Our century’s greatest injustice: Gender Inequity

Dr Shock
August 21, 2010

Sheryl WuDunn’s book “Half the Sky” investigates the oppression of women globally. Her stories shock. Only when women in developing countries have equal access to education and economic opportunity will we be using all our human resources.

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Everyone Over 40 Has Cancer

Dr Shock
August 20, 2010

John Gray discusses his book: Venus on fire, Mars on ice. It’s also a short and uncomplicated introduction to the effects of stress on different diseases and the difference between men and women on a hormonal level with consequences for the stress response. Very clear although somewhat simplified presentation about these matters.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Raindrop, The New Google Wave or Email Heaven?

Dr Shock
August 19, 2010

Raindrop UX Design and Demo from Mozilla Messaging on Vimeo.

Raindrop is an open source project by Mozilla. What is should do according to this video is organize your email for you, no need for filtering any more. It should recognize your personal email from the bulk such as emails from Amazon, mailing lists and other less interesting emails. It should also recognize the difference between twitter updates, twitter replies and direct messages from twitter. The promise is also that it will be extend-able so that you can decide which functionality is needed.

We intend to support front-end applications of various kinds (including mobile), but our flagship applications will be built entirely for any modern web browser that supports Open Web technologies. Version 0.1 of our prototype embeds Bespin to support a fast, iterative development style.

For a more technical explanation:

Raindrop Software Components from Mozilla Messaging on Vimeo.

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What is being taught in the operating room?

Dr Shock
August 19, 2010

surgeons

You can think of a lot such as technical procedures or washing your hands. For residents it’s obvious. Mostly learning the technical procedure of an operation. During long operations I used to count the number of stitches. Once during a vascular operation the chief surgeon out of the blue asked what vessel it was they’re watching, didn’t have a clue. So what do medical students during their clerkship learn from attending an operation in the OR (operating room)? This hasn’t been studied until recently.

During their core surgical clerkship 11 medical students were observed by 2 surgical residents and 1 doctoral student in education during 10 operations in the OR. Postoperatively, 1 of the 3 observers interviewed the medical student and the attending surgeon separately about the perceived educational value of the experience.

Teaching events regarding the technical aspects of the operation consumed a mean of 55% of time/case. An average of 9.8% of the total time for each case (range 1.6%–20.2%) was spent teaching towards the goals of the clerkship

Moreover, the faculty thought higher of the educational content (4 on a scale of 5) than the students (3.4 on a scale of 5). Most of the time during OR was used for teaching technical aspects to the resident and less than 10 toward the core surgery clerkship goals.

What are these goals for surgical clerkship?

developing the fund of knowledge and clinical ability to care for patients with surgically treated diseases. Students begin to acquire rudimentary clinical skills related to symptoms, conditions, and diseases that surgeons often treat, such as trauma, hernia, solid malignancies, gastrointestinal disorders, and vascular diseases. Students develop communication skills and continue the development of professionalism. Further goals of the clerkship include obtaining basic technical skills and gaining an understanding of the career of a surgeon.

Participating during an operation can be an educational task, nevertheless other teaching methods and surroundings are needed to fulfill the clerkships’ teaching goals.

ResearchBlogging.org
Irani, J., Greenberg, J., Blanco, M., Greenberg, C., Ashley, S., Lipsitz, S., Hafler, J., & Breen, E. (2010). Educational value of the operating room experience during a core surgical clerkship The American Journal of Surgery, 200 (1), 167-172 DOI: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2009.06.023

Popularity: 2% [?]

Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful

Dr Shock
August 18, 2010


FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful

Funny video thanks Shrink Rap

Popularity: 2% [?]

Learning Eldercare in Nongeriatric Clerkship is a Myth

Dr Shock
August 17, 2010

I see a lot of elderly patients while treating severe depression. I do. According to recent research during medical clerkship on an internal ward is not the same as a specialized geriatric rotation. A geriatric rotation is more effective than a traditional clerkship for medical students to understand and to care for an aging population.

So why is this important. Well the authors do have a point. In these days and in the coming decades in Western societies the proportion of elderly well outnumber the amount of children. Nevertheless, our medical students receive clerkship on pediatrics but not in geriatrics.

Moreover,

Many students and faculty believe that, because students see older adults in most clinical rotations, the students are acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to work with older adults, and, thus, they consider further specialized training to be redundant

Well according to this study those clinical rotations are not sufficient to teach the unique issues in the care of the elderly such as: multiple comorbidities, polypharmacy, and the varied presentation and prognosis of different conditions common to older adults.

What did they do?

Due to curricular reorganization the authors seized the opportunity to implement a two week clinical clerkship in elder care. The department of geriatric psychiatry and geriatric medicine collaborated in this new clerkship. Medical students (n= 262) were randomly assigned to either a mandatory rotation in specialized geriatric training or a traditional nongeriatric clerkship ( a two week rotation in otolaryngology or ophthalmology). These clerkships were all mandatory. Students took surveys previous to their clerkship years and at the end of the said clerkship year. The survey consisted of validated tests for geriatric knowledge and attitudes. All students also completed an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) including a clinical station focused on geriatrics.

students who completed a clerkship year containing a specialized rotation acquired more knowledge and demonstrated significantly better skills in geriatric care than did students who did not complete such a rotation

So get busy organizing a geriatric clerkship, preferably with the department of geriatric psychiatry. You can read more about their geriatric clerkship on their website, download the program

ResearchBlogging.org
Diachun L, Van Bussel L, Hansen KT, Charise A, & Rieder MJ (2010). “But I see old people everywhere”: dispelling the myth that eldercare is learned in nongeriatric clerkships. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 85 (7), 1221-8 PMID: 20592520

Popularity: 2% [?]

Rembrandt Aging and Sickness

Dr Shock
August 16, 2010

De Nachtwacht by Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15, 1606 – October 4, 1669) was probably the most famous and best painter and etcher of The Netherlands. His most famous painting being The Night Watch (De Nachtwacht) . He was born was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden. He became quite old for those days, he died at age 63 while the average life expectancy in those days was 44. Nevertheless several investigators have diagnosed him with several illnesses. These diagnoses were based on the minor physical aberrations seen in his self portraits or stylistic style changes.

Since he left a lot of self portraits recently 8 self portraits were analyzed and assessed medically and artistically with modern techniques such as graphic software. An objective and subjective description of the artist’s aging physiognomy was performed and published.
The researchers probably had to travel a lot since his paintings are owned by different museums distributed in Europe and the US.

In previous publications Rembrandt was diagnosed with various medical conditions such as temporal arteritis, hypothyroidism, rosacea, or rhynophima. The authors of a recent study could not confirm these diagnoses.

In our opinion, there is no concrete knowledge supporting any significant systemic problem, but we do suggest the possibility of melancholia or mild depression and chronic lead poisoning as open and relevant questions.

So in the end only probable diagnoses of depression or lead poisoning remained for Rembrandt. This is also the conclusion of another recent publication on the subject. According to these authors, Rembrandt probably suffered form depression after the death of his wife in the early 1640s. This conclusion is based on the interpretation of two paintings by Rembrandt in that period: Saint Jerome in a Dark Chamber and A Scholar at a Table by Candlelight.

Saint Jerome in a Dark Chamber by Rembrandt

Saint Jerome in a Dark Chamber by Rembrandt

Scholar at a table by candlelight by Rembrandt

Scholar at a table by candlelight by Rembrandt

The authors eloquently explain and suggest that Saint Jerome in a Dark Chamber is Rembrandt’s conflation and personal interpretation of Durer’s two master engravings Saint Jerome in his study and especially Melencolia 1. The last engraving being the most famous representation of depression or melancholia. In this last engraving the mysterious winged figure sits immobilized, her head resting on her hand, her eyes in a fixed stare.

According to the authors about the two paintings depicted above

….which we read as a metaphoric spiritual and psychological self-portrait of the artist as he suffered through his crisis of the 1640s, the descent into darkness (i.e., depression) marking his melancholy passage through his midlife period.

To my opinion to far fetched, it’s hard to distinguish depression from grief due to his wife’s early demise. So what’s left is lead poisoning. Lead powder was used as basis for all white color paint at that time. Painters in those days were exposed to lead by inhaling, cutaneous penetration, or via the gastrointestinal system. Symptoms of lead poisoning could easily be interpreted as depression: chronic fatigue, apathy, nervousness and neurological symptoms.

In order to diagnose a probable chronic lead intoxication we would need some tissue. Unfortunately he died on October 4, 1669 in Amsterdam, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Westerkerk.

ResearchBlogging.org
Friedman T, Westreich M, Lurie DJ, & Golik A (2007). Rembrandt–aging and sickness: a combined look by plastic surgeons, an art researcher and an internal medicine specialist. The Israel Medical Association journal : IMAJ, 9 (2), 67-71 PMID: 17348473
Schildkraut, J., Cohn, M., & Hawkins, H. (2007). Then Melancholy, Now Depression The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 195 (1), 3-9 DOI: 10.1097/01.nmd.0000252263.74369.15

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The Secret Powers of Time

Dr Shock
August 15, 2010

Found this on another blog: How Stuf Works. Found it very interesting so had to share it with you, enjoy.

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10 Gmail Tricks You Might Not Know (video)

Dr Shock
August 13, 2010

Most bloggers are gmail lovers. In this video 10 very clever tricks, some of you might know them already but for those low on the nerd scale, enjoy

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The Fresh Air Fund Needs You

Dr Shock
August 12, 2010

The Summer of 2010 is almost over, but The Fresh Air Fund still needs loving host families. They are looking for families in the following areas to host THIS summer Red Hook, Columbia County, Saugerties, Delmar, Guilderland & Altamont, Latham and Rensselaer, NY.

Popularity: 1% [?]