A report from the Institute of Medicine released on Tuesday morning proposes revisions to medical residents’ duty hours and workloads “to decrease the chances of fatigue-related medical errors and to enhance the learning environment resident training.” The report does not recommend further reducing residents’ work hours from the maximum average of 80 per week set by ACGME in 2003, but rather recommends reducing the maximum number of hours that residents can work without time for sleep to 16, increasing the number of days residents must have off, and restricting moonlighting during residents’ off-hours, among other changes. The committee, which was chaired by Dr. Michael Johns of Emory, estimates that the cost for additional personnel to handle reduced resident work could be roughly $1.7 billion annually.
Read the full report here
Thanks Ram Paragi, for the publication alert!
December 1st is World AIDS Day. Designated in 1988, this annual observation exists to bring attention to the continuing AIDS epidemic. For additional information, resources, and statistics, check out the following websites:
AIDS.gov: World AIDS Day
Centers for Disease Control: Celebrate Life – World AIDS Day
Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals: Preventive Health HIV/AIDS
NO/AIDS Task Force
World AIDS Campaign
Additionally, 2008 also marks the 25th anniversary of the NO/AIDS Task Force which dedicated an AIDS Memorial in Washington Square Park over the weekend.
Thursday isn’t just Thanksgiving. It’s also the 5th annual National Family History Day, as declared by Acting Surgeon General Steven K Galson, M.D., M.P.H. National Family History Day is part of the Family History Initiative which provides access to a web-based tool called, “My Family Health Portrait.” This tool helps users to organize family history information and then save their history information to their own computer and even share family history information with other family members.
If you have no idea why we?óÔé¼Ôäóre pondering that question today, go brush your teeth real quick and grab a drink (orange juice, iced tea, beer?óÔé¼ÔÇØanything except water). Awful, isn?óÔé¼Ôäót it?
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/19516
Google announced on Tuesday that it was launching Google Flu Trends which will combine flu-related searches that it receives along with information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to estimate flu cases in all 50 states. The CDC offers information on Flu Season for consumers as well as Seasonal Flu information for health professionals, parents, and teachers.
According to Google Flu Trends, incidence of the flu in Louisiana is still low. And they even offer a flu shot locator by zip code, courtesy of the American Lung Association.
Auscultation is the technical term for listening to the internal sounds of the body, usually using a stethoscope. The links below offer a number of websites that contain heart, lung, and breathing sounds.
Auscultation Assistant
http://www.med.ucla.edu/wilkes/inex.htm
Cardiac Examination / Heart Sounds
http://www.blaufuss.org/tutonline.html#
CardiologySite.com
http://www.cardiologysite.com/index.html
Heart Sounds and Murmurs
http://www.texasheartinstitute.org/Education/CME/explore/events/eventdetail_5469.cfm
Heart Sounds and Murmurs
http://depts.washington.edu/physdx/heart/index.html
We’ve also indexed these on our links page.
November is American Diabetes Month according to the Centers for Disease Control. MedlinePlus offers a great deal of patient information on Diabetes that supplements the CDC page.
Did you know? The CDC postponed publishing updates to the adult immunization schedule until January 2009, but the folks at Group on Immunization Education (GIE) of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine has updated their PDA-friendly immunization schedules. You can also find other resources such as clinical scenarios for teaching, online educational videos, and curricular materials.
http://www.immunizationed.org/
The CDC has created The Ounce of Prevention campaign to give health educators and consumers practical and useful tips. The website offers a variety of resources, including information on food preparation, wild animals, and antibiotics.
What online tools do medical professionals use to network with their peers? Check out these sites, compiled by the MLA’s EMTS section:
Grand Rounds – http://frommedskool.com/grand-rounds/
A blog ?óÔé¼?ôcarnival?óÔé¼?Ø which showcases the weekly best of the medical blogosphere. It is hosted by a different medical blogger each week.
Applequack.com ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ http://applequack.com/
A blog written by a doctor in Australia, it contains reviews of medical software for the Mac, and hacks for doctors, biomedical researchers and students.
Tech Medicine ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ http://www.healthline.com/blogs/medical_devices/
A blog written by practicing nephrologist and medical school faculty member, he is interested in medicine and technology
The Efficient MD blog – http://efficientmd.blogspot.com/
Reviews of innovations, “life hacks,” gadgets, techniques, and useful tools designed to improve the professional lives of physicians
The Efficient MD Wiki – http://wiki.efficientmd.com/
Designed to help healthcare professional and medical students discover clinical pearls and useful resources
Sermo ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ http://www.sermo.com
Social networking for doctors, the current largest, only physicians can join
DoctorNetworking.com – http://doctornetworking.com/
Professional networking site for physicians, only for physicians – must include your state license number as part of registration.
Docsboard.com – http://www.docsboard.com/
Non-commercial physician discussion forum aimed at practicing physicians and residents in training. The site is intended to help physicians exchange ideas and discuss matters concerning the profession. Limited access to just physicians.
Doctors and Med Students on Twitter – http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorsontwitter
An RSS feed of Twitter feeds mashed together. Twitter is a ‘microblogging’ service similar to text messaging, where users post updates to the question ‘What are you doing’ in 160 characters or less.
What’s your favorite?
Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, announced that he will leave at his post at the end of October to to pursue writing projects and explore other professional opportunities.
In a conference call with reporters, Dr. Zerhouni said that he decided to leave the agency before the election ?óÔé¼?ôso there is a clear sense that whoever wins the election, N.I.H. has to be a clear priority in their mind.?óÔé¼?Ø
Press release from the NIH:
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2008/od-24.htm
New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/health/policy/25nih.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
MedlinePlus has added a disasters category to its Health & Wellness section. Check out Hurricanes.
Catch the sounds in ‘Bump and Hustle’ and keep the music down!
A 2006 ASHA survey (that’s the American Speech and Hearing Association) indicated that 40% percent of students set their music players’ volumes too loud. In fact, a recent article in the Journal of Pediatrics found that most adolescents are aware that they listen to their music too loud, and (in the tradition of adolescents everywhere) really don’t care.
This online game from ASHA educates kids about the potential risk of hearing loss from unsafe usage of personal audio technology. The little buds even look like the headphones of an ipod. Cute!
Free blood pressure, HIV, depression and other screenings will be available to the public on Saturday, June 21st at the Wal-Mart at 1901 Tchoupitoulas. This the last stop for the Hometown Health Fair which has been sponsored by the Delta Regional Authority. Participants may enroll in the Healthy Delta Initiative. Local healthcare providers have been recruited to participate. Are you one of them?
Turns out video games aren’t SO bad, at least if you’re planning to be a surgeon. A report from New Scientist magazine posits that surgeons perform better after warming up with Wii, — and that study’s authors are now planning to develop surgery training software for the video game platform.
Read more about it here
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