Blog

Dr. A Show 54: Symtym

Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 9pm Eastern Time

Just featured by the ACP Internist, The Doctor Anonymous Show is scheduled to welcome Tim who is an ER doc and author of the blog "Symtym: A Physician meandering medicine, law, and technology." Although, I have to admit that I'm a little confused - especially when I read this twitter saying that he is working tonight. I do know people like Dr. Val, Ramona, and ScanMan were very much looking forward to hearing from Tim. (Update: As sometimes happens on twitter, there was a little miscommunication. Symtym confirms his appearance to Dr. Val and to Medical Quack)

In addition to our conversation with Tim, we'll also be talking about said recognition for this show and my upcoming conference next week where I will be taking the show on the road and possibly doing FOUR shows in FOUR nights next week. What was I thinking? Finally, who knows? Maybe I'll have a Halloween costume on tonight.

If you do listen live, you can even take part in the chat room. It is truly "The show within the show." You can even call in and say hello. A great opportunity to interact with medbloggers you've only read about. And, you will be able to see me on the live webcam during the show! See you tonight!

For first time Blog Talk Radio listeners:
*Although it is not required to listen to the show, I encourage you to register on the BlogTalkRadio site prior to the show. I think it will make the process easier.

*To get to my show site, click here. As show time gets closer, keep hitting "refresh" on your browser until you see the "Click to Listen" button. Then, of course, press the "Click to Listen" button.

*You can also participate in the live chat room before, during, and after the show. Look for the "Chat Available" button in the upper right hand corner of the page. If you are registered with the BTR site, your registered name and picture will appear in the chat room.

*You can also call into the show. The number is on my show site. I'll start taking calls about halfway into the show. There is also a "Click To Talk" feature where you do not need a phone to call into the show - only a microphone headset. Hope these tips are helpful!

Show 54 Preview

The Doctor Anonymous Show is pleased to welcome Tim to show number 54 which will be Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 9pm eastern time. (see video post above) His blog and website is called "from Symtym: A Physician meandering medicine, law, and technology." Tim is an Emergency Department physician, and you can get a little glimpse of his day by checking out his twitter feed. I did want to highlight a recent post called "Pay Faux Performance: Trauma":

Thirty year old female has heavy shelving fall on top of head causing a scalp laceration. Due to ER crowding, the patient is seen rapidly by the physician–in–triage and has CT head and neck ordered. She is then placed in the waiting room for two hours, without a cervical collar, waiting for an exam room.

Should not the ordering of CT of the neck raise the possibility of neck injury? Is not the standard of basic trauma care to have the neck immobilized and the injured placed supine? Is this defensive medicine raising a faux concern and rendering a faux performance?

Cannot catch the show live? That's ok, because each and every Doctor Anonymous Show is available for download on my BlogTalkRadio page. And, if you have iTunes, you can click here to subscribe to my iTunes feed. So, that you, the Dr. A loyal listener can check out the show anytime! Plus, if you listen live, you can participate in the chat room, and even see my shining face on the webcam. How cool is that? I know. See you for the show!

First Snow of 2008

As I twittered yesterday, the first "official" snow around here already happened. But, now, here is "official" documentation of the thing. I tried to take an iPhone picture of the thing, but that was an epic fail. However, I did have my trusty flip mino, and turned it on. What I got is the video above. I mean it's not even Halloween yet. Yeesh! So, if you like snow, here you go! If not (like me), then, oh well....

Election Day 2008

I can't believe that we're this close to election day now. Personally, I just want to get this thing over with so that we can get on with our lives. I mean, it's felt like years since this whole process started - probably because it DID take years for this thing to build up and will come to its pinnacle (hopefully) on November 4th. Unfortunately, many out there, including the Columbus Dispatch, state that attorneys will again be involved in this national election - especially here in Ohio.

Anyway, the video post above is just my public service announcement for all my Doctor Anonymous readers and listeners. Again this year, I chose to vote via absentee ballot. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, I will be one of over 200,000 people who will cast votes early in Northeastern Ohio. So, don't forget to vote on November 4th!

Prez Health Care Policy Analysis

With 9 days left until the election, I'm actually starting to see articles that actually analyze the proposed policies of each of the presidential candidates. Imagine that? How about having an election based on differentiation of policy as opposed to personalities, or hype, or personal attacks, or anything else that you can think of.

Anyway, in today's Wall Street Journal online, the following is an excerpt from an article entitled, "Obama vs McCain: It's All About Your Money." In this article, there is analysis of policy issues like economic relief, income taxes, social security. Something this blog is interested in is the issue of health care. Here is that section below:

Sen. Obama proposes income-related subsidies for health insurance through a new national exchange, along with expanded access to Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and mandatory care for children. He would require employers that don't offer health coverage to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the national plan, with small businesses being exempt (and eligible for refundable tax credits on 50% of premiums).
Under this plan, premium payments for families would fall by about $185 and direct payments for health services by $253. The Lewin Group projects the Obama plan would reduce the number of uninsured by 26.6 million people in 2010, from 48.9 million.
Sen. McCain wants to replace the current income-tax exemption for health-insurance premiums paid by employers with a refundable tax credit of $5,000 per family ($2,500 for individuals). Any unused credit could be deposited into a Health Savings Account. His Guaranteed Access Plan (GAP) would allow people denied coverage to obtain insurance through state-run high-risk pools administered by private insurers, according to a report issued by the Joint Center for Political Economic Studies. Sen. McCain wants to allow people to purchase insurance across state lines, which could reduce the effectiveness of state regulations.
Under this plan, premium payments for families would increase by about $379 and direct payments for health services by about $105. "This would be more than offset by a net increase in tax subsidies of $1,570" and wage gains resulting from employer savings, the Lewin Group says. The Lewin Group projects that the McCain plan would reduce the number of uninsured by 21.1 million people.

The entire article is very good and I recommend it. However, in the specific area of health care, either candidate does not fully disclose how they will fully pay for their plan. We know that Congress approved at least $700 billion is going to banks and investment firms.

But, what about health care, and I'm not talking about insurance companies, attorneys, and other people who don't work on the front lines of medicine. What about the docs? Oh yeah, both campaigns accusing the other side for proposing future medicare cuts. Yeesh, I should have studied to be a banking CEO....

Halloween & Diabetes

I always wondered what it was like to be Halloween and you're a kid with diabetes. This question was asked by some people (including me) last week to our buddy Kerri from the blog SixUntilMe. In her video post above, she answers this question. Also check out the comment section. She already has more than 20 comments sharing their story. The diabetes blogging community is so great!

In addition, she's wondering what everyone is dressing up as for Halloween next week. Me? I haven't figured that out yet. I asked that question on my post-show last night and people wanted me to dress up as Kermit the Frog or some other kind of muppet (I couldn't remember exactly)

The best thing about Kerri's video above is the editorial comments at the bottom of the screen. It's kind of like that "pop-up video," if anyone remembers that. Or, maybe that's her inner voice coming through on the screen. Anyway, entertaining nonetheless. Also, Kerri recently said that she has a Flip Mino camera on the way. So, hopefully, we'll be seeing more video posts soon. YAY!

Show 53 Wrap-up

Thanks so much to Carrie for being on Show 53 tonight (don't forget to rate the show!). (Download the show here.) We started the interview by talking about how she came to choose nursing as a career - and specifically the career of working with neonatal patients and their families.

We then discussed when and how she was diagnosed with her chronic illness of daily headaches. Through this experience, Carrie has become quite the advocate for patients with chronic headaches and chronic pain. (Check out the video post above)

We then talked about her love of music. She even has a blog specifically talking about her music over on wordpress. You can even download some songs that she recorded herself. I played a few pop songs that she covered, but she also has classical music over there as well. Definitely recommend that you check that out and take a listen.

Finally, I shared my intro from the Somewhere in Vegas show earlier this week. That was great fun to do. Thanks again to Marq for giving me the opportunity for that. Following the show, I went for about 30 minutes over on my ustream channel. It is so interesting because the after show is gathering as much people (almost) as the show itself. Thanks to all of you who support the show, the after show, and the blog. I really appreciate it. Have a great weekend!

Dr. A Show Tonight!

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 9pm Eastern Time

The Doctor Anonymous Show is happy to welcome Carrie from the blog "NeoNurseChic" on this show tonight. Don't you love when guests do their own promos? Make sure you check out Carrie in her video post above as she mentions what she is going to talk about on the show - including her struggle with chronic disease, her blog (Carrie is a nurse who works in a neonatal intensive care unit), and anything else that comes up during the show.

*To get to my show site, click here. As show time gets closer, keep hitting "refresh" on your browser until you see the "Click to Listen" button. Then, of course, press the "Click to Listen" button.

*You can also call into the show. The number is on my show site. I'll start taking calls about halfway into the show. Hope these tips are helpful!

Strep throat amputation

Saw this video report (above) from CNN this morning. At first look, I'm thinking, "Well, this is good, right?" This will cause people to come in and be evaluated for their sore throats. Because at the end of the report, they say, "So, this winter, if you have a sore throat, get a strep test."

But, as my conspiracy theory mind starts to think, could this report further worsen the antibiotic resistance problem in this country? What do I mean by that? Well, by seeing this report, will this cause patients to further push docs to give them that antibiotic for that viral infection? Of course, there is the 48 hour strep culture. But, still. Just to think about the unintended consequences of a report like this is interesting. Now, I have to get back to work. Johnny has a sore throat in exam room two.

Show 53 Preview

The Doctor Anonymous Show is honored to welcome a good friend to the show this week. Carrie from the blog called "NeoNurseChic" has been following the blog almost since I started 2 years ago. I've been trying to have her be a guest on the show for a long time.

On her blog, Carrie talks about her constant challenges with headaches. In a post from June 26, she talks about the annual conference of the American Headache Society. She reports about the recent news in the treatment of headaches and migraines. She has made no secret about her frustrations about her chronic illness. Just check out her twitter feed.

As you can tell from the title of her blog, she is a neonatal nurse and for a while, she did talk about her job on her blog. But, then something changed and she removed virtually all of the posts having to do with work from her blog. Following this she took a blog break. She came back (YAY) on June 11, 2008 with this post.

So I haven't blogged here in over a year, although I have blogged sporadically in a couple of other ways, and I continue to follow a couple of my favorite blogs closely! The fact of the matter is that I have missed blogging so much! And blogging on other sites in other ways just hasn't been the same as it was when I had my active blog here at NeoNurseChic. Any return readers will remember why I took my blog private - it was being read at work, and nobody would let me know who was reading it so much, and I started to get paranoid about the information on my blog being used against me in some way. Taking the blog private did ease up on those feelings, but then I felt like I lost a lot of the enjoyment of having a public blog! So, in coming back, I have removed most of my old posts (they're not gone, exactly - just in hiding). I have kept some of the more general posts up - posts which don't make me feel nervous about being read!

Finally, Carrie has a love of music and she talks about it in a post from January 15, 2007 in which she recorded some of her piano playing. Hopefully, I'll be able to download some of those audio files and share them on the show with all of you. So, join us on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 9pm Eastern Time for The Doctor Anonymous Show. See you then!