Medgadget Weblog Awards 2009: Polls are open! January 6, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Blogging, Medgadget, Medicine, Medicine 2.0.4 comments
This is January which means the prestigious Medgadget Weblog Awards will rule the medical blogosphere for weeks. The polls are open now and I thought I would share with you who I voted for and why.
- Best Medical Weblog: No question about that. The best medical blog belongs to a person who I consider my mentor and who has been doing exceptionally quality job for years. Yes, this is the Clinical Cases and Images blog managed by Vesselin Dimov.
- Best New Medical Weblog (established in 2008): Jacqualine runs one of my favourite medical blogs, the Laika’s MedLibLog, and if you need proof why I chose that one, check her latest post on the difference between web 1.0 and 2.0 regarding medicine.
- Best Clinical Sciences Weblog: I’m a fan of scan man’s notes, but Clinical Cases and Images is unbeatable in this category.
- Best Medical Technologies/Informatics Weblog: I think Ted Eytan, MD just rocks and Clinical Cases and Images shouldn’t win 3 categories (it would make things quite boring). Don’t forget to check out the blog of my fellow medstudent pals at TomographyBlog.
- Best Patient’s Blog: Undoubtedly, Kerri Morrone of Six Until Me is the blogger you should choose. She is the best example how an e-patient can become a valuable guide for other patients.
Many thanks to Medgadget for managing this great medblog event!
And one more thing, maybe the most important one: all the nominated blogs are winners. And I mean it!
What’s on the web? (5 January 2009) January 5, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in What's on the web?.add a comment
This is the first collection of links this year, I hope you still enjoy them!
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Social Media Trends to Watch for in 2009 (Ozmosis Blog): Jason Bhan shares very important thoughts on 2009 predictions.
- Top Healthcare Conversations of 2008 (Healthcare NBIC)
- NewScientist Gallery of The inner workings of cells:
(Image: IN Cell Image Competition)
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‘Maple Leaf’ Twitter: Why Aren’t More Canadian Librarians on Twitter? (UBC Academic Search): Why aren’t more librarians on Twitter worldwide?
- The Open Laboratory 2008 – and the Winners are….. (A Blog Around the Clock): A list of excellent scientific blogposts.
- The Web 2.0-EBM Medicine split. [1] Introduction into a short series. (Laika’s MedLibBlog): A unique comparision of web 1.0 and web 2.0 in medicine.
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Medical computer games (Biomedicine on Display)
The Use of Virtual Reality in Addiction Medicine January 5, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Medicine Meets Virtual Reality, science, Second Life, Virtuality.Tags: addiction, mmvr, Second Life, VR
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One of the demonstrations at this year’s Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17 conference I can’t wait to see is the demonstration of Chris Culbertson (Neuroscience Ph.D. student) who will present how virtual reality can be used in addiction medicine:
Demonstration: Use of VR in Addiction Medicine. During the exposure, participants are encompassed within a sensory isolation apparatus, including a 32” LCD monitor and a surround-sound audio system. Participants interact with the specially created virtual world in Second Life, run from a standard Dell PC, using a simple gaming remote control. An additional monitor is placed outside of the apparatus for outside observation.
This method can be used in behavioral pharmacology research and it also makes it possible to improve cognitive behavioral treatments and exam drug taking behavior in a naturalistic environment. Read more about it.
Further reading about this year’s MMVR17:
- EyeSeeCam: Surgeons record what they see
- Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17: The Salon and The Well
- Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17: Virtual Reality Therapy
- Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17: Simulation in Second Life
- Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17: Interviews and a blog
- Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17: Organizing Committee
10 Tips: How to filter discussions on Twitter? January 4, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in List, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Web 2.0.Tags: filter, friendfeed, information, tips, top 10, tweetdeck, twitter
45 comments
I follow more than 570 users on Twitter that leads to more than 100 new tweets an hour and I don’t have hours a day to check all the messages. Co-bloggers frequently ask me how I can follow all of them efficiently. Well, I have a few tips on this and feel free to share yours with us:
- Tweetdeck: The best tool to organize your tweets. I created a Health 2.0 group to filter the tweets of the users who are writing about medicine or health 2.0.
- Twitter Search: I always do a search for a few keywords to find new people twitting about my field of interest.
- Twilert.com: It works like Google Alerts which means it lets you receive regular e-mail updates of tweets containing your keywords.
- Filter by replies: It’s easy to discover ongoing discussions as people reply to each other so sometimes it’s enough to follow the buzz. Omnee helps you with it:
- Tweetree: It puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context.
- Tweetscan: You can get updates via e-mail, RSS and scan up to five phrases for daily or weekly delivery.
- Twitscoop: Insert a twitter username or keywords in the search box to track a conversation, topic or conference.
- Power Twitter: A Firefox Add-on that integrates search, images and videos into you stream.
- Friendfeed daily best: I subscribed to many of my Twitter followers on Friendfeed as well. So the Friendfeed daily best feature helps me filter the most valuable discussions.
- FFholic.com: A collection of the most discussed, commented, liked, etc. Friendfeed messages.
What are your tips?
Further reading:
- The Youngest Twitterer and the Future of Health Management
- Twitterview: The Future of Medicine in 140 Characters
- What you have to know about Twitter
- Twitter for Health and Medicine
- 10 Reasons Why I Use Twitter
- Tips and Tricks: Is Twitter reliable?
- Health Tweeple to Follow
- Twitter for Health and Medicine
- Omnee: An organic directory of Twitter users
Webicina.com: HONcode accreditation! January 4, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Web 2.0, Webicina.9 comments
Webicina.com is my service that aims to help medical professionals and patients enter the web 2.0 era by providing e-courses, consulting and personalized packages.
I couldn’t start the new year better as Webicina was just accredited by HONcode (Health on the Net Foundation) which is a non-profit international organization promoting and guiding the deployment of useful and reliable online medical and health information, and its appropriate and efficient use.
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We comply with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here. |
In January, we’re going to come up with some major improvements. Stay tuned for more!
Further reading:
Health 2.0 in 2009 January 3, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in eHealth, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.2 comments
Don’t worry, there won’t be any new year’s resolutions. I would only like to share a few interesting links with you.
- Top 20 eHealth News Articles of the 2008 Year (eHealthNews.eu)
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Tech-savvy med students fear life without EMRs (aMEDnews.com)
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Monitoring mental health by text (BBC News):
Every morning at precisely 10 am Joe (not his real name) gets a text message from his clinician, asking how he is feeling.
From the data received the medical team can plot his mood swings, monitor how his medication is working and assess when he needs his next face-to-face appointment.
adjunct clinical professor in the Program in Health Communication at how to use online medical resources wisely.
Information should be current. Advances in medical science are frequent.
A nice-looking website is not necessarily one with high-quality information. Be wary of sites with a hidden or not-so-hidden agenda, such as some of those sponsored by pharmaceutical firms or makers of herbal supplements.
Your peers in online health communities are not doctors. Within these forums, people often offer advice based on their experiences. But you have to consider how seriously to take some of what you read.
I covered the same topic in my Dangers of Web 2.0: In Medicine post.
But you don’t have to be web-savvy to become a successful doctor. Just see th example of H. Ryan Kazemi. Here are some points that might explain his success:
- 3-minute rule: No patient waits longer than three minutes of their appointment before being seen. (“We are 99% compliant.”)
- Immediate letters to referring doctors informing them of real-time progress of their patients.
- Emergency patients always seen on the same day, immediately.
- If a patient or doctor calls after hours, Ryan gets paged and calls back within 5 minutes. (He finds after-hour outsourcing services are often poor quality.)
- All patient and referral inquiries are addressed within the same day.
MeeID: Create an online ID January 3, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Online image, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
Early adopters of web 2.0 have many websites and accounts so it becomes harder and harder to follow all of these forms of online presence. MeeID may help us by creating one ID that contains all the information about us.
MeeID is the one website that you give to others. We simplify your digital life.
I’ve already created my online ID. Will you create yours?
Follow them on Twitter.
EyeSeeCam: Surgeons record what they see January 2, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Surgery, Video.Tags: Surgery
2 comments
EyeSeeCam will be presented in the Salon at this year’s Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 17 conference. The man behind the idea is Johannes Vockeroth from the University Hospital Munich.
Demonstration: The Gaze-Driven Head-Mounted Camera is a novel approach to document medical treatment. The device stores and transmits the exclusive point of view of the surgeon.
EyeSeeCam is a novel head-mounted camera controlled by the user’s eye movements. It allows, for the first time, to literally see the world through somebody else’s eyes. A mobile eye tracker system continuously directs the camera towards the user’s point of gaze, so that the camera captures exactly what the user’s eyes see.
It means surgeons can record surgical procedures from their “point of views”.
Top 10 Self-Surgeries January 2, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in List, Medical case, Medicine, Surgery, Video.Tags: self-surgery, Surgery
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According to the Wikipedia article on self-surgery:
Self-surgery is the act of performing a surgical procedure on oneself. It can be a rare manifestation of a psychological disorder, an attempt to avoid embarrassment or legal action, or an act taken in extreme circumstances out of necessity.
Now the List Universe created a list of the top 10 most incredible self-surgeries. A short overview about what you will find there (the names and the procedure they performed):
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Dr Jerri Nielsen: Biopsy
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Amanda Feilding: Trepanation
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Deborah Sampson: Extraction of Musket Ball
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Dr Evan O’Neill Kane: Appendectomy and Inguinal Hernia Repair
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Joannes Lethaeus: Lithotomy (Removal of stones formed inside certain hollow organs such as the bladder and kidneys)
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Sampson Parker: Amputation of Right Arm
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Dr Leonid Rogozov: Appendectomy
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Douglas Goodale: Amputation of Right Arm
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Aron Ralston: Amputation of Right Arm
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Ines Ramírez: Caesarean Section
You shouldn’t miss all those interesting stories and incredible images.
Diabetes365: The best e-patient project ever January 2, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in e-patient, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Video, Web 2.0.Tags: diabetes, Health, images, management, Video
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Kerri Morrone is one of the most famous e-patients nowadays. She runs the popular Sixuntilme blog that focuses on diabetes management and now finished a one-year-long project, the Diabetes365 (check the Flickr image collection out):
Over the last 366 days (leap year added the extra challenge), I’ve lived my life with my camera at the ready, snapping photos of everything from CGM sensors to snacks … and the moments in between. I thought that the Diabetes 265 project would make me feel like diabetes is an overwhelming facet of my life, but instead I’ve seen that diabetes truly does not define any of us. We can grab pictures of our meters and our pump sites, but there’s also so much LIFE going on between all these moments of diabetes management.
Why is it important?
Because Kerri can provide other patients with sometimes more information on diabetes than their own doctors. She can give support and help to diabetic people around the world. And let’s be honest here. If you find out you have a chronic medical condition, do you check a medical website first or start reading other patients’ stories?
E-patients become guides for other patients. And healthcare needs these valuable guides more than ever…
More on e-patients:
