March 27th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Humor, News
Tags: Ceremonial Pens, Healthcare Bill Signed, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare reform, President Obama
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Count the pens. News reports said that the president signed healthcare reform into law with either 20 (The New York Times) or 22 pens (Everyone else). The White House posted the ceremony on YouTube so you can count for yourself, starting at 25 minutes into the 27-minute ceremony, when Mr. Obama quips: “This is going to take a little while.”
The pens hits the page 22 times. But there’s only 11 letters in “Barack Obama” (add seven more for his middle name), so he’s clearly having to sign partial letters.
There’s a long history to this practice, which creates historical artifacts and gifts. President Kennedy used his middle name and flourishes to stretch things out. President Lyndon Johnson used 75 pens to sign the Civil Rights Act, with one of the first going to Martin Luther King, Jr., and then key legislators. Here’s a list of who’ll get the 22 pens. (New York Times, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Washington Post)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
March 26th, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion
Tags: Competent Doctor, General Medicine, Hospital Outcomes, Hospital Quality Imrprovement, Men's Health Magazine, Patient Satisfaction, Sexy Nurse
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From the Tonight Show and the Jay Leno News Service comes this morsel of information about doctors, nurses, patients and hospitals. According to Jay, a Men’s Health poll indicates that 65 percent of men would prefer a sexy nurse over a competent doctor. That’s shocking, but not surprising. I suppose it takes a lot of pressure off the doctors for a perfect hospital outcome. Unless, of course, the nurse happens to be ugly.
I can see it now: In an effort to improve patient satisfaction and reduce malpractice risk, hospitals just need to fire the ugly nurses and keep the hot ones. In fact, as a hospitalist, my malpractice risk depends on it. Forget about all the other quality improvement junk we put ourselves through. I’d put my money on hot nurses any day.
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
March 26th, 2010 by Debra Gordon in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Humor, Opinion, Quackery Exposed
Tags: American Medical Writers Association, Health Policy Research, Healthcare Bill, Healthcare reform, Medical Content Sweatshops, Medical Writers, White Paper
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A member of the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) freelance listserve recently posted this help-wanted ad from Craig’s List:
“We’re looking for an experienced analyst/wordsmith to make sense of the health care bill. We will pay a per-project fee for a qualified writer to put some hard work into summarizing the bill in an 8-10 page white paper. We have a strong preference for individuals with a background in Sociology, Policy Research, Health Care, or statistical analysis. Above all, however, you should have some clippings to point us to so we can evaluate your writing chops. As you can see, this report will include a lot of information, but it’s important that you are succinct and clear in your prose. Think of it as a detailed study done by a respected think tank, but produced for the average consumer.”
The “fee” (and I use the term loosely) for this “detailed study” (?) is $100, which wouldn’t even cover the cost of toner to print out the full bill for reading! (Hence the title of this blog.)
The people behind this posting are not the only ones smoking something, however. Content sweatshop Demand Inc has also been trolling for writers, offering what amounts to a few pennies a word for churning out short articles on topics that a mathematical equation has determined will bring in the most webpage visitors, spiking ad revenue. The sad part is that thousands of my fellow freelancers have taken up the challenge earning, if they’re lucky, about $20 an hour (before taxes and with all expenses out of their own pocket). Most earn far less. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at A Medical Writer's Musings on Medicine and Health Care*
March 26th, 2010 by CodeBlog in Better Health Network, Humor, True Stories
Tags: AICD, Cardiology, Low Battery Alarm, Pacemaker
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I received this email from a dear friend of mine recently:
So, for the last 2 1/2 weeks my husband and I have been seranaded with alarm tones every day. We thought it was the new alarm system we had installed (it does a lot of automatic things we have since disabled), then we thought it was the smoke detectors…a new ringtone on our iPhone?… the battery charger on his new bike…his computer when his e-mail was hijacked?…the battery on my bike mileage computer?…my new alarm clock?…the refrigerator ice maker?…the clothes dryer? …everyday we checked everything, and everyday we thought we had found and fixed the culprit, until the next morning when we would hear it again!
It was not until yesterday morning when we figured it out… can you guess?
It was coming from my husband’s chest! The battery on his pacemaker/AICD was alarming to let us know that he was just about out of juice! Four years ago they told us we would hear that when the battery got low, but that was a very long time ago…and it just didn’t sound like it was coming from him! We sent a modem transmission, and the doctor called back to say, “come on in!”
After talking with my friend later, I found out that her husband had his pacemaker replaced and all is well. It took about 2 weeks to figure out where the alarm was coming from, since it only sounded once a day and only for about 20 seconds at that. My friend expressed disbelief that it was so hard to determine that it was coming from her husband but surmised that going through body tissues helped the sound disperse enough to make it a mystery!
This left me wondering if any of Dr. Wes’ patients have had similar trouble with figuring out that their chests were alarming!
*This blog post was originally published at code blog - tales of a nurse*
March 26th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Humor
Tags: Add new tag, Cardiac Device, Cardiology, EKG, Humor, ICD Shock, Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator
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He was 60-year-old man who underwent surgery for an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) approximately 3 years prior who was returning to the clinic for routine followup. He felt well and had no other complaints.
He was connected to the EKG and the programmer’s wand was placed over the device. I interrogated his device and when the initial screen appeared, there it was — a single shock from his device, received two weeks ago.
“Mr. Smith, are you aware that you had an ICD shock about two weeks ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you call us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did it bother you?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
There was a pause. I looked up from the programmer and took a quick look at him. He was looking away. Instantly, I realized the answer. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
