Can You Tell Your Life Story In 6 Words?

Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser talk to NPR about the fun and the challenge of capturing real-life stories in six little words.

Some examples related to medicine:

Alzheimer's: meeting new people every day.
Phil Skversky

After cancer, I became a semicolon.
Anthony R. Cardno

Normal person becomes psychotic on Twitter.
Robin Slick

Yale at 16, downhill from there.
Anita Kawatra

References:

Can You Tell Your Life Story In Exactly Six Words? NPR, 2010.
FDA Approves "Alzheimer's CT scan" by Eli Lilly - radioactive agent florbetapir tags clumps of sticky amyloid in brain. WSJ, 2012.

Johns Hopkins Medicine podcast now has a blog

The weekly podcast by Johns Hopkins Medicine now has a blog hosted for free at Blogger.com by Google:

http://hopkinspodblog.blogspot.com

I have been a regular listener for years and have found the podcast to be both educational and enjoyable - not a common combination.

The weekly podcast looks at the top medical stories of the week for people who want to become informed participants in their own health care. The presenters are Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Rick Lange M.D., professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins and vice chairman of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

See my list of health podcasts at Google Bookmarks here.

Image source: Johns Hopkins

NPR: Patients Turn To Online Buddies To Help Healing

61% of adults say they look online for health information. There's a term for them: e-patients.

20% of e-patients go to Internet and social-networking sites where they can talk to medical experts and other patients:

"They are posting their first-person accounts of treatments and side effects from medications. They are part of the conversation. And that, I think, is an indicator of where we could be going in terms of the future of participatory medicine", says Susannah Fox, with the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "The Internet now is not just information. There is a social life of information online."



There are an exponentially increasing number of ways to follow, tag, talk, poke, nudge and communicate in the virtual world. The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis (see the expanded flickr image) shows most social media facets:



This "flower" of Internet communication replaces the old starfish of Web 2.0 shown below:


Social Media Starfish created by Darren Barefoot (Creative Commons license).

References:
Patients Turn To Online Buddies For Help Healing. NPR.

Doctor Rob launches The House Call Doctor podcast on iTunes

Doctor Rob is one of the 70 people I follow on Twitter and I am happy to post this press release about his latest project (edited by me):

The House Call Doctor, hosted by Dr. Rob Lamberts, joins the highly successful "Quick and Dirty Tips" iTunes podcasts on July 14, with free content also available for download at www.quickanddirtytips.com.

How can I lower my cholesterol? Is Tylenol really safe? Why do my bruises itch? No topic is off limits for the House Call Doctor—the newest addition to Macmillan’s Quick and Dirty Tips self-improvement franchise. Dr. Rob Lamberts practices full-time in his primary care private practice in the southeastern US. He is board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics, and has doctored for the past 15 years. Lamberts’ recent involvement in the advocacy of electronic medical records has received national recognition and his popular medical blog, Musings of a Distractible Mind, was named one of Tara Parker-Pope’s “favorite medical blogs” in her New York Times Well blog.

With his trademark sense of humor and straightforward advice, Dr. Lamberts answers a wide variety of questions in this QDT podcast, mixing his extensive experience in the medical field with accessible advice that is both accurate and easy to understand. Filled with friendly and in-depth answers on listeners’ most pressing health issues, House Call Doctor offers progressive and innovative ways to look at medicine and the healthcare industry as a whole.

The House Call Doctor’s first series of podcasts will cover a wide range of health concerns and medical inquiries, including:

- What do I really need to know about cholesterol?
- How do I talk to my doctor about medical information I’ve found on the Internet?
- Where do bruises come from, and how can I get rid of them?
- What are the dangers of using popular pain relievers, such as Tylenol?
- What should I look out for to prevent the over use of antibiotics?

Dr. Lamberts’ expert tips will give listeners the tools they need to understand their bodies better and improve their health and quality of life. His goal with the House Call Doctor is to “make medical things easier to understand and hopefully to offer a little entertainment in the process.” As Dr. Lamberts says, “People want to understand their health, but unfortunately many of the explanations out there are either confusing or boring.”

You can subscribe to House Call Doctor via iTunes or any other RSS reader and you can also subscribe to the transcripts on the website using the following links:

The House Call Doctor on iTunes

The House Call Doctor Podcast RSS

The House Call Doctor Transcripts

Related:
Top 5 Medical Podcasts I Listen To, 2006.

How to watch video lectures on Windows Mobile phones: Skyfire

I have used Opera Mobile browser for years but a newcomer among mobile browsers called Skyfire is much better for streaming video. In fact, Skyfire is so good that you can watch almost any video you are able to see on your desktop computer -- videos from CNN, NBC Nightly News, TV episodes on Hulu.com, etc.

This is how I use Skyfire to watch immunology lectures on my Windows-based mobile phone (MotoQ 9c):

1. Download and install Skyfire.

2. Go to the Immunology Lectures from the University of South Carolina at http://media.med.sc.edu/microbiology2008/

3. Click on any of the lectures to stream the slides and the talk in Adobe Flash format.


Skyfire Mobile Browser Demo

Skyfire is a mobile web browser for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 v3. As of November 2008, it is available for users with American or Canadian phone numbers.

It is the first browser software for Windows Mobile which can view Adobe Flash content and streaming video.

Skyfire works similar to Opera Mini, in that the webpage is fully rendered by a server separate from the mobile device, similar to the operation of a thin client. The output is sent as images annotated with interactive items such as links and text-fields.

Features such as Adobe Flash, Silverlight and QuickTime are usable without additional plug-ins on the device, and can be easily updated server-side without the need to update the client.

References:
Audio and Video Lectures in Allergy and Immunology
How to use a Windows Mobile phone to listen to medical podcasts?
Opera Mini: Probably the Best Browser for Your Phone
Skyfire (web browser), from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How to: Upgrade Your Mobile Browsing Experience, by PCMag, 2009.

Updated: 06/22/2009

Annals of Int Med: The Death of a Clinician-Educator

The Annals of Internal Medicine published an interesting and thought-provoking piece called
The Death of a Clinician-Educator by Dr. Kimberly Manning, a junior faculty at Emory University. I can certainly share some of the feelings expressed by the author.

The full text is paid subscribers only for the next 6 months but you get a nice bonus if you listen to the Annals podcast -- the author reads the whole piece herself (MP3 file, 10 MB).

Your spreadsheet becomes a wiki: Let's make a list of best medical podcasts

Google Spreadsheets added an option in the sharing dialog that allows anyone to view or edit the spreadsheet just by knowing the URL.

If you click on the Share tab and enable "Anyone can edit this document WITHOUT LOGGING IN", your spreadsheet becomes a wiki that can be edited by anyone.

The embedded spreadsheet below is an invitation to help make a list of the best medical podcasts. Anybody can edit the list -- give it a try. The original spreadsheet is published here.



You can easily embed spreadsheets and forms in a website by just copying HTML code. Click here for HTML code to embed the Medical Podcasts spreadsheet above in your own website.

References:
Google Spreadsheets Become Wikis. Google Operating System.
Edit Google Spreadsheet With Everyone. Google Blogoscoped.
Top 5 Medical Podcasts I Listen To. Clinical Cases and Images - Blog.

Related:
Comprehensive List of Medical Podcasts and Videocasts. UBC Wiki.

Updated: 12/14/2008

How to use a Windows Mobile phone to listen to medical podcasts?

My phone is Moto Q9c, Windows Mobile 6, with a Sprint SERO plan with unlimited data transfer.

Here are the 4 simple steps to listen to medical podcasts:

1. Download the Opera Mobile browser ($24). Internet Explorer should work fine but Opera is easier to use and has a better zoom feature.



2. Use Bloglines to subscribe to podcasts from your desktop/laptop.



3. Open Bloglines Mobile from your phone browser. Click on the "enclosure" link in the podcast feed. The podcast mp3 file will be downloaded.

4. Open the file with Windows Media Player. Enjoy listening to your favorite medical podcasts on the go.

References:
Top 5 Medical Podcasts I Listen To
Image sources: Screenshots from websites of Opera Mobile, Bloglines, Bloglines Mobile.

BBC: Different Stages of Life

Listen to BBC programs about different stages of life:

Life as a Teenager

Life as an Adult

Life in Middle Age

Life in Old Age

Life after 80

BBC 4 has a streaming Listen Again page and a podcast directory. Subscribing is YouTube-style easy -- you can copy the URL directly, or subscribe via Google Reader/iGoogle or iTunes.

Related:
BBC Podcasts Are Worth Listening To
Four Stages Of Life by The Happy Hospitalist.
Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Updated: 07/19/2008

Evidence-based Medicine Podcasts from Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Collaboration produces systematic reviews of healthcare interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. It is a key resource in evidence-based medicine.

The Cochrane Collaboration has a podcast page with audio summaries of selected reviews from The Cochrane Library.

Click here to subscribe to the feed.


Video: Cochrane Library Tutorial from Lake-Sumter Community College Libraries.

References:
(Greatly improved) Cochrane and CINAHL Tutorial Videos. DavidRothman.net.
Image source: The Cochrane Collaboration.

RSS Feeds and Podcasts from American Academy of Family Physicians

American Family Physician (AFP) is the official journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians and although it does not publish any original research, the journal is a good source of review articles and practical advice.

I had used a Pubmed workaround to get RSS feeds for the new articles from AFP but recently noted that the academy website has started offering RSS and podcast feeds:

RSS Feeds from AAFP News Now

Available Podcasts from the AAFP

The Continuing Medical Education (CME) podcast seems the most useful one among the 3 podcasts offered currently.

References:
Make Your Own "Medical Journal" with iGoogle Personalized Page
Share iGoogle Tabs with Medical Journals, Podcasts and Gadgets
Get RSS Feeds for Any Medical Journal from Pubmed

Podcasts from Conferences of University of Tennessee IM Residency Program

Online medical education has changed significantly during the last 2-3 years. When I first started lecturing about using Web 2.0 in Medicine in 2005, few members of the audience had ever heard of podcasts and even fewer shared my enthusiasm for them as a medium for continuous medical education. Fast forward 3 years later, and now some doctors wonder if they should even go to a conference if they can just download the podcasts... More and more institutions make their grand rounds and conferences available for free via downloadable audio and video files.

A few examples of useful podcasts for medical education are listed below:

University of Tennessee Internal Medicine Residency Program

Three years of grand rounds and noon conferences of the internal medicine residency program of the University of Tennessee have been recorded and posted as podcasts on this website. You can listen to the podcasts directly or subscribe vai iTunes. The podcasts are searchable by topic. This is probably the most useful and comprehensive podcast resource for residents and medical students. Highly recommended.

The are 268 audio lectures published on the UTHSC website as of January 2008 which cover most of the curriculum in internal medicine. The podcasts are available for free compared to the audio review courses by major institutions such as Johns Hopkins which cost $200-1,200.

The authors of the project use Libsyn (Liberated Syndication) as a host which is a good place to start if you want to produce your own podcast. Libsyn plans start from $5 per month with unlimited downloads and an upload limit of 100 MB per month. The UTHSC podcasts are encoded at 16 kbs, mono, 22 kHz which does not provide the best sound quality but produces very small files (3-5 MB for a 30-60-minute talk). The total size of all 268 podcasts is 1.3 GB. Libsyn supports RSS and the extended Apple iTunes podcasting tags.

Other Medical Podcasts

Texas Tech Medcast

The Texas Tech Medcast is a podcast for medical residents, medical students and practicing physicians. It has several series:
- SOAP Note 101 Series: designed for first-year medical students who are learning how to write an effective patient note for a medical record (SOAP)
- Geriatrics Series
- Continuity Clinic Series
- Diabetes Mellitus Series
- PreMed Forum Series

Boston University General Internal Medicine Rounds

Weekly selection of the General Internal Medicine Grand Rounds from Boston University Medical Center. The project is still in early stages of development and only a few podcasts are available.

Yale Medicine Podcast

Visit itunes.yale.edu or launch iTunes, then select Yale from the offerings under iTunes U. The podcast is included under “Yale Health & Medicine.”

EMS Lecture Series by Albany Medical Center

Online continuing education courses for EMTs and emergency medicine residents.

PeerView Podcasts

Podcasts in different specialties by the supplier of continuing medical education activities PeerView Press.

MedPod101

Podcasts in different specialties by 3 doctors. The project is still in early stages of development.

References:
Medical podcasts: the future of continuing professional development? BMJ Career Focus 2008;336:29-30.
How to Use Web 2.0 in Medicine? Clinical Cases and Images - Blog, 05/2006.
Top 5 Medical Podcasts I Listen To. Clinical Cases and Images - Blog, 08/2006.

Related:
How to Embed MP3 Audio Files In Web Pages With Google or Yahoo! Flash Player. Digital Inspiration, 02/2008.
The iCritical Care Podcast: a novel medium for critical care communication and education. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2007;14(1):94-99.
Joining the Podcast Revolution. J Dent Educ. 72(3): 278-281 2008.

Updated: 03/07/2008

Annals of Internal Medicine Launches a Podcast in Chinese

Most members of the "big 5" club of medical journals (NEJM, JAMA, Lancet, BMJ, Annals) launched podcasts a year or two ago. Annals of Internal Medicine was the last in line with their Audio Summary in July 2007. Now however, the Annals suddenly jumped ahead of the pack by being the first medical journal to launch an international podcast. Not in Spanish or French but in Chinese -- a sign of the times which points where the global growth is. If you understand Chinese, which I am sure many of the well-educated reader of this blog do, feel free to subscribe to the Annals podcast here.

Alternatively, you can see the English-language podcasts by the the 5 main medical journals here.

Most people subscribe to medical podcasts by using iTunes/iPod/iPhone from Apple. A lesser known fact is that Google Reader can be used as a podcast program as well.

Click here to subscribe to all 4 journal podcasts in your iGoogle homepage.

Click here to subscribe the to the RSS feeds of the 5 major medical journals (NEJM, JAMA, BMJ, Lancet and Annals) in iGoogle.

Image source: Front page, Annals of Internal Medicine.

JAMA Adds More Web 2.0 Features to Its Website

Following the lead of NEJM, JAMA has added more audiovisual and interactive content to its website. The leading journals are becoming much more than a vehicle for printing articles, and medical professionals who are not regular users of their websites are missing out on some useful features. You do not even need to visit the website to get the latest updates -- they follow you via RSS web feeds. The feeds also power journal podcasts which are downloaded automatically to your iPod whenever a new addition is published, again, no website visit required. I have become a regular listener to the editorial podcasts of JAMA, NEJM, Lancet and Annals. Here is the list of the Top 5 Medical Podcasts I Listen To.

Below is the list of some "Web 2.0 features" JAMA has added to its website:

• JAMA Audio Commentary, a podcast by the editor available via iTunes/Google Reader, 15 minutes
• Author in the Room Teleconferences, a podcast, duration: 1 hour
• JAMA Video Reports
• Video Supplements
• JAMA Interactive

Most people subscribe to medical podcasts by using iTunes/iPod/iPhone from Apple. A lesser known fact is that Google Reader can be used as a podcast program as well.

Click here to subscribe to the 4 major journal podcasts in your iGoogle homepage.

References:
Top 5 Medical Podcasts I Listen To
Annals of Internal Medicine Launches Podcast and Audio Summaries
Make Your Own "Medical Journal" with iGoogle Personalized Page
JAMA Podcast: Audio Commentary by the Editor-in-Chief

Medical Blogger Launches Radio Show

Doctor Anonymous is "just a guy working in the American health care system trying to find the lighter side of life." And he does find it in his weekly radio show on BlogTalkRadio.com: Doctor Anonymous Live. Click the play button to listen to the latest show:



Subscribe to the show via RSS:

http://blogtalkradio.com/doctoranonymous/feed

BBC Podcasts Are Worth Listening To

NPR and its podcast directory are great but somehow I have always liked BBC a little bit better. BBC 4 has a streaming Listen Again page and recently launched a comprehensive podcast directory. Subscribing is YouTube-style easy -- you can copy the URL directly, or subscribe via Google Reader/iGoogle or iTunes. Below is the list of some podcasts you may find interesting:

Medical Podcasts

Medical Matters

Health Check

Science Podcasts

Best of Natural History Radio

Material World

One Planet

Travel Podcasts

Crossing Continents

Excess Baggage

Other Podcasts

Best of Today

Radio 4 Choice

Image source: Medical Matters, BBC.

Use Blogger.com to Make Video Podcasts for Free

InsideGoogle points out that video upload is now a feature of Blogger.com, owned by Google:

"Videos do not count against your limited free storage space for images. They are automatically added as enclosures in posts, so every blog using them is also a video podcaster and compatible with most podcatchers. In other words, people can subscribe to your blog in software like iTunes and automatically download the latest video."

I would be happy to see my favorite medical/science bloggers start producing videocasts by using this simple (and free) method.


This Google video shows that it takes about 2 minutes to start a blog on Blogger.com. Creating a web site has never been easier.

Weekly Dermatology Podcast

Dermatology Weekly Update is weekly podcast of the latest research and news in dermatology.

It looks interesting but there is no word on who the authors are, so use it at your own risk. Most web sites should have at least 2 mandatory sections:

- About us
- Contact us

With the latest update of Google Reader, you can play podcasts directly from the application. Alternatively, click the "pop-out" link to detach the podcast player so that you can browse the rest of the feeds while listening.

Link via Medical Lecturer.
Image source: Dermatology Weekly Update.

Annals of Internal Medicine Launches Podcast and Audio Summaries

The Annals of Internal Medicine is the latest member of the "Big Five" of general medical journals to launch a podcast. The other four -- NEJM, JAMA, BJM and Lancet -- have been experimenting with portable audio for a while now. Click below to see the coverage of their podcasts on this blog over time:

1. NEJM, 11/2005.
Feed: http://podcast.nejm.org/nejm_audio_summaries.xml

2. Lancet, 4/2006.
Feed: http://podcast.thelancet.com/lancet.xml

3. JAMA, 4/2006.
Feed: http://jama.ama-assn.org/misc/jamapodcasts2006.rss

4. BMJ, 9/2006 (the podcast is not active now).

5. Annals, 7/2007.
Feed: http://media.acponline.org/feeds/annals.xml

Podcasts and text-to-speech programs to convert text to MP3 files can be beneficial to medical education. For example, the podcast/videocast coverage of the 2006 meeting of ACAAI is lively, comprehensive and summarizes most new developments if the field.

Most people subscribe to medical podcasts by using iTunes/iPod/iPhone from Apple. A lesser known fact is that Google Reader can be used as a podcast program as well.

Click here to subscribe to all 4 journal podcasts in your iGoogle homepage.

References:
Stop Going to Conferences for the Lectures. Listen to Podcasts Instead. Efficient MD, 06/2007.
Image source: Annals of Internal Medicine.

Updated: 08/18/2007

Medical University of South Carolina Launches a Comprehensive Podcast/Videocast Portal

Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Health Podcast portal features both audio and video podcasts:

"Our audio podcasts are hosted by various MUSC faculty, physicians and special guests. These podcasts cover a wide range of current health topics, featuring MUSC patients, physicians, and staff. Listen to patient stories, learn about new procedures being offered at MUSC, and hear the latest news on how to stay healthy."

Cleveland Clinic also offers Free Audio and Video Podcasts for Health Professionals and patients.

Link via Medical Lecturer.