December 2011
10 posts
My Plan to Learn Spanish - Duolingo →
// As fluent Russian speaker I know the power of connecting with patients in their native tongue. For the last four years, as I saw a significant number of Spanish-only speaking patients, I realized my Spanish speaking ability is lacking….
// Thanks to the guys who made Re-CAPTCHA (awesome TED Talks Link), DuoLingo promises to teach a language for free and translate the web at the same...
Archives of Dermatology: Maggots Quickly Clear... →
// Apparently, Magot therapy has been FDA approved since 2004
// 105 Hospitalized patients with non-healing lower-leg ulcers
All patients wore blindfolds during the treatment and were unaware of the difference in treatment schedules
At day eight of treatment, the percentage of the wound area covered by slough was 54.5% in patients given maggot therapy compared with 66.5% (P=0.04) of the wound...
As Doctors Use More Devices, Potential for... →
// Great read about the negative impacts of personal technology in the medical setting at the point of care!
// Just like texting while driving, the same thing is happening in hospitals. We need better monitoring and accountability when individuals break the rules.
// We can borrow a lot of the methods employed in other industries to tackle the issues of employee Internet abuse… for...
Online Stanford Anatomy Class - Starts Jan 2012 →
// I just signed up to take this online teaching class so I can brush up on my Anatomy! Especially since I won’t have much time to attend a real anatomy lab
// Some of the technology in use looks awesome!! I am very excited.
(via Anatomy-Class.org)
2011 Top Game Changers in Primary Care: 1. And the... →
// Study of 38,000 women and Vitamin supplement use shows negative effects and detrimental health risks.
New findings from Iowa Women’s Health Study,[15] published in October 2011, showed very few benefits if any of vitamin or mineral supplements. In fact, there was a suggestion of some risk associated with several of them. The study followed more than 38,000 women, with an average age of...
The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today →
(The “bomb”) is the provision of the Affordable Care Act, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having...
“So we have 100,000 people a year who pick up infections at hospitals, all...”
– One of my inspirations, Atul Gawande talking about the power of teams and utilizing checklists (via BigThink)
Dietary Fibre and Colorectal Cancer
// Yes that is Fibre spelled with a bre, the British way!
// The Sep 2011 British Medical Journal published the largest Meta-Analysis on this topic
// Critical Finding:
A high intake of dietary fibre, in particular cereal fibre and whole grains, was associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer.
// Keep on eating that Flaxseed and purchase cereals that are WHOLE grain! (links to my...
