Poem: Desiderata

read, and ponder...

prosopagnosia...

aka 'face blindness' - perspective of someone who has it.
always gives me a somewhat uncomfortable jolt, to find that something i read a sentence or two about in a medical textbook, or got a fleeting mention in one of the many lectures, can totally affect many, if not all, aspects of someone's whole life.

you are in for such a treat...

not going on holiday? not a problem!
the wonders of the internet have provided an answer!
now sit back, choose your holiday soundtrack, and relax...

my favourite - the beach

jungle time

underwater (this one might make you need the loo - you have been warned)

nothing like the sound of rain (perhaps try using this one to confuse others. imagine the scene: there you are, simply checking your mail - then those around hear the background sound of heavy rain... 'is it really raining that hard?' they run to window...)

catching those waves

duckies!

seagulls

and if you're really missing the city...

another one to cause some mayhem...

and they're off!

i digress...

a woodland wander

waterfall

whatever you do, have fun!

on the presence of a medical student.

Someone who liked having a medical student around... well, someone has to like having a medical student around! Normally, it seems that no-one does, and all we seem to do is get in the way, sob...

possible antibiotics in strange places...

... wallaby's milk?!?
Now that was one interesting brain wave.
The tone of the article can be a bit over the top at times (e.g. 'magic substance'... 'nuff said).

poems: toothache

ouch, ouch and OUCH!
Address to the Toothache by Robert Burns
The Bane Of Pain by Tim Chambers

virtual body

Virtual body - go forth and explore...

thinking of skateboarding?

a quicker way to get from A to B than simply walking... so many cool moves to try, like the ones you see on the telly or the skateboarding kids in that area with the smooth paving...
Think again.
Here's something that will get that thought right out of your head quicker than you can think 'skateboarding... I should try that some day...'
or, at least it's got some safety tips from an 'association' (v official) of orthopaedic surgeons, who've probably seen way too many nasty injuries.

Yikes!

Come to think of it, walking does seem kind of easier on the limbs.
But, if you still want to skate, here's how.

hypnosis and surgery

The fasionably termed hypnosurgery

An article in the Times.

Papers (actually not that easy to find - the few there were, were in German):
Hypnosis for procedure-related pain and distress in pediatric cancer patients: a systematic review of effectiveness and methodology related to hypnosis interventions.

Perioperative use of medical hypnosis. Therapy options for anaesthetists and surgeons - something to use alongside conventional anaesthesia.

I think I'd prefer to stick to the conventional stuff for the time being.
In ye olde times (before the days of chemical anaesthesia), their idea of 'putting the patient to sleep' involved a)punching their lights out, b)getting the patient so drunk they lost consciousness, or c) get several big, strong men to hold the screaming, fighting patient down during the operation. Surgeon's were famed for how fast they could do surgery (read: amputate limbs) - e.g. the 'best' could finish the job in under minute. Patient post-op survival wasn't really expected to be that high, actually, it wasn't high at all. This was also the time before they thought having a new set of clothes and washing hands and equipment between patients was a good idea - therefore loads of infection
Hence, twas when chemical anaesthesia came along, that surgery in the guise we know it today, developed and flourished.
Hypnosurgery may have its place - but let's not get too excited too quickly.

the manga-medical student link

Japanese medical student in the 1940's invents manga and anime as we know it today. Also came up with a tale about an orphaned lion cub who hangs out with a baboon - later (widely thought to have) inspired Disney to come up with The Lion King. The whole manga stuff turned out to be so successful for him, he graduated as a doctor but never practised - deciding to continue with manga.
Now that is random.

A cautionary tale...

I'm not with the whole 'Blackberry' thing (too many things on one device - and do I really need, or want constant email access?) - but many others are. This is tale of someone forgetting a public space... is a public space.

Scientific study: the benefits of marinading

The wonderful thing about pubmed (a medical/healthcare search engine) is that I could be searching for one thing, and end up finding something else, totally unrelated to what I was searching for, but far more interesting. An example:
Meat (within balance) is good for you. It contains all sorts of proteins/essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals that keep your body nice and healthy. Cooking meat kills off nasty bacteria, but it can also increase the number of cancer causing chemicals, aka mutagens (relatively tiny, tiny amounts - you'd have to go really overboard for it to have a major effect). However, marinading meat before cooking it can reduce the formation of these mutagens, thereby making the meat safer to eat.
Just don't use sugar, apparantly.

homework and all nighters

how to pull an all nighter by an engineering student (not that I endorse all nighters. In fact, I have to categorically disapprove of them. Steady, measured study at sensible hours is the best way to do things. However, there are those times when slightly more drastic measures are required...)
when Calvin had enough...

some randomness

blossom tree
calvin and hobbes playing war

in memory of Tom

Tom Hurndall. Shot dead at 22 defending children. May he rest in peace. Lest we forget...
His words
official website
scroll down to read his mother's letter
obituary in the Guardian
Telegraph
wikipedia
Independent

Poem: a PIZZA the size of the SUN

I'm making a pizza the size of the sun,
a pizza that's sure to weigh more than a ton,
a pizza too massive to pick up and toss,
a pizza resplendent with oceans of sauce.

I'm topping my pizza with mountains of cheese,
with acres of peppers, pimentos, and peas,
with mushrooms, tomatoes, and sausage galore,
with every last olive they had at the store.

My pizza is sure to be one of a kind,
my pizza will leave other pizzas behind,
my pizza will be a delectable treat
that all who love pizza are welcome to eat.

The oven is hot, I believe it will take
a year and a half for my pizza to bake.
I hardly can wait till my pizza is done,
my wonderful pizza the size of the sun.

Jack Prelutsky

The MDAP experience...

2 final year medical students writing about their experiences with MDAP (first job application for newly qualified doctors), what they thought was wrong with the system, and how they think it can be improved.

The foundation programme - application and training, from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

Information and advice (or lack thereof) for the unmatched final year students.

Planet Earth...

just one of the most amazing documentaries I've seen for a while. I rather liked their 'behind-the-scenes/the-making-of...' bits, which hinted at how difficult it was to get hold of the footage. The last in the series had the film crew chasing a small bunch of camels in the 'outer part of outer Mongolia' for 2 months. 2 months! 2 months for a couple of seconds of footage! Although that didn't seem quite as bad as the month they spent filming cockroaches amidst mountains of poo in caves somewhere in South America.
Incredible.
I'm just annoyed I missed most episodes.
Luckily, the BBC have a section of their website dedicated to this show.

A tale of two wolves

A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt. He said, "I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one." The grandson asked him, "Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?" The grandfather answered: "The one I feed."

Brain drain

So, the WHO isn't happy about Britain's part in the medical brain drain.
Want to test out your German language skills? You could try this short quiz (the Independant promoting its 'learn German in 6 weeks' package).

"Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins."

some cool and thoughtful Native American proverbs
a selected few:
- "Only when the last tree has withered, and the last fish caught, and the last river been poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money." Cree
- "Those who have one foot in the canoe, and one foot in the boat, are going to fall into the river." Tuscarora

stressed? have some sweets!

While I shall forever say that you can never underestimate the value of a good, balanced diet filled with fresh fruit and veg, there are times when one does need that chocolate fudge brownie, and even the scientists agree!

Poem: Daffodils

Spring has arrived! I walk along and see daffodils, and bluebells, and orchids, and trees blossoming, the sky is blue, the breeze is fresh - I can't help but be in a good mood (the stuck CD has also been successfully removed from the computer).
I present the following poem - as a side note (don't know how true this is), I read somewhere that the original first line was 'I wandered lonely as a cow' - however, William Wordsworth's sister Daisy wisely advised him that he change 'cow' for 'cloud'.
A very smart sister.

William Wordsworth. 1770–1850
Daffodils

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

football and the 'granny rule'

A reflection in the Telegraph on football and that very human sense of national feeling. Interesting.

new doctors and jobs

The medical student's (monthly newspaper) take on the multi-deanery appliation process, with a very Independant style review of the facts and figures.

Editorial in the Lancet on the drama that is newly qualified doctors and jobs. Only 8 of the 48 points in the job application for new doctors is for academic achievement. Something is not quite right there. The last sentence says quite a bit... (though I do recommend you read the whole thing).

The Lancet 2006; 367:1029
UK medical schools: undervalued and undermined
Last weekend, 400 medical students travelled from around the UK to take part in Medsin's global health conference, held at Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Medical School in London. Medsin is a network of medical students which raises awareness about global health issues. The vigour of its annual conference illustrated not only the commitment of medical students to global humanitarian concerns, but also the altruistic values and incredible motivation instilled in them by their medical schools.
Yet the achievements of these medical schools are now being undermined in a disgraceful and incompetent manner. The Department of Health, which has neither experience nor understanding of medical education, training, or careers is eroding the central responsibility of medical schools—namely, to deliver qualified and capable doctors into the NHS and to strengthen the research base of medicine.
Medical students and newly qualified doctors already feel insecure about their prospects. With headlines appearing weekly suggesting that thousands of jobs may have to be stripped out of the NHS because of budget deficits, the acute instability of the health service is bound to raise anxieties among those about to join its ranks.
This crisis has been boiling for some months. But it came to a head with a letter published in The Times on March 4 by 86 senior figures from UK medical schools. Charles McCollum, professor of surgery at the University of Manchester, and his colleagues drew attention to the way in which the Department of Health was ignoring requests by leading medical professors to review urgently its programme for Modernising Medical Careers (MMC). At the time, 660 qualified doctors had not yet been awarded an F1 place (the first of two foundation years), leaving many excellent students devastated by this apparent rejection of the skills they would bring to patient care. Astonishingly, a new untested standard of competence was proposed for those who had low scores in the new F1 application procedure. This idea has now, fortunately, been abandoned. But students will still be prioritised on the basis of a completely untested scoring system.
The F1 application process consists of 48 points, only 8 of which relate to academic achievement. The rest are self-assessments and are open to manipulation. The responsibility for granting full qualification after the F1 year rests with medical schools. It has nothing to do with postgraduate deans. Medical schools have a statutory responsibility for the primary medical qualification (medical degree), the pre-registration training year (F1), and full and final registration at the end of F1. By not discharging those responsibilities—eg, by ceding control of the fate of F1 trainees to postgraduate deans—medical schools will be in breach of their legal duties, putting themselves at risk of legal challenge from students who feel that their expectations are not being met.
Respected academic clinicians who have dedicated themselves to teaching medical students and preparing them for practice quite reasonably ask why politicians are now involving themselves in procedures for selecting and training doctors. It is the universities and Royal Colleges that have responsibility for setting and delivering professional standards of practice, not civil servants and ministers. By shifting responsibility for newly qualified doctors in this way, the government is creating a cohort of disenfranchised and demoralised young clinicians who feel hampered in pursuing career paths that best suit their talents and patient needs. This state of affairs is utterly crazy.
In response, medical students are organising a nationwide petition to oppose these ill-thought-out “reforms” (over 1000 signatures have been collected so far). Royal Colleges are being encouraged to take up the issue with ministers on the grounds that MMC has been imposed with little consultation, is damaging training, and is likely to be difficult to reverse if action is not taken soon. The Council of Heads of Medical Schools is continuing to campaign for a selection process for F1 trainees that is truly in the best interests of patients and will establish a real educational continuum as students move into clinical practice.
In 2005, the Royal College of Physicians published its final report on the future of medical professionalism, Doctors in Society. The report emphasised that “Professionalism cannot be imposed by governments or by a regulatory culture. It must emerge from and be sustained by doctors themselves”. The Department of Health's unprecedented and mistaken incursion into medical education, together with its covert attack on medical schools, are yet further examples of a thinly veiled political desire to deprofessionalise medicine.

computer animation

20 years of pixar, round up on the BBC.
Nifty little piece of animating fun on the Science Museum site - have a go at making your own little animated work of art.
I want to be an animator when I grow up...

computer crash

Normally my computer is good to me. It faithfully does what I ask it to do (usually!).
Yesterday, in my frantic efforts (believe me, it was very frantic) to get coursework handed in on time, my computer decided to be tempermental. Of all the times it could do this! It crashed 3 times, and decided to not let me have my CD back with all the work saved on it. It is still stuck in the computer, and I can't figure out how I'm going to get the slidey thingy that holds the CD to open. Pressing the button is just not doing the job. I will figure out what to do at some point.
Anyway, to commerate the tempermental nature of my computer, I have decided to dedicate this post to it.
Here are a bunch of cartoons on computers crashing (they be not great, but they are something):
the first computer crash
computer crash
more computer crashes