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Capping Day For Nurses

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Nurses Capping Day — a joyous occasion!

So why do half of these new nurses looked ticked off? (Did they realize their caps look like used gauze?)

And the one getting capped? There’s one of those in every class.

*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*

Medical Devices: Spell “Stromuhr,” Win The Spelling Championship

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gtj5ly7i.jpgThey seem to like medical devices in the high stakes world of spelling championships. Anamika Veeramani, from Cleveland, Ohio, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee this weekend by spelling “stromuhr,” a rheometer designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery.

Don’t feel bad — we’d never heard of it before either, and we’re supposed to be experts in this stuff. Education never ends…

Merriam-Webster: Stromuhr

London Science Museum: Ludwig-type stromuhr, London, England, 1920-1940

Press release: National Spelling Bee: A Spawning Ground for Future Physicians and Obscure Diseases

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Putting The “Cool” Back Into Buckling Up

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I was having fun watching my niece play with dozens of pool inner tubes when another relative shows up. Never one to surprise me, he shows me a fashion statement I’d never seen before. How do you get your kids to wear their seatbelts? 

The key here is repetition. Just like a medical school education, repetition is what makes us experts. Doing the same thing over and over again makes us great at what we do. To get your kids to wear their seatbelt every time, you must make it a part of their daily existence. How do you do that? You buy them a “seatbelt” belts from Honda. Read more »

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

H1N1 And Japanese Dried Plums?

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Dried PlumJapanese dried plums may suppress H1N1 influenza viruses, report researchers. In Japan, umeboshi (literally, “dried plum”) is thought to convey good digestion and cure hangovers. It’s the Japanese version of “an apple a day.”

Recently, Wakayama Medical University researchers added umeboshi extracts to cells infected with the H1N1 virus and found it inhibited viral growth by 90 percent after seven hours. Researchers think that a polyphenol in the food may suppress H1N1. By the way, Wakayama prefecture is the heart of Japan’s plum-growing region. (Hindustan Times, Wikipedia)

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

The Pain Scale, Animated And Narrated

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Here is another blogger’s take on the ubiquitous hospital pain scales. You’ve probably seen some version of this chart before. You may also have noticed how inadequate it is at helping you. Based on the faces, this is my interpretation of the chart:

0: Haha! I’m not wearing any pants!

2: Awesome! Someone just offered me a free hot dog!

4: Huh. I never knew that about giraffes.

6: I’m sorry about your cat, but can we talk about something else now? I’m bored.

8: The ice cream I bought barely has any cookie dough chunks in it. This is not what I expected and I am disappointed.

10: You hurt my feelings and now I’m crying!

None of that is medically useful and it doesn’t even have all the numbers, so I made a better one with all the numbers. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

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