Medical News

Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi had a pacemaker implanted at the Cleveland Clinic

According to the International Herald Tribune, a pacemaker was implanted in the heart of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at Cleveland Clinic’s Heart Center on Dec. 18. Andrea Natale, a Sicilian-born physician and a Section Head of Electrophysiology & Pacing, performed the surgery "to correct a problem with the heart rhythm." Berlusconi was hospitalized at the Clinic for 4 days and returned to Italy on Dec. 22.

The 70-year-old Berlusconi collapsed while giving a speech in Tuscany on November 26, his aides and doctor blamed the episode on a sharp drop in blood pressure.

References:
Clinic: Ex-Italian Premier Berlusconi doing well after operation. IHT.
Surgeon: ex-Italian Premier Berlusconi doing well following surgery to implant pacemaker. IHT.
Silvio Berlusconi from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Image source: Wikipedia, public domain.

Related:
Cleveland Clinic names chair of new Heart and Vascular Institute. Cleveland Plain Dealer, 10/04/2007.


EarthLink CEO Dies of a Rare Tumor

According to a company press release, Charles (Garry) Betty, a President and CEO of EarthLink has died from complications of adrenocortical carcinoma on January 2, 2007. He was only 49. Before joining EarthLink, Betty served as CEO of Digital Communications Associates, Inc. (DCA) and became the youngest CEO of a NYSE listed company.

Adrenocortical carcinoma (also adrenal cortical carcinoma or adrenal cortex cancer) is a neoplasm of the cortex (outer layer) of the adrenal gland. It is a vary rare malignant tumor with an estimated incidence of 1 in 1.5 million people.

References:
Charles (Garry) Betty, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Adrenocortical Carcinoma. Medscape.
Adrenocortical carcinoma, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
EarthLink CEO passes away at age 49. CNN.
Garry Betty, 49, Chief of the Internet Provider EarthLink, Dies. NYTimes.

Updated: 10/04/2007

2006 Medical Weblog Awards: Polls Are Open

Clinical Cases and Images - Blog is nominated in two categories: Best Clinical Sciences Weblog and Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog.

Many of my favorite blogs, for example Kevin, M.D. and KidneyNotes (just to name a few), are also nominated, and they are truly excellent.

Thank you for your support and nomination. Let the best blog win :)

Update 1/19/2007:

And the winners of the 2006 Medical Weblog Awards are... (click here to see the winners on Medgadget.com).

CasesBlog did not win in either category it was nominated for but it deserved a special mention by the judges in the Best Clinical Sciences Weblog category:

"Special mention goes to Clinical Cases and Images, a Ves Dimov's website felt by many judges to be an excellent resource on all things clinical. Congratulations!"

References:
Nominate Best Medical Blogs of 2006
The Best Medical Blogs of 2005 on Medgadget.com

Interesting Links

Evidence Based Medicine Resources. New Media Medicine Blog.

A long list which seems both useful and comprehensive. I will send it to my residency program director, he is a devoted follower of evidence-based medicine and I am sure many residents will find something interesting to read when they prepare for a journal club.


Alcohol Consumption and Risk for Coronary Heart Disease among Men with Hypertension. Annals of Int Med, 1/2/2007.

One of our hospital medicine fellows recently presented a noon conference about the health effect of alcohol. He mentioned that "the body of evidence supporting the beneficial effects of alcohol is so large that there is almost no doubt at this point." This study adds just a little bit more and MedPundit comments on it.


UpToDate Founder Talks About Starting the Project in 1992

Burton D. Rose, MD, the founder and editor-in-chief of UpToDate, is interviewed by MDNetGuide.


Medical ultrasound cases with images

A collection of videos and clinical cases by Dr. Joe Antony, a radiologist in South India.


Mozilla Discloses 2005 Revenues: $53M. GigaOM.

If nothing else, we should be happy that Google allows Firefox and Opera browsers to be distributed and used for free. How is that possible? The integrated search box in those browsers covers the cost handsomely and it actually makes money. This is not surprising, considering the fact that Google reportedly makes 2o cents from every search query. Yahoo! lags behind, making "only" 10 cents per search. Yes, we live in a different world since Google launched AdWords/AdSense, at least from the perspective of the Internet economy.

Maps of Visited Countries and States

Visited Countries

11 countries (4%):
Hungary
France
Romania
Czech Republic
Serbia
Greece
Bulgaria
Italy
United States
create your own visited countries map

Visited States

23 states (45%):
Florida
Louisiana
Massachusetts
New Jersey
North Carolina
Rhode Island
West Virginia
California
DC
Georgia
Illinois
Michigan
South Carolina
Texas
Virginia
Wisconsin
Delaware
Indiana
Maryland
Minnesota
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
create your own visited states map

Source: Visited Countries. Douweosinga.com.

Updated: 11/17/2007

Echocardiograms and Cases on YouTube

There are a few users/cardiologists who upload echocardiogram videos and relevant case descriptions on YouTube:

A Cardiology Teaching File

SoundWaveImager Channel


Normal echo

Google Video and YouTube (which will probably be merged one day) broaden the educational tools available to health workers and are typical examples of Web 2.0 use in medicine. The authors of AskDrWiki upload coronary angiograms on YouTube.

I would like to remind all doctors posting any type of patient information on the web to follow the HIPAA requirements and to omit the 18 unique identifiers from all text, images and videos. This includes the date of the echocardiogram which can still be seen in some YouTube videos. Apart from these problems, I can already see the title of a future ACC abstract for 2008: Using YouTube for Cardiology Education.

References:
Case Reports and HIPAA Rules
Builth & Llanwrtyd Medical Practice YouTube Videos
YouTube for Your Business. PC World, 06/2007.
Video tutorial: How to get yourself on YouTube, for business or pleasure. ComputerWorld, 06/2007.
BioMed Central's You Tube channel: videos from BioMed Central's authors and editors, 09/2007.
How to: Get Exactly What You Want From YouTube via RSS. DavidRothman.net.
Click to play: YouTube and similar sites have more doctors getting ready for their close-ups. AMNews, 01/2008.

Related:
YouTube Feeds. Google Operating System, 01/2008.
YouTube as a Source of Health Misinformation. Highlight HEALTH 2.0, 02/2008.
YouTube as a source of information on immunization: a content analysis. Keelan et al. JAMA. 2007 Dec 5;298(21):2482-4.

Updated: 02/06/2008

AskDrWiki -- A Collaborative Medical Encyclopedia

AskDrWiki.com is a medical encyclopedia based on a wiki platform. The authors were one of the first to use YouTube to upload medical videos. Dean Giustini and I discussed this fact a few weeks ago, and he wrote about it in his landmark BMJ editorial How Web 2.0 is changing medicine, linking to AskDrWiki.com.


Coronary Angiograms: Coronary Dissection

Ganfyd is another medical Wiki community, created in November 2005 by a group of doctors working in the UK. It is intended to become a large on-line textbook of medicine (source: Wikipedia).

Graham shares his concerns about medical wikis in his post "I Will Never Trust Dr. Wiki… because I will never trust malicious teenagers."


Mike Cannon-Brookes has a nice presentation on Organisational Wiki Adoption on SlideShare (link via DavidRothman.net). This may convince your department or hospital to start a wiki, if you do not already have one.


Wikis in Plain English

References:
Do We Need a Free Medical Encyclopedia?
British Medical Journal Features Clinical Cases and Images - Blog, Again
I Will Never Trust Dr. Wiki… Grahamzon.com.
Medical wikis. DavidRothman.net.
Lots More Medical Wikis. DavidRothman.net.

Updated: 10/03/2007

Tiger Roams Siberian Village, Chased by Little Dog

A surveillance camera video shows an Amur tiger in Zavodskoy village, Primorsky Krai, Russian Far East, 2005-2006 winter.

Link via English Russia, "just because something cool happens daily on 1/6 of the Earth surface."