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Do You Really Need 6-8 Glasses Of Water Each Day?

“Bueno es saber que los vasos
nos sirven para beber;
lo malo es que no sabemos
para qué sirve la sed”.
Proverbios y cantares.XLI. Antonio Machado

(‘It’s good to know that glasses
are what can help us drink;
The trouble is, we don’t know
What is the purpose of thirst’)

The one thing you can’t afford to have missing when you start a scientific congress or any other professional meeting is not a notepad, a pencil or even an iPad – nowadays, it’s a bottle of water. Offices, airports, handbags and lecture halls, all of them are bursting with all kinds of bottles. It seems they are essential to work and even to stay alive.

Bordering nonsense, some people desperately search for a bottled water vending machine as soon as they arrive at the airport, even if that means gobbling it down in a minute before walking through the security checkpoints.

It is now a common belief that continously drinking water (6 to 8 glasses a day according to NHS, at least two litres -half a gallon- according to other sources) is the healthy thing to do. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Diario Medico*

Nurse Prompts Are Key To Successful Implementation Of ICU Safety Measures

Over the last few years, you may have heard a lot about the value of checklists in ICU medicine and their ability to reduce mortality, reduce cost and reduce length of stay.   But a recent study took the concept one step further and suggested that checklists by themselves may not be  effective unless physicians are prompted to act on the checklist.

As reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Journal, a single site cohort study performed at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s medical intensive care unit compared two rounding groups of physicians.  One group was prompted to use the checklist.  The other group of physicians had access to the checklist but were not prompted to use it.

What they found was shocking.  Both groups had access to the checklist.  However, patients followed by physicians who were prompted to use the checklist had Read more »

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

The Power of “M.D.”

MD InitialsBy Dr. ClinkShrink

I took my car in to the shop last week to visit his Car Momma. I’ve been going to this garage for years and I know most of the mechanics. I’ve run into Car Momma at the hair salon with her head wrapped in a towel. I’ve heard about her son, his school activities and her home renovation projects. She’s heard about my vacations and seen my climbing pictures. I’ve always been on a first name basis with the people I know there.

This time, I had to leave the car and get a rental. I left a voice message with the rental desk and when the rental guy called me back at work I answered the phone with my usual “Dr. ClinkShrink.” Now, my garage knows what I do for a living, and it’s just never been an issue or really even a topic of conversation once the novelty wore off. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*

Will Physician Education Be Valued In The Future?

The future of American healthcare will not value physician education. Perhaps it’s time to abandon the medical school model and train millions of nurses instead at a fraction of the cost. This comment was left on my blog over at NP=MD:

I don’t even compare NPs and MDs. Their models differ. One is not better than the other. The schooling — minus the residency — is nearly equivalent in terms of time spent. The problem is that NPs don’t get a long enough residency. If you take a NP and a MD, both with 20 years clinical experience, the MD does not know more than the NP. Sure, he had a few extra classes 20 years ago — which he doesn’t remember — but that’s about it.

NPs aren’t trying to steal MDs’ meal tickets, they’re attempting to better serve patients. Read more »

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

When Doctors Consider A Career Change

What awaits some physicians who decide to quit medicine:

A cartoon guide to non clinical jobs for doctors

Source: A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor

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

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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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