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Top 10 Physician Findings This Week

August 9th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Medblogger Shout Outs

Tags: Emergency Medicine, Gastroenterology, Hospitals, Infectious Disease, News, Pediatrics, Surgery

What have doctors been witness to this week? Here are my top 10 choice tidbits:

• 30 cc’s of pus in someone’s throat
• A gun in a trauma XRay
• Elf ears
• A botched surgery from a neighboring hospital
• A surgeon’s sneeze droplets
• The common cold is banned from hospitals
• A baby born with 20 friends and family in the delivery room
• A newborn put in a plastic bag and thrown in a pond (he lived)
• Rats, fleas, cockroaches, and bedbugs in British hospitals
• An outraged patient with an anal fissure

Welcome to the wild world of medicine.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Medpolitics: A New Platform For Doctors Who Want A Voice In Health Policy

July 22nd, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Medblogger Shout Outs

Tags: News

My friends at Medgadget.com let me know about a new initiative that they started: an open blog site for US Physicians who wish to express their policy opinions online. Healthcare reform is championed primarily by politicians with no medical training – so they really need help to understand the issues from doctors in the trenches. Just as Barack Obama and John McCain are crafting their foreign policy in light of information they glean from military personnel on the front lines, I hope they will also inform their healthcare policy by listening carefully to the frontline caregivers in medicine. Let them know what you think!

From Medgadget’s press release:

We are very proud to unveil a new web service called Medpolitics.com, a blogging site open to US physicians to opine on healthcare, public health, politics of medicine, and the state of our profession. The time seems perfect considering that healthcare is such a hot debate topic, and many doctors feel that we should have a stronger voice in the debate. We figured we know a thing or two about blogging and healthcare. So why not build a service where doctors write their political thoughts and others read them and comment? We hope that one day politicians, policy makers, news makers, and others will be checking it out to see what the doctors actually think on the important medical policy issues.

So we registered the domain, installed a user-friendly publishing software, and gave it some testing. The site is now ready to go, all without any significant investments (except for our time) or outside funding. In other words, 100% independent political network for doctors.

This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Medical Codes Gone Wild

July 18th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Medblogger Shout Outs

Tags: Hospitals, Humor, Medicare

Bureaucracy + worker’s compensation attorneys = THIS

Thanks to Dr. Rob for the laugh-out-loud glimpse into the wonderful world of medical coding.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Heard Around The Blogosphere

July 16th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Medblogger Shout Outs

Tags: Hospitals, News, Pharmaceuticals

A non English-speaking husband and wife went to a rural ER because the wife had chest pain. The ER staff was unable to understand their language and did not have an interpreter. Since the husband was trying to explain his wife’s chest pain to the doctors, they thought he also had chest pain. Both patients were admitted to rule out MI (a heart attack). They stayed overnight and both had a full, negative cardiac workup. The husband complied with the workup, figuring he was getting free care and a place to stay next to his wife. His wife’s symptoms resolved on their own. (via Rural Doctoring)

Did you know that there are medical diagnosis codes for almost everything under the sun? Yes, even an “accident involving a spacecraft injuring the occupant of the spacecraft.” (via KevinMD)

A hospital pharmacy cancelled a surgeon’s order of antibiotics after a young patient survived a ruptured appendix (with pus in the abdomen). They were adhering to a new protocol that required all antibiotics to be discontinued 24 hours after any surgery. If the surgeon hadn’t noticed the inappropriate application of this new rule, his patient could have become septic and died. This is just another example of the oversimplification of medicine that is becoming more and more common these days. (via Buckeye Surgeon)

The ACP Internist blog posts a weekly “Medical News of the Obvious.” Here are two goodies:

Parents of twins report more anxiety and sleeping difficulties in the year after birth than parents of single children, according to a study presented at the 24th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (via Science Daily). I wonder why?

This study, courtesy of the Washington Post, finds that auto deaths decline as gas prices rise because– ta da!– there are fewer people on the road to kill or be killed. And that is especially the case for those subgroups (like teenagers) who don’t have as much money to burn on gassin’ up.

This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.

Happy Fourth of July – Links of Note

July 3rd, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Medblogger Shout Outs

Tags: Grand Rounds, Weight Loss

Happy 4th of July…

Enjoy your barbeque…

But please don’t eat one of these: Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburgers – (h/t KevinMD) or enter a hotdog eating contest.

Need help with losing weight? Join my weight loss group!

Need some brain food? Check out Dr. Rich’s wonderful Independence Day medical blog round up.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.