Grand Rounds 3.25 March 13, 2007

It’s my honor to host this week’s Grand rounds, the weekly rotating carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere. Medical students think alike: in preparing for this edition I came across an earlier Monty Python theme, The Holy Grail of GR at The Rumors Were True. Now, I decided to use some medicine and health care related Monty Python videos to provide funny moments while reading all the nearly 60 submitted articles.

I hope you’re going to enjoy this edition. Let’s start with one of my favourite subjects: from prenatal care to childhood. Also don’t miss the Python’s hospital sketch about a childbirth below:

• Hsien Hsien Lei at Genetics and Health writes about Dr. Rav Dhallan of Ravgen and shares her thoughts on prenatal testing.
• Health Observances blog examines the economic impact of birth defects, or the folic acid awareness.
• Tales from the Womb presents Baby Toby Saga, a collaborative mini-series created with Dream Mom. The idea was to pilot a new form of short story on the blogosphere between a physician and a patient. Don’t miss any of the chapters.
• Healthy Children’s post, Enhance Your Kids with Drugs, Machines, and Perfect Genes asks parents: which group will they choose for their kids: the enhanced or the ordinary?
• Dr. Wes talks about a headline story, the relationship between trans fat and milk (Milk Might Be Harmful to Children).

Let’s continue with many bloggers’ main subject, diet from several aspects:

• Parallel Universes: a man lost 395 pounds with the best diet.
• The Family Fork describes the National Nutrition Month.
• Junkfood Science asks the question whether school PE is really the answer to “childhood obesity?” Then Sandy Szwarc takes a look at the latest study on neurotoxicity of methylmercury for developing fetus’ and children and the body of evidence.
• Having a Bad Mood? Eat Fish! according to Straight From The Doc.
• Are you “Eating With Your Anorexic?” presents a to-do list for teens on how to gain weight.
• The Doctor Blogger tells us the classic patient response on aerobic exercises.
• Exercise and Fitness Blog proves with an image that using abdominal muscles is not tightening or pressing navel to spine.

Mr. Gumby, in the Python video below, can’t find a nurse, but we always find the best posts of our favourite nurse bloggers:

• PixelRN tells us why she hearts pulmonologists.
• I couldn’t miss the Crazy Genes post from Nurse Ratched’s Place.
• And Kim at Emergiblog had a post about nurse bribing

Posts on Diabetes care:

• Diabetes Mine posted random thoughts on pumping without tubes.
• Six Until Me admits that she hates needles.
• Maybe that’s why Kevin, M.D. wrote about the complexities of drawing blood.
• Chronic Babe presents a review on the book, Know your numbers, outlive your diabetes and an interview with the authors.
• And last, an interesting article on depression treatment that can ease diabetes symptoms.

Before watching a video on a hospital in which the doctors relax and the patients do all of the work, let’s see the usual health care section:

• Dr. David Erani at HealthcareForum.com asks the big question: is death penalty disproportionately used against the poor?
• Kevin, M.D. (1 doctor for 18,000 patients) and Universal Health (From Zero To Infinity And Beyond) both posted on military healthcare.
• According to the Health Business Blog, Senators still seem to be missing the point on generic biologics.
• Doc in the Machine describes new FDA programs which try to track drug safety and share data with the public.
• MSSP Nexus Blog examines patient safety and mentions a book on how to build a safer health system.
• Susan Palwick at Rickety contrivances of doing good is a volunteer ED chaplain and has written a post about the frustration of dealing with inappropriate parenting in the ED.
• Transplant Headquarters tells us how to look up a transplant center.
• A true story from The wait and the Wonder blog on miscommunication. For over 3 months, she thought her daughter was actively listed for a liver transplant, when she was, in fact, still listed as a status 7, inactive.
• An other transplantation issue from A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure about the organ-transplant network.
• Then The InsureBlog takes us into the far future where everyone will have access to free health care.

Our medical bloggers provided us with many interesting and instructive cases:

• Val Jones, M.D. presents a story about a man who was bitten by a rabid bat. Did you know why rabies can cause “hydrophobia” in its victims?
• Or did you know what is the correct way to remove a tick if it is embedded in a person or pet? Medicine for the Outdoors answers the question.
  
• Odysseys of George’s first article is about an elderly lady with intestinal obstruction (fascinating images!); in the second one, he shows the sad part of medicine: death.
• Parcho, MD knows well how to deliver a baby in medicine style.
• Dr. Signout tells us a drug seeker’s story in the Gut reaction post.
• And a terrible story in other things amanzi blog on sjambok syndrome.

Fun, musings, robotics and a strange video which proves that sometimes we can’t hear or see the patient even if it’s our fault. Consider this section as the editor’s choice:

• Street Anatomy came up with a funny post on anatomical studies of cartoon characters.
• Musings of a Distractible Mind mused about immunizations.
• Highlight Health did the same about where cold and flu germs live and hide.
• The Blog That Ate Manhattan says Cox-2 inhibitors are a bad thing if you are trying to get pregnant.
• Doctor Disgruntled let me know about a short, but funny post on Immune Classic Thong.
• MedGadget‘s Fantastic Robotic Voyage shows new hopes in gastroenterology.
• On The Wards and Blog, MD both wrote about the use of mobile phones in hospitals.
• Med High Valley tells us what to do if you drop your pager in the toilet.
• Then Domenico Savatta at Thoughts from a robotic surgeon couldn’t resist to tell a controversial story about gay bashing in the medical blogosphere.
• Do you want to live forever? My fellow medstudent, From Medskool presents Aubery de Grey’s opinion on the subject.
• Enrico Cantu from Mexico Medical Student realizes how much a medical student has to learn.
• Foggy Bottom Lantern asks that which disease you would choose to wipe off the face of the earth and why?

I don’t know whether there have ever been an images’ section, but here it is:

• Photoblog – for the dopamine created an incredible image on burnout syndrome in medicine.
• Vitum Medicinus shows what it’s like when the lecturer annotates his slides.
• And a picture, outside the ED from Gruntdoc.

At last, I hope I create a new section in the history of Grand rounds with medicine and web 2.0:

• The Insomnia Blog posted on buying prescription drugs on the internet.
• Clinical Cases and Images – Blog says a urologist shares robotic surgery schedule via Google Calendar.
• Don’t miss the first podcast of Doc in the Machine !

I hope you enjoyed this Grand rounds edition as I’ve had so much fun while doing it. Thank you, Nick Genes for the opportunity and all the help. Please prepare for the next edition at Blog, MD. Sorry for the irking medical Monty Python videos, but I must say that thank you for watching and good night a dingdingdingdingding…