, K, is a giving soul. Her wishes should be honored. She should be allowed to make that last gift if the time ever arises.
I need to find a way to reassure my sister that we don’t “butcher” the body when donor organs are harvested. I need to get her to read Dr Cris’ blog post “Organ Donation from the Inside”
Transplant surgeons care about donors. Staff respect them, and the decision they have made. Their job in this case is to implement the wishes of the donor and not waste their sacrifice. …… I have assisted at an organ retrieval for transplant, and that is why I am on the Organ Donor Register
Another of my sisters recently was widowed when her husband died of heart failure. He had had many heart attacks over the last several years. In the end, he was told he needed a heart transplant. He didn’t live long enough, but I use this to show that the need it there. The need is great. If we would be receivers of the organs, then we need to be givers when able.
**This blog post was originally published at Suture For A Living.**
April 7th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, Expert Interviews, Health Policy, True Stories
Tags: Cartoons, Chicago, Dr. Robert Kolodner, Dr. Val Jones, HIMSS, HIMSS09, ONC, Rob Kolodner
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I had another exciting day at HIMSS today in Chicago. I interviewed a team of nurses about hospital communications lapses, met with the COO of Healthline, the CMIO of Elsevier, HHS’s National Coordinator, Dr. Rob Kolodner, and had dinner with Rich Carmona, the 17th Surgeon General of the United States. I have about 10 blog posts that I need to publish about all of the above – but just wanted to mention one of the funniest things that happened.
I nervously approached Dr. Rob Kolodner with my husband in tow today, wondering what interesting thing I could possibly say to the father of health IT interoperability (we had never met in person before). Just as I was searching for an interesting opening line, Dr. Kolodner says to me:
“Oh you’re Val Jones! I have your shirt!”
Of all the things Dr. Kolodner could have said to me, that was NOT what I was expecting. I smiled quizzically at him, trying desperately to figure out how he’d come to possess one of my shirts. My husband shot me a sideways glance. Fortunately for me, Rob didn’t leave me confused for more than a few (very long) seconds.
“You’re the cartoonist… I picked up one of your t-shirts at the Health 2.0 conference last year. It’s really funny.”
“Oh, I see…” I chortled. “You must have the one of the ER nurse who can’t read the doctor’s handwriting.”
“That’s the one!” said Kolodner, beaming. “I got one for my friend who’s an ER doc.”
And so I asked my husband to take the photo of us above.
My husband just shook his head… I think we met my first fan.
March 30th, 2009 by Emergiblog in Announcements, Better Health Network
Tags: Blog World Expo, Johnson & Johnson, Kim McAllister, Las Vegas, Medblogger Conference, MedPage Today, New Media Expo, October
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The Medbloggers are now a part of BlogWorld/New Media Expo 09!
Thanks to sponsorship from Johnson & Johnson and MedPage Today, the “Medlblogger Meet-Up” is now a reality.
But it is so much more than “just” a meet-up.
A full day of topics, voted on by the medical bloggers themselves, will be presented, with plenty of time to mix and mingle with our blogging colleagues.
Blog World/New Media Expo 09 will take place at the Las Vegas Convention Center the weekend of October 15-17.
New blogger, established blogger, podcaster or internet broadcaster, there is a place for you in Las Vegas!
Interested in just the Medblogger topics?
You’ll want to join us on October 15th, when the Medbloggers will take their place in the premier blogging conference by holding a full day of sessions and meetings devoted specifically to medblogging.
Want to get deep into the heart of blogging as a lifestyle? Ready to take your blog to the next level?
Then you’ll want to attend the entire BlogWorld/New Media Expo conference where you will learn from the very best of the blogosphere. If you’ve heard of them, they will be at the BlogWorld/New Media Expo 09.
There is a price range for every budget.
The option is yours.
The pleasure is ours.
Please join us!
Check out the BlogWorld/New Media Expo site for details (link above). Registration begins soon!
**This blog post was first published at Kim McAllister’s Emergiblog.**
March 14th, 2009 by Steve Novella, M.D. in Announcements, Quackery Exposed
Tags: CME, conference, Dr. David Gorski, Dr. Harriet Hall, Dr. Kimball Atwood, Dr. Mark Crislip, Dr. Steve Novella, Dr. Val Jones, Science Based Medicine
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My colleagues and I will be holding a Science-Based Medicine conference on Thursday, July 9th. This is an all-day conference covering topics of science and medicine. The conference is designed for both a professional and general audience.
The conference will be at the Southpoint Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is also part of The Amazing Meeting 7 (TAM7) which is run by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). You can register for the conference either separately or packaged with TAM7. You can register for both here.
Physicians can earn 6 hours of category 1 CME credits for attending the conference.
Below is the list of speakers and the titles of their talks, and below that is the bio for each speaker.
Topics:
Introduction to Science-Based Medicine (Steven Novella, MD)
Case studies in cancer quackery: Testimonials, anecdotes, and pseudoscience (David H. Gorski, MD. PhD)
A Scientific Critique of Chiropractic (Harriet Hall, MD)
Why Evidence-Based Medicine is not yet Science-Based Medicine (Kimball Atwood, MD)
Lyme: From the IDSA to the ILAD to the ABA (Mark Crislip, MD)
Online Health & Social Media: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Val Jones, MD)
Conclusion (Steven Novella, MD)
Speakers:
Steven Novella, MD
Dr. Novella is an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the president and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society. He is also the host and producer of the popular weekly science podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. He authors NeuroLogicaBlog and contributes to several other science blogs: The Rogues Gallery, SkepticBlog, and Science-Based Medicine, of which he is also the founding editor.
David H. Gorski, MD, PhD
Dr. Gorski is an Associate Professor of Surgery Division of Surgical Oncology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI. He is also the Program Leader, Breast Cancer Biology Program, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. His cancer research has been funded by the NIH, ASCO, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. He is a long-time science blogger who regularly tackles issues related to science and medicine. He is the associated editor of Science-Based Medicine.
Harriet Hall, MD
Dr. Hall is a retired family physician. She spent 20 years in the Air Force as a flight surgeon and family physician and retired as a full colonel. Also known as “The SkepDoc” from her column in Skeptic magazine, she has written extensively about alternative medicine. She is an editor of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and the Science-Based Medicine blog, is an advisor to Quackwatch, and is a contributing editor to both Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer magazines. Her website is www.skepdoc.info.
Kimball Atwood, MD
Dr. Atwood is a practicing anesthesiologist who is also board-certified in internal medicine. He has been interested in pseudoscience for years. He was a member of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medical Practitioners, and subsequently wrote its Minority Report opposing licensure for naturopaths. He is an associate editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and co-editor of Naturowatch. He is particularly concerned with implausible claims being promoted, tacitly or otherwise, by medical schools and government. He is also dubious about the ethics of human trials of such claims.
Mark Crislip, MD
Dr. Crislip has been a practicing Infectious Disease specialist in Portland, Oregon since 1990. He is Chief of Infectious Diseases for Legacy Health System.
He is responsible for the Quackcast, a skeptical review of Supplements, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, The Persilflagers Annotated Compendium of Infectious Disease Facts, Dogma and Opinion a guide to Infectious Diseases, the Persifalgers Puscast, a podcast review of Infectious Diseases, and Rubor, Dolor, Calor, Tumor, an infectious disease blog.
Val Jones, MD
Dr. Jones is the CEO of Better Health, LLC, a medical blogging network, and VP of Strategic Partnerships at MedPage Today, an online health news source for healthcare professionals. She has been the Senior Medical Director for Revolution Health, and the founding editor of Clinical Nutrition & Obesity, a peer-reviewed e-section of the online Medscape medical journal. Dr. Jones volunteers once a week as a rehabilitation medicine physician at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
March 8th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, Expert Interviews, Health Policy, Medical Art
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Balad, Exhibit, Forensic, Iraq, Museum, National Museum of Health and Medicine, NCIS, Pathology, Tim Clarke, Walter Reed, Wounded Warriors
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In yet another example of a fortuitous Twitter connection, Tim Clarke, Deputy Director of Communications for the National Museum of Health and Medicine reached out to me after I tweeted about Walter Reed. He graciously offered to give me a guided tour of the museum, located on the Walter Reed campus where I volunteer with the Red Cross.
We spent about an hour reviewing some fascinating exhibits, including the history of body identification techniques. If you’re a fan of NCIS, then you should run (not walk) to this museum to gain insight into the incredible evolution of forensic science over the past 150 years. The exhibit begins with Paul Revere’s dental tools (did you know he was a part-time dentist?) and the story of how he identified the body of a fallen soldier for whom he’d done some unique silver smith work.
The time of death and relative age of human remains can be gauged by bone erosion (they become smoother with age) and material evidence (the type of button found near the remains can be used to identify the season of death – larger buttons were used for heavy winter overcoats for example) among other things.
Did you know that finger print analysis is not automated? Apparently, to this day, a technician must be involved in the computer-generated comparisons because finger prints are too complex for 100% accuracy with computer models.
However, with the advent of DNA analysis, extraordinary advances have been made in our ability to identify remains. In one particularly fascinating case, Charles Scharf’s body was identified after his wife brought in a letter that he’d sent to her from Viet Nam in 1965. She had kept it in a plastic bag in a shoe box since that time. Charles had sealed the letter with his saliva, and because of the excellent condition of the envelope, tiny pieces of DNA remained in the glue. In 2006 pathologists were able to link his remains to his DNA sample, and finally confirm his fate.
Modern autopsies can be performed rapidly with the guidance of CT scanners. The likely internal injury that caused a soldiers death can be identified via CT, and then rapidly confirmed by pathologists. Research into armed forces injuries can result in improved equipment and increased safety. In one case, a retrospective analysis of CT scans demonstrated that military personnel had larger chest cavities (on average) than initially thought – this resulted in the provision of longer needles for chest tubes in trauma bays.
And speaking of trauma bays, the museum has transported an entire trauma tent from Balad Air Force Base in Iraq to memorialize medical care during the war. A 3000 pound concrete slab of flooring provides the base of the exhibit, complete with original blood and betadine stains, gouges in the plastic floor sealant, and duct tape. Original metal tent doors and canvas show evidence of sand storm damage, with sand still coating the tent air ducts. Action photos taken at the trauma bay surround the exhibit. Nothing brings home the reality of war like this living 3-D memorial.
Just to the left of the tent is a large photo of a Black Hawk helicopter and a wounded soldier being carried by EMS through a canvas archway. On the ceiling of the archway is an American flag. I turned to Tim and asked him why the flag was on the ceiling and he said,
“That was so the soldiers could look up from their stretchers as they arrived at the medical facility and know that they were ‘home.’ They were safe now, and were going to be taken care of.”
Tim also introduced me to the Abraham Lincoln exhibit, where the bullet that sealed his fate (along with skull fragments, a tuft of his hair, and his surgeon’s sleeves) are on display. It’s an extraordinary feeling, being so close to history.
I’m really glad that I had the chance to experience history with Tim, and I strongly recommend that you contact him to set up your own guided tour. If you’re a member of a professional society, or are coming to DC for a meeting or event, why not make the National Museum of Health and Medicine a part of your travel plans?
