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New Nurses Interview A Seasoned One

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I felt like an antique this weekend thanks to some medical students on my unit. Why do students seem to get younger every year, and please don’t place the blame on my chronological age. I refuse to believe that I’m getting older. I forget how we got onto the subject, but somehow I told a group of medical interns that I graduated from a three-year diploma nursing program.

One of the interns innocently asked me, “What’s that?” I felt so old when he asked me that question that I expected a museum curator to come out of the woodwork and cordon me off with a velvet rope. I answered his question. They were fascinated that they were actually talking to an “old time nurse.” They had more questions:

Question: “How did you keep you nurses cap on?” Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*

Dodged One: Meningitis Discovered By Trusting One’s Instincts

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http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/131/177423-matrix_l_large.jpg

Saw a nine-year old with a headache today.  His dad brought him in, and explained that all the men in his family get migraines; he figured this was his son’s first one.  The kid seemed perfectly well, with a positive Cheetos sign and my gut instinct was that I would discharge him with no work-up.  But when I flexed his neck fully, he winced. Read more »

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

The Ban On Drug Company Gifts To Physicians, Captured In A Photograph

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Select states have taken a hard line against doctors accepting any type of gifts from drug companies.

And that includes food of any kind, which makes for some awkward moments at national physician conventions.

So, during this week’s ACEP Scientific Assembly in Boston, WhiteCoat snapped a picture of this notice, which borders on farcical:

drug company gifts

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*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

President Obama Beat Up My Husband

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marine1

Well, indirectly that is. I was spending a nice Sunday afternoon biking around the Potomac with my husband when Obama’s Marine One helicopter flew low over us and took a sudden left turn. The maneuver was eye-catching, and hubby took his eyes off the road to watch. His front wheel slipped off the pavement and got wedged between the grass and bike path. He took a pretty bad spill, and I jumped off my bike to check him out. (I had given him a lecture about not wearing a helmet only a few hours prior). Luckily, he did not hit his head… unluckily, he got a pretty nice abrasion on his left elbow and hip (right through his clothing) as well as this lovely developing bursitis. See photo on next page… Read more »

Surgeon Uses Scalpel To Treat Glue Injury To The Eye

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I recently read a post that reminded me of an incident. depending on which side of the eyelid you found yourself that day, it could have been funny…or not.

I was doing casualty sessions after hours. It was a way of making ends meet while I was specialising, but mostly I just hated it. Anyway one night, between the snotty noses and neurotic parents a patient actually came in with a casualty-worthy complaint. He had a small laceration on his forehead. We decided to glue it together with dermabond because it was so small. I decided to leave it to the sister. After all the unit was full to overflowing with snotty noses and paranoid parents that I was required to work through and get rid of.

After a while the sister came to me. She had terror written all over her face. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at other things amanzi*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

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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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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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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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

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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