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The Human Arm: An Information Superhighway?

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Scientists at Korea University in Seoul have demonstrated a prototype of a new biomonitoring system that transmits data through the body, replacing wires and minimizing the need for batteries.

The device is 300 micrometres thick and in a test, using a metal electrode coated with a flexible silicon-rich polymer, the researchers transmitted data at a rate of 10 megabits per second through a person’s arm. The device was tested for skin safety after continuous wearing and the data was transmitted via low-frequency electromagnetic waves through the skin.

The technology may have implications for diagnostics, as it can be used to detect electric fluctuations as is currently done by ECG and EEG machines.

Read on at New Scientist: Human arm transmits broadband…

Abstract in Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering: Wearable polyimide-PDMS electrodes for intrabody communication

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Medical School: Teaching Doctors About Patient Safety

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Ten years after the release of the IOM report To Err is Human, which documented the toll taken by medical errors in this country, the question remains: What can be done to reverse the trend of ever-increasing morbidity and mortality due to medical errors?  Last December, a look back over the decade since the release of To Err is Human — and a steady medical error death rate of about 100,000 per year included a series of suggestions for tweaks to the health care delivery system that may help ameliorate the situation.  Earlier this week, a gadget that enforces good handwashing technique by sniffing caregiver and clinician hands for soap before a hospital patient may be touched has been touted as potentially saving significant costs related to HAIs.

Today, the Lucian Leape Institute released a report titled Unmet Needs: Teaching Physicians to Provide Safe Patient Care which focuses on moving back the point in time where an intervention is needed to reverse the trend documented in To Err is Human and since.  Leape and his colleagues at the National Patient Safety Foundation are now focused on reinventing the medical school curriculum, so that patient safety will be taught more effectively in medical schools. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*

CAM vs. Traditional Medicine: Handle With Scientific Care

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Here’s some advice I have given teenage boys who are going toe-to-toe with their mothers about a health issue:

Don’t go toe-to-toe with your mother; it’s a no-win situation.  Either you are right, and you are looked at as a “smarty-pants” or you are wrong, and have given her a huge “I told you so.”  If, on the other hand, you keep quiet and listen to what she’s saying, it’s a win-win: either she’s right and you learn something, or she’s wrong, and you have been vindicated.

Fathers often pipe in that this applies to wives as well.  Mom’s don’t seem to disagree (for some mysterious reason).

While this may be sound relational advice, it also needs to be heeded by the medical community in its relationship to “complimentary and alternative medicine” or CAM.  I am not saying we shouldn’t be angry and frustrated with the CAM purveyors who are harming and even killing people (such as the anti-vaccine movement).  I am not saying that we should embrace CAM and put it at anywhere near equal footing with our profession.  What I am saying is that in our enthusiasm to win the argument, we can undermine our own credibility. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*

Nurses Who Get Paid More Than Doctors

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Despite the growing shortage of family doctors in the United States, medical centers last year offered higher salaries and incentives to specialist nurses than to primary care doctors, according to an annual survey of physicians’ salaries.

Primary care doctors were offered an average base salary of $173,000 in 2009 compared to an average base salary of $189,000 offered to certified nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) according to the latest numbers from Merritt Hawkins & Associates, a physician recruiting and consulting firm.

To be fair, they found the highest paid advanced practice nurses, or CRNAs, and compared them to the average family practitioner (FP) salary. I wonder how many FP’s retrain into a specialty field?

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

Botox For Stroke, Brain Injury And MS

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Until recently, the therapeutic use of non-cosmetic Botox (botulinum toxin) for adult upper extremity spasticity was considered off-label use. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now approved Botox to treat spasticity in the upper extremity flexor muscles in adults.

Spasticity is common after stroke, traumatic brain injury, or the progression of multiple sclerosis. Spasticity is defined as:

“a motor disorder characterized by a velocity-dependent increase in tonic stretch reflexes (muscle tone) with exaggerated tendon jerks, resulting from hyper-excitability of the stretch reflex as one component of the upper motor neuron syndrome.”

Spasticity often creates problems with mobility, self-care, and function. The spastic muscles can become stiff. Associated joints can be affected by lack decreased range-of-motion with contractures forming. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

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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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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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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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