Thursday, June 30, 2005

PDAs in Medicine - Free Web Video from ACP

This free web seminar is from the 2005 Annual ACP Session. You can view the complete 90-minute presentation, given by Peter J. Embi, addressing the following questions:

-How can PDAs be used in medical practice?
-How can I find and use popular clinical software?
-What are some useful tips and trouble-shooting techniques?

Reference:
Webinar: Practical Applications of Handheld Computers - ACP
The Top 15 PDA Resources for Family Physicians. FPM, July/August 2006.
Image source: morguefile.com

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

The High Rate of Physician Suicide

Becoming a doctor is a very difficult journey, and even after residency, the life does not become any easier (although no doctor is willing to repeat his/her internship).

I remember I read years ago that doctors (and lawyers) are at high risk for suicide. Even knowing so, seeing that the female doctors kill themselves at a rate 130 % higher than other adult women, is striking. Kevin, M.D. also reports that the rate among male physicians is 40 % higher than men in general.

What are the causes?

Depression? "A culture of shame and blame" as Boston Globe calls it?

Whatever the reasons are, the physician community needs to address the problem urgently. Read more in NEJM.

Suicide is second to only accidental death as the leading cause of mortality in young men across the world. High-lethality methods of suicide are preferred by young men: hanging and firearms in high-income countries, pesticide poisoning in the Indian subcontinent, and charcoal-burning in east Asia (Lancet, 2012).

References:
Kevin, M.D.
Taking Their Own Lives -— The High Rate of Physician Suicide - NEJM
Medical community begins to address physician suicide - Boston Globe
Image source: imageafter.com

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Google Earth and Microsoft Antispyware Updates

Google Earth is Now a Free Download (10 mb)

Google bought Keyhole in 10/04 and immediately cut the price of their $ 290 program to $ 30, and from today it is free.

"You can fly from space right down to any place on the planet and take in spectacular 3D views, and for major US cities you can now see 3D city models. "(Google Blog).

Read more about Google Earth here, this is the download page. Google Earth requires a broadband connection.

Both PC World and PC Mag are very impressed by the program features, putting it "among the best free downloads in the history of free downloads." It will be another must-have on your computer along with Picasa. As one user writes "No wonder Mr. Gates has been having sleepless nights. If this is a precursor to things to come from Google, watch out Microsoft." More in Google Earth: Officially All Over the Map from WaPost. See how you can save the views in Google Earth in this blog post.

Should I buy some Google stock? At $ 307 per share, I think it is already too late...Especially reading the hilarious 10 Google Headlines You Don't Want to Read on Google Blogoscoped :-)

NASA has a program similar to Google Earth called World Wind (via Quick Online Tips).


New Google Personalized Search

A new version is available that supposedly combines the previously available personalized search with your search history (if you let it run, of course). It requires a free Google account and you are good to go. Findory is the pioneer in the field of personalized search and although some bloggers are very impressed with its features, I do not share their enthusiasm. It does not hurt to try Findory though, it is free (supported by Google ads).


MS Antispyware - 2nd Update

If you haven't already tried the Microsoft Antispyware, you should. It is rated the best product in its class by both PC World and PC Mag, and it is still free. A new version is available (6/24/2005).
(via Quick Online Tips)

Image source: Wikipedia

Monday, June 27, 2005

NEJM Audio Trial - Listen to Full-Text Articles for Free

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usWe discussed the benefits of the text-to-speech programs before. You can make an MP3 file from any article and listen to it when you commute to and from work. This way you can both entertain and enrich your mind by listening to the best that NEJM, JAMA, BMJ, NYT and WaPost have to offer.

The NEJM, as always, is the leader in innovation among major medical journals - it has the following free features:

-RSS feed - not available from JAMA, Annals, Archives or Lancet
-Medical podcasts - in the form of interviews with study authors - check the right sidebar
-And most recently, starting last week, full-text articles available to listen online

The last feature is the most promising and I will discuss it in further detail.

It is a prototype of the so-called NEJM Audio and has two sections:

-Clinical Research Update - a summary of the current issue of NEJM
-Clinical Practice - a complete text article

These articles are available for online listening. If you have a Bluetooth-phone and a PDA, you can listen to them anywhere.

The audio files are a part of a free online trial (similar to the BBC podcast trial), and if you like it, you can fill out the survey available on the NEJM website. The list of all MP3 files published on NEJM is available on MSN Search.


Other organizations mixing sound and medicine:

All lectures from the last ACP annual session are available online through iPlayback.com (for a fee).

SoundMedicine from the University of Indiana is also a step in this direction although the files are in the streaming RealOne format, so technically this is not a podcast. Listening online is free.

Hopefully, some true medical podcasts will be available soon.


More:
NEJM Podcast Feed
iTunes Podcasting, Russell Beattie likes it very much
In one stroke, podcasting hits mainstream - CNet
Podcasting goes from indie to mainstream overnight - USA Today
Image source: sxc.hu

How Internet Transformed Your Life - a CNN Special Report

This is an interesting special with interactive flash animations. Did you know that during the dot-com mania Priceline.com shares were worth $ 990? The price now? $ 24.

Image source: Wikipedia

Friday, June 24, 2005

Today's Interesting Links

RSS support in Internet Explorer 7
It was about time. IE 7, which is supposed to be released later this summer, will support the little orange button for RSS feeds. If you are not sure what RSS is, you can read more in Using RSS Feeds - The Easy Way to Stay Up-To-Date.

BBC websites have had RSS since 2003. It looks like finally Microsoft is "getting it"' - "feeds are everywhere," said their representative. Welcome to the real world.

Source: Microsoft makes web feeds easier - BBC


"I practiced defensive medicine today"
The part 5 of Kevin, M.D. series is well worth-reading.

The Science of Sun Protection on NPR (12 min)

How to screen athletes for HOCM?Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
U.S. and Europe Differ on Testing Athletes for Rare Heart Ailment - NY Times covers the screening of athletes for HOCM.

Image source: Wikipedia

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Direct Image Upload in Blogger

Finally! Blogger team made the direct image upload possible. Is this a "goodbye" to Hello-uploader? Probably not but it surely does make things much easier.

Blogger offers the best image hosting without a doubt - with full size images and no ads. Now, we just need the slide show option in the template...(MSN Spaces has it). Walter Mossberg from WSJ may need to change his opinion about the best blogging service one more time.

Where to find the images? Open Clip Art Library offers public domain images. Yotophoto is the search engine for royalty-free photos. They "keep you legal for less", eh, for free, actually (quote from SafeAuto).

Update:
Quick Online Tips discusses some issues with the HTML code of Blogger images and explains why he will stick to ImageShack as an image host.

Image source: picturestation.net

How Do Doctors Use Google - Blogosphere Impact

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usIt was very interesting to see the blogosphere activity after several medical bloggers (including me) wrote about how they use Google for medical searches.

As of today, "how doctors use Google" returns 255 websites linking to the article. The story was reported by the search industry watchdogs (Google Blogoscoped, SearchEngineWatch, and SearchEngineLowdown), then it was picked up by medical librarians, and finally by pretty much everybody who was following the field.

Obviously, there was a lot of interest and even a bit of surprise about doctors finding Google results helpful. If you are a patient, you have to face it, your doctor is using Google just like you (or if not yet, will start using it soon). The difference is that the doctors can sort out the false information really fast by checking the source. Most physicians do not even bother to read the stories from commercial websites ending with ".com" URL. The high-quality medical information comes from reputable websites, like NEJM, eMedicine, AFP, BMJ, Cleveland Clinic, and university and government websites (".edu" and ".gov").

As much as I like blogs, nobody should make medical decisions based on a website ending with ".blogspot.com" or ".typepad.com". It is just because anybody can start a blog.

Google is becoming the world's largest library, and just like a library, you can find anything in it. Actually, you know better than me, than the quality of the web information is polluted by spammers and x-rated websites but this is the price that we have to pay for the easy and free access to all that data.

If you are patient, do not worry too much, you can be certain that your doctor is putting your health first. He or she will rely on quality sources like Pubmed, UpToDate and others (some of them accessible through Google) for the foreseeable future. The physician-patient relationship is based on trust and no sensible physician would jeopardize that.

Update 3/28/2007:

Adam Bosworth, Vice President of Engineering at Google Inc. covers similar topics in: How do you know you're getting the best care possible?

References:
More people consult Google over health - Times Online
How do I use Google? - Kevin MD
Some Great Google Tips - California Medicine Man
How Doctors Use Google
Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask - UC Berkeley
Wikis, blogs and podcasts: a new generation of web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education. Boulos MNK, Maramba I, Wheeler S. BMC Med Educ 2006;6:41.
Image source: phdatastandards.info

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

A Visit to Chicago, Illinois

See the Chicago slide show on Yahoo Travel.

Chicago Main Attractions:
Shedd Aquarium
Field Museum
Sears Tower Skydeck
Art Institute of Chicago
Navy Pier
Lincoln Park Zoo
Chicago Botanic Garden

A strategy to get to know Chicago before you visit:
-Check out the articles on Lonely Planet.com, Wikipedia and Wikitravel , USA Today, Yahoo Travel , NYTimes, and IGoUGo.com - 1, 2, 3
-Go to the local AAA office and get a city map and a tour guide


Get a Downtown Hotel


Get a good hotel downtown through Priceline.com. You can book a four-star hotel for $ 80-100. This picture was taken from the Renaissance Chicago Hotel which has a beautiful view of Chicago river. You can see the cruise boats crossing bellow the bridge. The other characteristic feature of Chicago is the elevated train - this is a kind of subway but it is more like "upway" because the rails are above street level at many places. The Chicagoans do not even blink when the multi-ton trains pass with throttle just above their heads.


Skyscrapers - The Face of the Urban Jungle


Chicago has plenty of skyscrapers but the architecture here is more human-like and there is no "squeeze" feeling that you may experience in Manhattan. There is just more space between the buildings. No two skyscraper in Chicago are alike. Check out this twin-building with the garages occupying the first ten floors of each structure, they look like huge corn stems. See the place from above on Google maps.


Sail Down the River


Get a boat to sail on the Chicago river


The Museum Campus


The Museum campus is at the southern end of Grant Park. It consists of three institutions - the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum of Natural History and the Adler Planetarium. The Field museum is world-famous for the biggest preserved T-rex skeleton, named Sue. The museum is so proud of this possession that it is displayed at the entrance between the columns (see the picture above). The Shedd Aquarium is right on the shore of lake Michigan (see the satellite images on Google maps).

The museum campus is about a mile south from downtown. This is a bit far to walk from your hotel and back, so you might consider hoping on the double decker trolley bus which stops at all main attractions and the ticket is good for the whole day. You can stop at the Aquarium and then, after you are done watching the whales (2-3 hours), catch the bus again, to go north to Navy Pier. The other option is to get the CTA (elevated train) to Roosevelt station but there is quite a bit of a walk from the station to the museums.


Shedd Aquarium


This is the sculpture at the entrance of the Shedd Aquarium, and see the diver in the coral reef (there are 6 interactive shows per day). There is an Amazon section featuring the changes in the ecosystem during the rainy and the dry season.


The Oceanarium at Shedd Aquarium


The Oceanarium has a beautiful amphitheater with a lake Michigan view. You can see the Adler planetarium right through the windows of the Oceanarium. This is the building with the round dome on the right. The dolphins show is presented several times per day.


Beluga Whales


The beluga whales look like very nice creatures, they are, in fact, giant dolphins. There is underwater viewing but the water is intensely blue and not very clear. The regular view from above the huge aquarium is better.


Lake Views


When at the Museum campus, if you look back, you can see Sears tower behind Grant park. Then, turn a little bit to the right, while at the southern tip of Grant park, and you will see the lake.


This is a view of Chicago downtown and the marina from the Shedd Aquarium. The Navy Pier is seen at the distance. The pier is slightly above (north) the northern tip of the park.


The Marina


More Downtown Pictures


The gothic structure in the middle of the photo is the building of the main newspaper in Chicago, The Tribune. Let's take a walk down Michigan avenue (the magnificent mile) towards the Buckingham fountain (south).


The Crown Fountain features changing faces on two video walls that are opposite to one another. The animated faces look at each other, smile, blink, and finally the water fountains flow from their pursed lips (check the pictures above). See the fountain in the making here.


This is the Art Institute of Chicago with the famous lion sculptures. The Institute is on N Michigan avenue, a part of the famous one-mile walk, called the magnificent mile.


The American Gothic is among the art treasures collected at the institute.


When you stand at the steps of the institute and turn back, you will see the Sears Tower right in front of you (as shown on the picture).



When you walk south on Michigan avenue, you will reach the Congress parkway, which is a big street perpendicular to Michigan avenue. The giant Buckingham fountain will be on your left. You can see the 150-feet-high stream of the fountain when you look towards the lake.


Buckingham Fountain


The huge fountain was built in 1927 with the funds donated by Kate Buckingham in the memory of her late brother Clarence. See it from above on Google maps.


Navy Pier


Navy Pier is the place to have fun in Chicago, check out the satellite images on Google maps for a bird-eye view. There is a free trolley which takes visitors from downtown to the Navy Pier. The sculptures at the entrance, like this giant funnel, are popular photo spots for tourists. There are several museums at the Pier, and even a Botanical garden. Chicago is such an exuberant city that one of kind of anything is just not enough for it. That is why there are two Zoos, two botanical gardens and two dolphinariums in town.


There are two major landmarks at the pier - the giant Ferris wheel and the 7-10 ships that depart constantly off the pier for cruises in the lake. 'Completely Nuts at Navy Pier' (see the picture above) sells delicious caramel almonds, peanuts, pecans and cashews.


Ships at Navy Pier


There all kind of ships at the pier - from ancient style tall ships, to middle-sized boats, to very big ships.


Some of the ships can be seen on the satellite pictures from Google Maps.


The Ball room at the end of Navy Pier.


The Chicago Harbor Lighthouse with ships and boats sailing around it


Ferris Wheel is right in the middle of the Navy Pier


The fun continues until dark at Navy Pier, and then, there are fireworks.