Vote for Dr. A!

The polls are now open over at MedGagdet.com for the 2006 Medical Weblog Awards. I've been nominated in two categories, but I'm only focusing my efforts on one category.

Vote for Doctor Anonymous for Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2006). I encourage you to check out my favorite posts (the links are in my sidebar) from the past six months. Those will definitely convince you to vote for me. I think I have a good mix of patient stories, current events coverage, opinion pieces, and some humorous posts to be considered for best new medical weblog of the year.

I've also been nominated for Best Overall Medical Weblog. While I appreciate the nomination, I feel I'm definitely outclassed in this strong field. Maybe one day, I'll be ready to compete with this group, but not at this point in my blog life.

According to MedGadget, here are the rules for voting and counting:

Judges will conduct a review of each blog submitted and will vote to sort out those blogs that don't belong to a particular category, or simply splogs (spam blogs.) Furthermore, judges will vote for blogs. Your votes and judges' votes are counted as 50% to 50%. Such a voting system was held at a recent TV show Dancing with the Stars, and details on how the counting was done can be found here.

Voting for the awards will be open to all, but you will only be able to vote once. (No hacking or cookie manipulation will be tolerated -- only one vote for each category from a particular IP address.)

The polls will close on Sunday, January 14, 2007 at midnight PST. But, don't wait until then! Cast your vote right now. Vote Doctor Anonymous for Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2006). Don't forget to vote in the other categories. Thanks so much for your consideration!

Stop Reading Diet Articles

Want to lose weight? Well, then one thing you absolultely should NOT do is read articles about diet and weight loss. This is according to a new study from the University of Minnesota.

Huh? That doesn't make sense. Well, I did leave something out. This study talked about teenage girls reading about dieting and weight loss in magazine articles. To me, this is kind of the first step before going to the pro-ana and pro-mia sites which I have talked about before.

The AP article describes some of the results of the Univ of Minn. study:

It didn't seem to matter whether the girls were overweight when they started reading about weight loss, nor whether they considered their weight important. After taking those factors into account, researchers still found reading articles about dieting predicted later unhealthy weight loss behavior.

Girls in middle school who read dieting articles were twice as likely five years later to try to lose weight by fasting or smoking cigarettes, compared to girls who never read such articles. They were three times more likely to use measures such as vomiting or taking laxatives, the study found.

I admit that I'm seeing this already in my office only a couple of days into the new year. Teenage girls asking about dietary tips. The study even points a finger at doctors offices...

"Doctors' waiting rooms are no place for magazines promoting diet and weight loss," [Co-author Patricia van den Berg] said, "in the same way you don't have materials promoting smoking in waiting rooms."

Usually, the most common complaint was have about our waiting room magazines is how old they are (meaning from 1-2 years ago). But, now I'll have to see what's out there. It's definitely a slippery slope. If I take out everything that is potentially objectionable to anyone, there will be no magazines left. Sheesh!

Kick out the kids

How are those new year's resolutions going? For me, after day one, I'm still hanging in there. However, are you already finding it difficult to keep that resolution of eating right? I've got an idea: Get rid of your kids!

This article from The Daily Mail describes that researchers at the University of Iowa have shown that living with children also means you are more likely to eat foods such as cheese, ice cream, beef, pizza and salty snacks.

This adds up to five extra grams of fat each day. And, taken over an entire week, this is equivalent to to a pepperoni pizza a week in saturated fat alone. The leader of the study said this:

"An important implication of the study is that healthy changes in eating need to focus on the entire household, not just individuals, especially when there is so much obesity among the young."

"Often children demand these less healthy foods but everyone's eating them and it's a pattern we've got to change by helping everyone think more about their dietary choices," she added.

I suppose that making healthy dietary changes for the entire family is better than showing your kids the door. You probably saw this study last week talking about Pre-school Obesity. But, the next time you're craving really fatty food and faced with the choice of getting rid of your pizza or your kid, which would you choose? HA!

Grand Rounds

Doctor Rob over at Musings of a Distractible Mind has Grand Rounds 3.15 now up and running. A rather explosive theme this week - literally. A creative mix of pictures and music intermixed among this weeks postings.

If you've never heard of Grand Rounds before, it's a weekly collection of the best posts that the medical blogsosphere has to offer. Are you interested in medical topics? Well, who isn't? I encourage you to head on over to Dr. Rob's site and check it out. It's Grand Rounds!

That's So 2006

Many people believe that we should leave The Donald and The Rosie and their war of words back in 2006. I would tend to agree with that.

But, on Sunday, Lake Superior State University released its annual List of Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness." Their current list includes gems like, "show me the money, "erectile dysfunction" and "holiday tree."

This AP article reviews some of the words on the 2007 list:

Critics piled on the media's practice of combined celebrity names such as "TomKat" or "Brangelina." One said, "It's so annoying, idiotic and so lame and pathetic that it's "lamethetic.'"

Take "ask your doctor," the mantra of pharmaceutical commercials. The university called it "the chewable vitamin morphine of marketing."

The university's word watchers had no use for "truthiness," the word popularized by Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert. It was selected as the word that best summed up 2006 in an online survey by dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.

So, as you're walking around today and writing your blog posts, make sure that you stay away from these banished words. Need the complete list? Well, here is the complete list of 2007 List of Banished Words. Enjoy!

Happy New Year

I can say this now, because it is 2007 in some parts of the world. The picture above is from Sydney, Australa (*waving to HP*).

I've finally caught up on my rest. I don't want to bore you with all the details, but it was just crazy at work last week. Great to have a weekend off to catch my breath.

On a day like today, one cannot help but reflect back on the year that was and the year that will be. Even though it's really cheezy to say, but it is a time of hope. A time to kind of give yourself a clean slate to start again.

Some are really into this new year's resolution thing. I admit that sometimes I make them and sometimes I don't. There's this columnist that says Forget New Year's Resolutions. But, for me, here we go.

Physical health: I know. I'm one of the many people who make this resolution. But, I really think that I can do it this time. Or, maybe it's the guilt of all those sweets that I consumed at holiday time. Hmm....

Mental health: Why do I feel like I'm confessing all my sins? Anyway, I could do a little better at dealing with stress. Usually, when I'm at work, I have no problem reaching for the M&Ms or whatever chocolate is around - especially last week when things were really busy. Finding a better way to deal with this will help. How to do this? I'm still working on that.

Better blogging: Yes, that's right. Even though you see links to all my fave posts in the sidebar, I really believe that my best blogging will be in 2007. Or, I'll completely lose my mind and write the worst posts ever. You'll have to stay tuned and find out. Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!

Still here

I know that there have been reports that I've been trapped at Denver International Airport all week. Wouldn't that be an interesting story? I feel bad for those people out there. Who wanted a white Christmas?

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I'm still around - just swamped at work this week. Although, I was one of those millions who tried to use my iTunes gift card earlier this week and found a slow server. Finally was able to get some music.

Sorry about the boring update. I'm going to get some rest this weekend and hopefully be back to normal blogging next week. Happy New Year 2007!

Grand Rounds

I'm going to be working a lot this week. So, I want to apologize up front if I have a sparsity of posts over the next few days. The docs in our group take turns working the holidays throughout the year, and this is my year for the Xmas/New Year's stretch. Also, I've gotten lots of spam comments the last few days. So, I'll be moderating comments until I think the spam has slowed down. Sorry. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Grand Rounds 3.14 has went home for the holidays. If you have never heard of Grand Rounds before, it is a group of medically related posts brought together in one place every Tuesday. The final Grand Rounds of 2006 is up an running at Blogborygmi. Thanks to THE MAN, Nick Genes, for including my submit under the "levity" section.

Dr. Anonymous is upset about me being named Time magazine's Person of the Year (and here I was, thinking you were the choice). He proposes something else -- something that can be part of us, and yet, is distinctly not us...

Nick was also a little reflective talking about those medical bloggers who have stopped blogging and those bloggers who took some time off and now are back. If you have never checked out Grand Rounds before, I would encourage you to check it out this week. This is the best the medical blogosphere has to offer! It's Grand Rounds!

Merry Christmas

On this Christmas holiday, Mimi Lenox is asking bloggers around the world to re-post their peace globes from the original blogcast for peace from November 7, 2006. This was a great idea, and I'm happy to be a part of it again.

In other news, I tried again to switch to the new Blogger, but was again rejected with the same message I received the first time from Blogger beta. Oh well, maybe something can be figured out for people like me who are having problems switching.

Finally, some time today, I will have had my 50,000 visitor to the Doctor Anonymous blog. I cannot believe it took only six months (plus one week). Are you the 50,000th visitor? Let me know. I mean, hey, YOU are Time Magazine's Person of the Year. Happy holidays from all of us here at Doctor Anonymous!

Do they know it's christmas

This is the 1984 video of the song by Band Aid. Found it on YouTube. I forgot how many stars (at the time) were on this song. How many can you name? I'm on call this long holiday weekend. So, I'll be around the blogosphere seeing what's going on. Don't forget to put up Mimi's Peace Globe on Sunday. Safe travel to those of you going out on the road, in the sky, or out at sea, or wherever you're at. Happy Holidays!