Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• Age-related mental decline starts in the late-20s, dips in memory became apparent around age 37. Indicators of a person's accumulated knowledge (vocabulary and general knowledge) improve with age. Mental functions - abstract reasoning, mental speed and puzzle-solving - started to dull as early as age 27 http://bit.ly/vMq3i
  
  
• Animal allergy cases are increasing, as are human allergy cases: Ten percent of dogs develop allergies http://bit.ly/LwrHR
  
  
• Subarachnoid hemorrhage (often fatal type of stroke) most common in winter, mortality of 50 percent http://bit.ly/PDNCX
  
  
• Which prescription drugs are the biggest spenders on consumer advertising? Advair, Plavix, Cymbalta, Ambien, Abilify http://bit.ly/XTQhU
  
  
• Germany first country to implement a nationwide colonoscopy screening, participation rates 30% for men, 40% for women http://bit.ly/41rYQ
  
  
• CNN headline of the day: "Prostate cancer screening: What's a dude to do?" http://bit.ly/5vtaS
  
  
• Study: Women say they are more likely to have a long-term relationship with guys who present themselves as funny. "Computer rage" - shouting at your computer and hitting the keyboard/mouse - has become a common expression of anger" http://bit.ly/2y1pEt
  
  
• Growing suspicion that CAD in CKD/ESRD patients may occur via a different mechanism than garden-variety atherosclerosis http://bit.ly/ebQbr

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

WAM 2009 Wrap up - Friday

WOW

That pretty much sums up the weekend. It was a whirlwind of everything. Yes, it's Thursday and I'm still reeling from the weekend.

Friday I got to have lunch with PunditMom. Then Jenn Pozner & I greeted each other like we always do - a huge hug. We realized later on that we've now been friends for about 12 years. YOWZAS! After dinner with Jenn, Lisa Jervis, Latoya Peterson and Jennifer Mattson we headed back to the conference building for the opening reception.

The opening plenary was made of three women journalists from Iraq, Columbia and Zimbabwe. Jenn live-blogged it, so I won't try to summarize it. What I will say is that I was floored at the bravery of the women. What I will always remember is that Huda, from Iraq, was a translator for English-speaking journalists. During one assignment the first question a journalist asked was if a man was Sunni or Shia. He responded to her with "That's the first question?" She spent a lot of time talking about how post-occupation Iraq is not good for the women, about the lack of rights and freedom they now have.

Jenny from Columbia was well poised for someone who has seen so much death. In fact, they all were, but Jenny had this peace about her. She did talk about how as journalists they aren't trained on self-care, how reporting from war zones is hard on you and how she would get calls threatening her sources. Her appearance in our lives coincided with Secretary of State Clinton's visit to Mexico. Both said within 24 hours of each other that Americans are fueling the drug wars. She also brought up the fact that we need to watch out for our companies that set up shop in other countries & how that effects locals.

Peta from Zimbabwe was funny. Her story was sad, but her delivery had an air of something that makes me smile when I think of her. She was the only one of the three who hasn't worked in the USA, so her story was quite unique. She also was the only one who thanked us, citizens of the USA, for the aid we send. Their government is crap, money is worth nothing and they truly rely on aid that countries send. What I took home from her was the idea that we never let up on our leaders. After many years of dictatorship there was an election and everyone celebrated...even journalists. She admitted that they practiced sunshine journalism - everything was positive.

This made me recall some of our outrage at how the White House media corps seems to have found their journalism badges after Obama was sworn in. On Twitter a lot of people seem to be saying, "NOW they ask the tough questions?" While it's a good question, we also shouldn't let the press NOT ask those questions of Obama. Not to mention that he can handle them.

The panel was truly amazing and inspiring.

A bunch of people ended up in the hotel sports bar to hang out and talk. I ended up playing pool with Jack. I lost. But I had a lot of fun chatting with people, clicking some photos and of course, playing one sloppy ass game of pool.

Whew! Just writing all of that made me just as tired as I was on Friday night.

Why EMR may not be that helpful: health workers use "copy-paste" templates

Deducting from my extensive experience with EMR (electronic medical records), I believe it has advantages and disadvantages, like any product.

For example, some users may become prone to copy-pasting and using templates that change very little with individual patients. See an example below:

All worksheets were followed as appropriate. Each diagnosis was stated precisely. There is no lack of a diagnosis justified. Functional impairment was mentioned. All remarks are addressed.

The onset of the skin condition was described, as was the course of the skin condition with any variation of symptoms over time, if any. Any treatment type and dosage, if found or used, was mentioned, if any. The frequency and duration of each treatment during the last 12 months, if any was found, was stated. The percentage of exposed areas, and entire body surface area percentage involved, were stated, if any. If any scarring or disfigurement was noted, this was stated, and if so, the scar examination worksheet was attached, if any disfigurement was noted - if none was found, the scar examination worksheet was not attached. If any acne or chloracne was present, this was stated, and whether it was superficial or deep, if found. Any diagnostic or clinical tests or photographs, if needed, were reported, if any.

However, there is little doubt that EMR is a much better solution than paper documentation overall.

References:

Obama proposing a massive effort to to make all health records standardized and electronic

Related reading:

Debate: Do Electronic Health Records Help or Hinder Medical Education? PLoS Medicine: http://is.gd/z9or

Medical Malpractice Liability in the Age of Electronic Health Records - NEJM, 2010 http://goo.gl/cGZG9
"The iPatient is getting wonderful care across America. The real patient wonders, "Where is everybody?" NYTimes, 2011.

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• Insomniacs who sleep less than five hours a night are five times more likely to develop high blood pressure. 8% to 10% of the U.S. population may be at risk for high blood pressure related to chronic insomnia http://bit.ly/1hXDBk
  
  
• Alcohol use may raise risk of second breast cancer http://bit.ly/xOf2Y
  
  
• Association Between Hospital-Reported Leapfrog Safe Practices Scores and Inpatient Mortality: None. JAMA: http://bit.ly/GNpR
  
  
• High levels of enzyme phospholipid transferprotein may reduce benefit of statins http://is.gd/qboa
  
  
• 20% of Medicare patients are readmitted within a month of being discharged, 30% are rehospitalized within 90 days http://bit.ly/IORJT
  
  
• A scientist like no other: first Nobel prizewinner set to reach her hundredth birthday, senator for life in Italy http://bit.ly/6teot
  
  
• Which medical students pass out in the OR and why? BMC Medical Education: http://bit.ly/kg8o6
  
  
• Creatures with curative powers http://blogs.consumerreport...
  
  
• CNN: "My son's struggle against deadly food allergies" http://bit.ly/Otcqh
  
  
• Bad headline of the day: 'People are shaking and killing their babies' http://bit.ly/1ajgKm
  
  
• Journal Chest: Medical Writing Tip of the Month http://www.chestjournal.org...

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Selection of My Twitter Favorites, Edition 52

Twitter is a microblogging service where people answer the question "What are you doing?" via 140-character messages from their cellphone, laptop or desktop. You can select the messages (called "tweets") that you find interesting, useful, amusing, or disagreeable. Here is the 52nd edition of My Twitter Favorites (the oldest post is at the bottom, the newest at the top): Micro-blogging on Twitter is easy, fun and can be very useful and educational if you follow/subscribe to interesting people. You can read more here: A Doctor's Opinion: Why I Started Microblogging on Twitter and visit my account at Twitter/AllergyNotes.

1. sandnsurf End your day knowing that the blackness of night will be broken by the blue skies and warming sun of a new dawn 8:37 AM Mar 24th from TwitterFox
2. BiteTheDust weekly plane arrived! out to runway. great excitement 10:18 PM Mar 23rd from TweetDeck
3. DrCris Turns out you get more blog traffic if you actually write blogposts 9:48 PM Mar 23rd from Jetwit
   
   
4. zappos Twitter's 140 character limit just goes to show that it's the little things that count. #verydeepthoughts 8:14 PM Mar 23rd from txt
5. markhawker Many fail to see that "social media expert" is an oxymoron. The "expert" is about as redundant as the "oxy". 4:00 PM Mar 23rd from TweetDeck
6. EdBennett A warm, sunny Sunday - spent the day outside cleaning the fish pond. A nice change from sitting in front of the PC. Going back to it now 2:59 PM Mar 22nd from Power Twitter
7. AprGrad2004 "I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." 1:29 PM Mar 22nd from m.slandr.net
8. AllergyNotes Something is wrong with the system: the Twitter Happiness score for @HappyHospitalis is only 436 (not very happy) http://happytweets.com12:18 PM Mar 22nd from web
9. AllergyNotes Still amazed by the amount of text produced by some bloggers. Nothing wrong with it, just different from the way I use blogs for short notes 10:16 AM Mar 22nd from web
10. loic@kevinrose I am wondering also if we need blogs anymore with Twitter, Facebook pages etc. What saves them is that they belong to you... 9:17 AM Mar 21st from twhirl
11. kchu i converted to apple products six years ago, because of its craftsmanship, customer service, and OS. 6 years later, it's only the OS. 9:20 PM Mar 20th from web
12. progressnotes Met a guy with severe migraines that are triggered by chocolate, caffeine, and alcohol. Some people just don't get a break. 12:33 PM Mar 20th from web
13. BiteTheDust Twitter premium 500 character limit and followers assigned at random? http://bit.ly/y8Tj - hope who thought of that gets diarrhoea 10:53 PM Mar 19th from TweetDeck
14. dawson I wonder if Twitter could be used as a behavioral therapy to help people who suffer with poor communication skills 6:32 PM Mar 19th from TweetDeck
15. wheezemd Great discussion last night. Presented data that 43% of severe allergic rhinitis patients did not see a MD for their condition. 6:53 AM Mar 18th from web
16. AllergyNotes RT @charleste: "We had a first year med student get Stevens Johnson after taking Provigil. She just wanted to be able to study more" 6:55 PM Mar 17th from TweetDeck

The inclusion of a Twitter update (tweet) in Selection of My Twitter Favorites does not represent endorsement or agreement of any kind.

If you are included in this post but you would like to have your tweet removed for any reason, please email me and will comply with your request the same day.

Medical Geek Humor on Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging service where people answer the question "What are you doing?" via 140-character messages from their cellphone, laptop or desktop. You can select the messages (called "tweets") that you find interesting, useful, amusing, or disagreeable. The tweets below are part of the series Medical Geek Humor on Twitter:

dreamingspires No longer sitting on balcony. Spider the size of small pony just sat on my foot. 25 minutes ago from TweetDeck

BiteTheDust @dreamingspires Huntsmen are ok. we have redbacks with redbacks the size of my knuckle. Good news though. No snakes inside house this year 4 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to dreamingspires

dreamingspires @BiteTheDust No. huntsmen are not ok. they are big. they have 8 legs. Redbacks -- can't go there. too hard. Am still an aussie newbie. 3 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to BiteTheDust

dreamingspires @scanman oh -- come on over to Sydney! bring family. It's a beautiful city (even with the huntsmen) 1 minute ago from TweetDeck in reply to scanman

Adult Huntsman spider on the underside of a log in Victoria, Australia. Image source: Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.

Female Redback spider. Image source: Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.

If you are included in this post but you would like to have your tweet removed for any reason, please email me and will comply with your request the same day.

References:
Huntsman spider, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Redback spider, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• People who suffer chronic sleep problems are more likely to think about suicide or actually try to kill themselves http://is.gd/pYwy
  
  
• 7% of patients treated at a large U.S. hospital received enough radiation from CT scans to increase cancer risk by 1% http://is.gd/pV8n
  
  
• Simple test: Alzheimer's patients with an abnormal one-leg balance test experience greater decline in brain function http://is.gd/pV01
  
  
• Insomnia may alter "hunger hormone" ghrelin which is involved in appetite control http://is.gd/pV3N
  
  
• JAMA Questioning Industry Funding of Medical Specialty Societies: Ads in journals are OK http://is.gd/pYtU

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.