Medical student about Kindle: those once 40-lb volumes are now in the pocket of my white coat

A medical student emailed the Kindle team: "What you have here is a great product. I am a third year medical student out of New York, and have loaded a bunch of my textbooks onto the Kindle. Those once 40lb volumes of ill-fated tree trunks, are less than a pound, and now in the pocket of my white coat. Really a great asset!"

A former law student commented: "If I had a Kindle in law school, I think I would be 2 inches taller, and not need glasses..."

"Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?" ED physician Brian Goldman's TED talk

Dr. Goldman asks if you know your surgeon's "batting average" of operations with good outcomes. He mentions the three words you never want to hear: "Do you remember?" It's a good TED talk:



Every doctor makes mistakes (just like everyone does). But, says Dr. Goldman, medicine's culture of denial (and shame) keeps doctors from ever talking about those mistakes, or using them to learn and improve. Telling stories from his own long practice, he calls on doctors to start talking about being wrong.

Here are some simple steps to avoid medical errors from a patient's perspective (source: CNN):

1. Say: "My name is Mary Smith, my date of birth is October 21, 1965, and I'm here for an appendectomy."
2. Say: "Please check my ID bracelet."
3. Say: "Please look in my chart and tell me what procedure I'm having."
4. Say: "I want to mark up my surgical site with the surgeon present."
5. Be impolite (this particular piece of advice is obviously controversial).

References:

CNN video: Steps to avoid medical errors

Bet You Didn't Know That About The Flu (video)

From History channel: Get the full story behind the aches, pains and dangerous history of the flu.

Video contest to convince "Young Invincibles" to join ACA - Winner is "Forget about price tag"

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and "Young Invincibles" launched the Healthy Young America video contest, an effort to mobilize young people to help educate and inform one another about the Affordable Care Act. More than 100 videos were received: http://buff.ly/1g6qRUR

Erin McDonald was named the Grand Prize winner with her video "Forget about the Price Tag":



Here is the YouTube playlist with the nine finalists: http://buff.ly/1g6qSIx

Comments are disabled for all contest videos on YouTube, but feel free to comment on this blog post.

Jamie Oliver at TED: Teach every child about food

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

29 Debates About the "Right Way" to Blog

ProBlogger collected 29 Debates Bloggers Have about Blogging. Some of my responses are listed below, see ProBlogger's site for the complete list. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

RSS Feeds - Full vs Partial Feeds
- My opinion: Full feed.

Comment Sections – Comments vs No Comments
- Comments always open.

Post Frequency – Post More vs Post Less

- Short posts daily.

How Many Blogs? – Focus upon One Single Blog vs Having Many Smaller Blogs.
- I have 3-4 blogs.

Domain Names – long vs short, hyphens vs non hypens, .com vs other extensions (like .net, .org), local vs global domain extensions
- Short names, free domain names by Blogger.com.

Hosting – hosted vs self hosted
- Hosted by Blogger.com.

Post Titles – descriptive vs keywords
- I use natural language post titles - descriptive.

Content – Link content vs Original content
- Mostly links and comments, I wish I had more time to write long-form original content.

Design – Professional Design vs Templates
- I modify the templates to create my "own" designs. It's quite enjoyable actually.

Ownership – Use Social Media vs Build Your own properties
- I think your blog should be your "home" on the web.

Post Length – Long in Depth Posts vs Short, Sharp Posts
- Again, I wish I had the time to write long posts but I don't.

Topic – Niche vs Broad Topics
- Niche topic blogs work better.

Blogger Name – Anonymous blogging vs Using Your Name
- Using your name is a much better approach for medical bloggers.

Subscribers – RSS is Best vs Email is Best
- I like RSS better.

SEO – Writing for Search Engines vs Writing for Humans
- I write for humans only.

Personal Blogging – Sticking to Topic vs Injecting Personality and Personal details
- I try to write objectively from a scientific perspective. Personal stories are probably better suited for a paper diary.

Comment Moderation – Highly Regulated and Moderated vs Anything Goes
- I moderate all comments and delete all self-promotional and possibly offensive material.

Social Media vs Search – focus upon social media rather than search engines as traffic sources
- If you write quality content, Google will find you.

LinkBait – Anything goes (e.g.. Personal Attacks) vs Strong Boundaries Around What is and Isn’t Acceptable
- I don't use link baits and I have never posted anything even close to a personal attack on my blogs.

Bloggers Participation in Comments – Respond to Every Single Comment vs Let Readers Talk to Each Other and Don’t Interact
- I don't feel compelled to respond to every single comment. Let readers interact.


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.

References:
29 Debates Bloggers Have about Blogging. ProBlogger, 2010.

TED video: CIO of Cleveland Clinic talks about electronic medical records (EMR)

Video - TEDxCLE - Dr. C. Martin Harris, CIO of Cleveland Clinic talks about EMR. The Cleveland Clinic uses Epic Systems EMR and, although the system costs millions of dollars to purchase and maintain, it has been perceived as very useful by both physicians and patients.

Disclaimer: I was a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic until 2008.

Related:

Medical Malpractice Liability in the Age of Electronic Health Records - NEJM, 2010 http://goo.gl/cGZG9