HBCE Blog Gallery: Diabetes Mine
Your Name
Amy Tenderich
Email
amy@diabetesmine.com
Name of Blog
www.diabetesmine.com
Website
http://www.diabetesmine.com
Description of Blog
A gold mine of straight talk and encouragement for people living with diabetes.
Describe yourself
Journalist, author, mother of three. Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in May 2003. Now running the country’s best-read diabetes blog. Ain’t life funny?
Favorite Tags
diabetes, insulin, diabetic, blood sugar, medical devices
Why do you blog?
After diagnosis, I felt terribly alone and overwhelmed. The Internet then offered nothing but medical documentation and “bad-news” headlines. Where were the patients? Nobody seemed to be reporting from the heart on what it’s really like to live with this volatile disease. So I set out to create the diabetes site that I myself was looking for as a patient. It’s helped me turn my diabetes into something positive - and help others, too.
Why should readers read your blog?
They say I speak creatively and from the heart — to people with diabetes and their family, friends, and community — on topics ranging from inside looks at diabetes research and breaking news to daily life with diabetes to uncovering the diabetics’ deepest hopes and fears. Readers say they always learn a little, laugh a little at DiabetesMine.com.
Favorite Posts:
Excerpts from the Dr. Suess “Fun with Diabetes” Book
March 2 was Dr. Suess’ birthday. In memoriam, I’m feeling silly today:
Lancets! Test strips! Testing now! I can, you can, we know how.
Look! See! Blood drops, one and two and three. Why won’t this meter beep for me?
Numbers now. Number’s high! 182 – my, oh my!
Out with the insulin, out with the needle. Out with the afternoon snack-n-feedle.
Corrections, ouch. Corrections ooch. Injections 10x/day hurt my hooch.
Up, up, up and down the stairs — Now I’m taking stairs in pairs.
Down with the glucose readings! Down, down, down! I’ll have the best numbers in any town.
Funny, now I cannot think… Think what I thunk and my heart begins to sink.
Oops! Up with the sugar level — up, up, up! Glucose tablets, gummi drops, and orange juice in a big, BIG cup.
Amy’s Tour of Health Plans, aka Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in Slo-Mo
If I learned anything since my diagnosis, it’s that American health plans are pretty much all the same if you don’t have any special needs. That is, we bounced around a fair bit between various HMOs and PPOs and POS’s over the years. Some had higher co-pays, others had higher deductibles. It didn’t make that much difference, and even though I have three kids, I never looked into it very carefully.
Then I got diabetes. I had to see an endocrinologist regularly. I had to see a diabetes educator and a nutritionist regularly. Since the diabetes affects everything, I had to see an ophthalmologist, allergist, gynecologist, podiatrist, and sometimes orthopedic surgeon. My life became a nightmare of pre-authorizations and referrals. Who was in my network? How much would I have to pay if they weren’t? Why does my local “Medical Group” have the right to restrict me from seeing the world-class diabetes specialists at my local university?
What I found out is summarized below. Note that this highly condensed info took me a good half-year to work out, and with every agency sending me off in another direction, getting there was a bit like taking Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in very slow motion. (The details of your plan options may differ, of course!) And note that just as I’ve figured this all out, my husband’s company is CHANGING PLANS AGAIN!! Am I covered for Exploding Head?! Anyway, here goes:
Reader Review
Diabetes Mine is probably the best written and almost certainly the most-read blog by a person with Type 1 diabetes. Amy touches on almost every conceivable issue relevant to how to manage and live with diabetes, and she does it with clarity, humor and a strong opinionated style. Particularly important is her assessment of new devices and technologies and how well they work in practice. Plus she’s been very aggressive in demanding better technology for diabetics–even asking Steve Jobs to help!
Matthew Holt
Matthew Holt Consulting
Research, forecasting & strategy
for the health care marketplace
Editor’s Comment
I was thrilled for Amy to join our effort here. She lends her high exposure and obvious credibility to the code of Ethics. Her site is clearly the kind of site that needs to be out there on the web - giving patients good solid information in a world where bad information is easier to find than good. Her efforts are a huge bonus to us, but also to the blogging community and diabetics everywhere.
HBCE Blog Gallery: Tiny Shrink - Why am I Still Here?
Next in line is the redundantly-named Tiny Shrink and her blog, Why am I still Here?
Name of Blog
Why am I still here?
Website
http://tinyshrink.blogspot.com
Description of Blog
This is a blog where I describe things that happen in medical school, my rotations, and my life. It’s a (basically) anonymous blog, so I work to change patient details and to avoid using identifying information.
Describe yourself
I’m a fourth year medical student, and I’ve decided (after much debate) to go into psychiatry. I’ve been married for just over a year; my husband is an engineer. We have a dog and a cat, who occasionally make appearances on the blog.
Favorite Tags
Scut Work, Soapboxing, Nerd Humor, Mental Health
Why do you blog?
Partly, I blog to vent frustration with medicine and some of the horrible situations I find there. Partly, I blog to see my own words in print. Partly, I blog to share the funny or happy stories that I encounter.
Why should readers read your blog?
Because I said so?
Favorite Post:
It was bound to happen sooner or later…
Last night I was on call at [large non-county hospital] for trauma. My trauma beeper went off around 2315 saying “Code 3 LF ETA 15 16 yo F MVC extrication Int G3 S76 P164″, telling me that a code 3 (serious trauma) was arriving by helicopter in approximately 15 minutes; the patient was a 16 year old female who was in a car accident, had a prolonged extrication from her vehicle, was intubated, had a coma score of 3 (on par with a cadaver), with a low blood pressure and high pulse. Oh, boy. I happened to be in the OR at the time, watching the vascular surgeon repair a man’s bleeding arterial leg wound. The upper and lower level residents and myself rolled on the trauma.
I enjoyed the sound of my clogs on the hard floor, marching purposefully toward the ER. When I got there, I took off my white coat, put on a lead apron, topped it with a clean gown, put my stethoscope around my neck and got my trauma shears ready. I usually do this quickly, because the ETA’s on the beeper are horribly inaccurate. Once dressed and ready, I sat on a stretcher and shot the shit with the residents and nurses. Since this one was serious, 2 respiratory therapists were there with a ventilator; an ER doc was there with the ultrasound to perform the FAST (a quick check for abdominal bleeding); 2 X-ray techs were standing by with the X-ray machine and multiple blank films; several EMT students were hanging around, hoping to glean some experience; at least 3 nurses were in the room ready, with others waiting outside the shock room door. After all the fuss, we sat around for 10, maybe 15 minutes, just kicking our heels in the air, ready to go.
It’s almost an electric current in the air when the stretcher appears. Everyone leaped to the ready as the helicopter crew wheeled in the patient. They transferred her to the trauma stretcher and things started to fly. The helicopter crew was hollering out the history and vitals as the residents and attending physicians started the ABC’s: Airway, Breathing, Circulation, the primary survey. “Patient was questionably restrained, driver, her car was T-boned by a large truck/semi on the passenger side.” The RT’s began to establish a better airway and hooked her up to the ventilator, multitudes of lines and BP cuffs and EKG monitors and pulse oximeters were attached, a Foley was placed, IV’s and central lines were started, and an oral-gastric tube was passed to decompress her stomach. The ABC’s work like slightly sticky but well-worn machinery: everyone has a job, and they do it, but it’s noisy as hell, and there’s the occasional tripping over used syringes (not needles!) on the floor or the curse as yet another IV infiltrates. I mostly hung back after cutting off her panties, noting how thin she was, how small, how young, how she was wearing a pretty green bra with lace that we’d destroyed.
Reviews (by readers of the blog)
Peg said… I am a pre-med student and I love reading about what doctors and med-students have to say. I linked to your blog through someone else’s (can’t recall whose) and loved it so now I check it everyday.
Peggy
Anonymous said… Good post on hand washing and dirty white coats- germs in general. I picked up the blog post on the grand rounds list and sent the site on to infection control as an FYI
Medical Library
Black Mariah said… I also am a pre-med student who happened to find your blog through fellow medical bloggers and keep yours along with others as my daily reading. It’s great to read actual accounts of the experiences from those who regularly dedicate time into blogging about their lives inside and outside medicine.
Editors Comment:
It is great to have medical student bloggers. As any of those of us who went through the process can attest, medical school is a very trying and soul-searching time. You double your vocabulary and are changed from a student to a doctor. I always enjoy the differing perspectives on medical student blogs and this is certainly one to keep tabs on.
Creating Community
The HCBE has gotten more press recently. First off, we have had many more blogs sign up and display the logo for the code of ethics. Some notable additions include: Junkfood Science, Diabetes Mine, Emergiblog, and Shrink Rap. If you haven’t done so, please look over the growing list of links. There are some sites that I found out about through their submission, and they are really great. Thank you for all who have joined.
Second, there was a very compelling article in MDNG discussing the ethics of blogging. The discussion centered around the ethics codes that currently exist, including the HCBE.
Thus begins the debate about whether medical blogging should be more carefully policed?having a moral standard and ethical code by which it can be monitored. Cue the Health On the Net?s (HON) Code of Conduct for medical and health websites, and the recently compiled Health Care Blogger Code of Ethics (HCBE), which has been garnering much attention on the Web in the last month or so, popping up in articles and blogs everywhere.
David Harlow, former president and current chairman of the Metropolitan Boston Emergency Medical Services Council, and founder of The Harlow Group, LLC, has recently touched upon the issue of these ethical codes on his health care/law blog appropriately titled HealthBlawg. In regards to the Health Care Blogger Code of Ethics (HCBE), Harlow writes, ?Truth is, I?m not sure there?s a need to reinvent the wheel. HON?s code, for example, includes the HCBE principles and is similarly free and self-enforcing (or, rather, community-enforced). It also clearly requires an up-front assessment, which HCBE hasn?t clearly committed to requiring.?
When asked to elaborate on what he perceived to be the differences between the two sets of codes, Harlow stated, ?The [two codes] are reasonable and consistent with each other. Third-party certification, a la HON, may be overkill for bloggers, but the question of the moment is whether it is reasonable to expect self-policing (or peer-policing, a la the bloggers code) to work in the blogging space, especially among anonymous bloggers.?
I posted a response to this, but it did give me cause to consider if we were actually doing enough. The way that I view this code is that it is a community standard to which we have all agreed. We as bloggers have made this standard and I think it represents well what most bloggers hold to in terms of the ethics of their blogging. I think this is what makes this different from the HON code, which is much more oriented toward doctor bloggers, requiring references, etc. Plus, it is administered by a separate organization, where the HBCE is run by the bloggers themselves.
Yet it does run the risk of getting a little top-heavy. I have been doing my best to represent the best interests of the other bloggers holding to the code as to keeping the blogs desiring to display the code to the standards it contains. To do so, I have done several things:
- I have changed the application process to specifically ask if people adhered to each of the principles of the code. This will cause people to think twice to apply if they do not comply with the code.
- I have had a number of people help me out whenever I had questions about a certain blog, most notably Amanda (from It’s About the Walls), Dean (from Rebuild Your Back), Val (from Dr. Val and the Voice of Reason) and Walter (from Highlight Health). Thanks so much to those people (especially Amanda - whom I have called on the most) for the help.
But I wonder if we should do more to create community. It would be very nice make this code like a co-op. The idea of a co-op is that all who benefit from it help to maintain it. I have called on Amanda and Dean so far to start posting on the blogging gallery (and they have done great), but I think we all should take part in making sure the sites being added are up to the standards that we hold.
Do you think that forming a list-serve or Yahoo Group would be worth doing? I would love to be able to send a note to all those who post the HBCE when a new site has applied. Then if nobody has serious objections, I can send the HTML for the widget. Or, if I need someone to write for the Gallery, I can just send something on the List Serve.
I want this to become a community of bloggers with a means of communication. Are you all in favor of that? I still intend to be the “keeper of the code,” but it would be nice to have a better defined community.
Comments?
HBCE Blog Gallery: White Coat Underground
The next submission to the Healthcare Blogger Gallery is from the blog White Coat Underground — Musings on the intersection of medicine, science, and culture.
Your Name
PalMD
Name of Blog
White Coat Underground
Website
http://whitecoatunderground.wordpress.com
Description of Blog
Musings on the intersection of medicine, science, and culture.
Describe yourself
I am a practicing internist in Michigan. I spend about half my time with my patients, and the other half teaching.
Favorite Tags
quackery, woo, pseudoscience
Why do you blog?
Why not? I like to inform, and I try to say what others may not. I especially like to “de-bunk” deceptive ideas and practices.
Why should readers read your blog?
They shouldn’t — they should stay away from it, as it contains dangerous ideas.
Favorite Post:
Pertussis
Some of this may be redundant, but I feel a need to distill some of the whooping cough information to get an important point across. Bordetella pertussis, the cause of whooping cough, is a bacteria that only lives in humans. Therefore, if it can be wiped out in humans, like smallpox, we will never see another case. Universal vaccination is the only way to accomplish this.
Reader Review:
As luck would have it, as I was making my rounds the other day, I happened to stumble upon a mysterious comment signed with little more than a cryptic, “PalMD.”
The game was afoot.
Throwing caution to the wind, and with little regard for my own safety, I followed the link not knowing what unspeakable horrors I might find. And, as surely you can imagine, I was not disappointed.
Needless to say, I initially found this blog to be quite disturbing. In fact, the more I explored, the more my revulsion grew.
It seems this Dr. PalMD has taken it upon himself to expound on such vile subjects as homeopathy, medicine, vaccines, and even herbal remedies. What’s more, he apparently takes great delight in debunking pseudoscience and quackery. Why he even has the audacity to breach controversial social issues in an open and straightforward manner.
Furthermore, as if the aforementioned was not a sufficient breach of protocol, he does so in the language of the common man. He makes no effort to obscure his ideas in medical speak and/or jargon as any reasonable person would. Why any fool could grasp his meaning and inadvertently be persuaded to critically examine these issues.
Blast it, Man! Now I have yet another valuable resource I will be forced to share with my readers. Is there no end to this madness!
Suffice it to say, I’m afraid that I must concur with the good doctor’s recommendation that you avoid this blog at all costs. Just as I first suspected, it does indeed contain dangerous ideas.
If you fail to heed this warning, you may find yourself compelled to add him to your blogroll thus perpetuating this epidemic of rational thinking.
Dean Moyer, Rebuild Your Back
Thanks To Hsien-Hsien Lei
If you did not notice, the Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics got a very big boost from a mention on Grand Rounds. Here is the reference in the Medscape article about grand rounds:
Dr. Genes: You were among the first to propose an ethical code for medical bloggers. Do you think it’s catching on? How was your proposal different from the HONcode? Do you think some of the recent troubles with anonymous doctor-bloggers could have been prevented by following your code?
Dr. Lei: HONcode is great and I have always applied it for my blogs, but it really doesn’t require that bloggers reveal very much about themselves. When I started the “honor roll,” I wasn’t intending to make it anything other than a full-disclosure meme. I thought that if I could get some people to stop and think about what they were doing, as well as making their motivations and qualifications public, it might up the credibility of healthcare blogging.
I was inspired to start the full-disclosure meme when I came across blog after blog (healthcare and other) that didn’t fact-check and were, in fact, spreading misinformation. In addition to that, I don’t like bloggers who are hiding behind total anonymity. Why should I take the opinion of someone seriously if they’re using a pseudonym and won’t tell me anything about how they’ve gained their knowledge? Certainly it’s within people’s rights to remain anonymous, but at the very least, bloggers should show convincing evidence that their readers can trust the veracity of what they’re writing.
There’s a difference between people blogging about the news and commenting on it versus sharing their personal experiences. Physician bloggers, like Barbados Butterfly and Dr. Flea, should feel free to tell their personal stories as long as other people’s (patients’) rights to privacy haven’t been violated. The new Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics takes another stab at legitimizing healthcare blogging. It’s an honorable goal and one to which I subscribe, but in the end, bloggers will still write what they want and must be responsible for it within the guidelines of their own situations. And that’s what blogging should be anyway: free expression with a pinch of thoughtful self-moderation.
******
Well Done. I could not have said it better!
*******
Editors Apology: I am very sorry for misspelling Ms. Lei’s name and grateful for her to not even point it out!
HBCE Blog Gallery: Medicana
Our third offering in the Healthcare Blogger Gallery is Medicana , our first featured patient blog (medicana.blogspot.com), authored by self-diagnosed hypochondriac Mauigirl.
(Yes, I got her permission before I said that!)
This is Maui’s submission information:
Your Name
Mauigirl
Email
Mauigirl52@yahoo.com
Name of Blog
Medicana
Website
http://www.medicana.blogspot.com
Description of Blog
Medicana is the medical website for hypochondriacs! It contains a wealth of information about diseases and conditions. Each major post presents a disease or condition in a simple, easy to read form, complete with symptoms, diagnosis and cure, if there is one - and most importantly, how likely it is YOU will get it. Although the content may be written in an informal and sometimes humorous way, every effort is made to get the facts right, and links are posted links to legitimate medical sources for further information. In between major postings, there are other tidbits of medically-related information. All of this information is interspersed with personal anecdotes and experiences.
Describe yourself
I’ve always been fascinated by medical subjects, as I grew up as the daughter of two medical writers. I have also (perhaps due to this background) always been a hypochondriac and feverishly search the Internet for clues whenever I have the simplest symptoms. As a result, I am familiar with all the medical terminology and love to research diseases. Friends often come to me with their medical issues and ask me to look things up for them. So I figured starting a blog about diseases would be a handy way to compile a reference for others. Naturally I’m not any kind of a medical expert so if anyone has a symptom that is concerning them they should always consult a real doctor and not just rely on my blog!
Favorite Tags
depression, neurological, blood pressure, parasites
Why do you blog?
I enjoy sharing information with others and feel the process of researching diseases and conditions adds to my own medical knowledge.
Why should readers read your blog?
To read up on specific diseases and conditions and understand they always have choices in their care.
Favorite Post:
Depression runs in my family; in fact, “it practically gallops,” with apologies to Joseph Kesselring, author of the play “Arsenic and Old Lace,” who first used the phrase.
My father had major depression at least three times in his lifetime; once in college, back when they just called it a “nervous breakdown;” and two specific times after he retired, with long periods of continuous low spirits in between crises.
His mother also was prone to depression, and was hospitalized in the 40’s and given electroshock therapy. And we found out well after he died that my father’s father had also suffered from depression and had committed suicide.
Luckily for me and my half-sister, we seem to have dodged the family tendency; perhaps the genes on our respective mothers’ sides were dilutive. Neither of us has had a major depression although we do have our periods of the blues from time to time. However, one of her daughters is bi-polar.
Why am I writing about depression here? Is it a condition that hypochondriacs tend to fear? No, but hypochondria can be related to depression. Two-thirds of hypochondriacs also have another psychiatric illness such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Reader Review:
My initial visit to Medicana occurred after Mauigirl first visited my own little corner of “teh intarweebs.” We share a mutual love of all things medical, and Maui has an innate (and amazing) gift for blogging about various medical issues with wit and intelligence. She is able to assemble an incredible volume of work regarding health related issues, and I have to give my non-medical-professional opinion that she does a remarkable job of explaining the issues in a clear and at times utterly amusing manner. I?m not sure if this is in spite of the fact that she’s a layperson or because of it, but regardless of the cause it’s a truly educational and entertaining read.
Two thumbs up!
HBCE Blog Gallery: Suture For A Living
The next submission to the Healthcare Blogger Gallery is from the blog Suture for a Living.
Your Name
Ramona L Bates, MD
Name of Blog
Suture for a Living
Website
http://rlbatesmd.blogspot.com/
Description of Blog
A mixture surgery (medicine) and quilting (sewing) that I find interesting. Hopefully someone else will find something there.
Describe yourself
I am a plastic surgeon in Little Rock, AR. I may “suture for a living”, but I “live to sew”. When I can, I sew. These days most of my sewing is piecing quilts. I love the patterns and interplay of the fabric color. I would like to explore writing about medical/surgical topics as well as sewing/quilting topics. I will do my best to make sure both are represented accurately as I share with both colleagues and the general public.
Favorite Tags
Quilting, Surgery, Prevention
Why do you blog?
I am new to this (less than 3 months). Started as a way to explore and learn (computers, etc). I have found it to be a good review for me on many topics. I hope I have helped “clarify” or “inform” at least one person (other than myself). If not, I am enjoying “playing the part” of a writer.
Why should readers read your blog?
I’ve never been good at “selling myself”. I hope they will enjoy seeing the quilts I share with them. I hope that I can give them some information that will help them either stay healthy or work with their own doctor to get healthy.
Favorite Posts:
Bell’s Palsy
The picture to the right features the characteristic asymmetric smile of Bell’s Palsy caused by paralysis of one side of the face.
Five years ago I experience such a smile (and when really tired still do to a small extent). I woke up that Saturday morning and noticed that my tongue felt “thick” and my head ached, especially on the right side and mostly in my ear. Over the course of the day, I went on to loose the muscle function of my mouth on the right side, then the check, then the eyelid function, and last the forehead. I knew what it was. I had ruled out a stroke early on–no vision problems, no weakness in either arm or leg. The ascending facial paralysis cinched the diagnosis for me. Bell’s Palsy.
Blue Nude 1952
Let me share something lovely with you. Give you a break from the “not-so-pretty” skin changes. This is one of the first quilts I did for my office. It is a close “replica” of Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude 1952. My husband helped my “draft” the pattern. It is made of silk noire, appliqued, and then echo quilted by hand. I think that Mattisse would have made a wonderful quilt artist during his paper cutouts phase at the end of his life. Many of those remind me of quilts.
Henri-?mile-Beno?t Matisse was born on December 31, 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambr?sis, France. While recuperating from two major operations in 1941 and 1942, Matisse concentrated on a technique he had devised earlier: papiers d?coup?s (paper cutouts). Jazz, written and illustrated by Matisse, was published in 1947; the plates are stencil reproductions of paper cutouts. In 1948 he began the design for the decoration of Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, which was completed and consecrated in 1951. In 1952 the Mus?e Matisse was inaugurated at the artist?s birthplace of Le Cateau?Cambr?sis. Matisse continued to make large paper cutouts, the last of which was a design for the rose window at Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York. He died on November 3, 1954, in Nice.
Reader Review:
I have been very glad to have Dr. Bates join the healthcare blogging community. She offers a very nice combination of medical and non-medical content. It is really fun for this non-quilting guy to see the amazing creativity some people can have with a needle. It only makes sense that a plastic surgeon (the most meticulous of surgeons) would be a quilter.
The medical blogging is excellent. She posts lots explanations of medical problems related to plastic surgery and does a very thorough job in doing so.
This too is a blog that I follow daily. Again, it is a blog that I Highly recommend.
Dr. Rob, Musings of a Distractible Mind.
Changes (again)
OK. You may have noticed that the look of the blog has changed. It is Microsoft’s fault. I actually really liked the look of the blog with the other template, but I happened to open it up on IE (why would anyone use that browser??) and it was not right. So I spent most of yesterday trying to find a decent-looking template that looked OK in IE. This is the best I could find. If anyone has a better-looking one (I am not nuts about the green) that works on both IE and Firefox (I have yet to have one not work on that browser), please let me know. My search was fairly exhaustive, and I don’t think there is one with the elegance of the previous one.
On another front, people still seem a little confused about the blogging gallery. I absolutely want to have everyone who is using the code to be submitting to the gallery. We need to make this a “must see” site for anyone interested in medical blogging. In doing so we will attract more people to the code of ethics, and hopefully affect a positive change in the overall tone of medical blogs. I greatly appreciate the help given to me by other bloggers on this.
*********
Addendum (1:20 PM EST) - I think I found one I like and that does not mess up with IE. Let me know if you have problems.
HBCE Blog Gallery: Dr. Wes
Our first submission to the Healthcare Blog Gallery is called Dr. Wes - Musings in the Life of an Internist, Cardiologist, and Cardiac Electrophysiologist.
Here is his submission information:
Your Name
Westby G. Fisher, MD, FACC
Name of Blog
Dr. Wes
Website
http://drwes.blogspot.com
Description of Blog
Primarily a blog about cardiology, cardiac electrophysiology (heart rhythm disorders), and musings in the life of a doctor struggling to survive in the changing world of health care today. Health policy, the medical device industry, personal reflections, case studies, and an occasional humorous post round out the collection.
Describe yourself
I started as a science and computer geek who became a biomedical engineer, then doctor in a subspecialty that combined by interests. I work, I play, I care, like everyone else.
Favorite Tags
cardiology, health policy, electrophysiology, medical devices, rants
Why do you blog?
I blog for therapy - for myself and perhaps, someone else. I blog to rant, I blog to inform. I blog to give people a window into another human being’s struggles and concerns, and I blog because it’s fun.
Why should readers read your blog?
To see a glimpse into one cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist’s health care world.
Favorite Post:
Working Hands
His hands told his story.
Theirs was a story of manual labor, for several distal phalanges were missing. Work was his life. Scars adorned the dorsum of several fingers and the skin was hyperpigmented from the sun. A few bruises were present from blunt trauma since they remained active still.But the thinness of the skin was also telling, as each tendon sheath was now clearly visible beneath its crepe-like veil; each distorted joint more clearly visible. The thenar and hypothenar eminences, too, were wasted. Clutching a fork or spoon had become a challenge.
I noticed a small pearly nodule of the dorsum of his hand, just proximal to his index finger whose distal phalyx angled abruptly from arthritis. The nodule was smoothly circumscribed, with a small arteriole visible near the crest of its prominence. A basal cell tumor, I wondered? Near his wrist, was the irregular pulse that still pounded as it struggled to supply these hands with blood
Site Review:
This blog is one of the blogs I follow regularly. Wes mixes medical and cardiology content with personal commentary and opinion. He is also not afraid to exercise his significant writing talent, with several recent posts dealing with his father’s recent illness. He does not seem to re-hash what a lot of other bloggers are talking about, but instead finds original subjects and different perspectives on things.
I enthusiastically recommend his blog.
Dr. Rob (Rob Lamberts) - Musings of a Distractible Mind
Call for Submissions
I have renamed it the “Healthcare Blog Gallery.” I guess the innate fear people have of clowns and “meat on a stick,” as Dean put it has scared folks from the use of the word “Carnival.” I guess I can live with that, since carnivals do seem to bring a fair amount of riff-raff with them.
So I need submissions. Anyone who is displaying the code of ethics on their website is invited to go over to the submissions page and send me your stuff. I want you to entice your readers. Sell your blog so others will want to go there.
