What if you're in surgery and the power goes out? No lights, no oxygen -- and your anesthesia stops flowing. It happens constantly in hospitals throughout the world, turning routine procedures into tragedies. Erica Frenkel demos one solution: the universal anesthesia machine. The solution to 18 power outages a month.No related posts. ..read more »

Every doctor makes mistakes. But, says physician Brian Goldman, medicine's culture of denial (and shame) keeps doctors from ever talking about those mistakes, or using them to learn and improve. Telling stories from his own long practice, he calls on doctors to start talking about being wrong. No related posts. ..read more »

Today, Your Life on USA Today is guest-hosting Grand Rounds, the best of the medical blogosphere. We asked medical bloggers to send us the finest posts from the past few months, and were thrilled to receive more than 100 entries. I, Dr. Val Jones, have prepared a summary of my favorites. They will publish the Grand Rounds in 4 posts - one at 10am, one at 1pm, one at 5pm and one at 8pm tomorrow. There are 4 sections (to be released throughout the day). Please check back. Related posts: The New Grand Round is Up at Dr. Deb Grand Round Vol 5 No .....read more »

The two approaches to patient safety are the person approach and the system approach. The personal approach is the most encountered and outdated kind of approach in medicine. In short, errors are seen as shortcomings of medical personnel such as forgetfulness, inattention, poor motivation negligence and recklessness. The response is mostly naming, blaming, and shaming. Errors are treated as moral issues assuming that bad things happen to bad people. Seeking as far as possible to uncouple a person's unsafe acts from any institutional responsibility is clearly in the interests of managers. It is also legally more convenient, at least in .....read more »

Another great rap song, by the famous blogger ZDoggMD bullying the big pharma companies who seek to influence doctors, patients and policy makers with their money. The drug companies with direct advertising to physicians, free samples, and research stipends encourage doctors to over-prescribe medications.No related posts. ..read more »

Every day there are news reports of new health advice, but how can you know if they're right? Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre shows us, at high speed, the ways evidence can be distorted, from the blindingly obvious nutrition claims to the very subtle tricks of the pharmaceutical industry. No related posts. ..read more »

Surgeon and engineer Todd Kuiken is building a prosthetic arm that connects with the human nervous system -- improving motion, control and even feeling. Onstage, patient Amanda Kitts helps demonstrate this next-gen robotic arm. Amazing and impressive with creative solutions.Related posts: Grand Rounds: Being Thankful Printing a human kidney ..read more »

Recently discussed an excellent book about How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, a hematologist-oncologist staff physicians at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In this review I mentioned the probable cognitive errors a doctor can make, but most important how patients can help their doctors to prevent these cognitive mistakes in some way. For patients the book can be of value since it teaches them tricks, questioning in order to help the doctor improve his or hers reasoning. Patients can help doctors not to make cognitive mistakes by simple questioning thereby influencing the cognitive processes. For instance the question: What’s .....read more »

This animation film was submitted by a med student to YouTube for the instructor of a course about ‘Narratives of Ageing:Exploring Creative Approaches to Dementia Care’. Students visited a locked unit at a care facility for people with Alzheimer's disease. They used YouTube to watch streamed video made by Alzheimer's disease advocacy groups, twitter was used for real time communication between med students and instructors, Skype was used to interact with and talk to various experts. The instructors took and uploaded pictures to Flickr of students and residents interacting. Several students used these pictures for a creative final project which .....read more »

Bought this book based on several reviews. I was especially interested in the topic of cognitive and affective processes influencing decisions in doctors. At first a little disappointed because the book has a lot of anecdotes and interviews with doctors about their mistakes and how they learn from these mistakes. These anecdotes and interviews are interesting reading and very well written. After about a third the anecdotes become more interesting to me because they are linked with the cognitive and affective complications influencing decision making in doctors. Some examples of these cognitive and affective processes influencing decision making Emotions either negative of .....read more »