distorted beauty

click play film, and ponder... it's all unnatural
and some little girls opinions on their own looks

Training in NHS

some problems... 'University courses hit by NHS cuts in training programme'

SABRA AND SHATILA

Robert Fisk

BBC, Panoroma, Fergal Keane

Chris Tolworthy

funkiness

why can't i do this?

angry chicken
scary cat
elegance=
wow=
another=
more leaps=
and complex jumps=

wierd=


parkour is cool.

mini-documentary with David Belle
interview with David Belle

the freaky facebook phenomenon...

this is an interview with one of the co-founders Chris Hughes. for those who don't know: a bunch of harvard students set up this personal info database type thing - which you can log on to via your official email address from workplace/uni/high school. you then belong to your real life community, but online. you can then read up on the profiles of the ppl who go to your uni/workplace. these are the ppl you may never have spoken to, but just may randomly see in passing. i guess they hope you would then translate your online info finding to eventually talking to each other in 'real life'.

you will not find me on facebook, or bebo, or WAYN. i don't like these things.
i find it freaky when someone has been asking around about me, then talking to me as if they know me. i would find it weirder for people who i may not even notice, but would notice me, pick up a lot of personal info, and what i do, etc from these sites. and just know it. may not approach me or anything. but just know.
call me old fashioned, but i really don't think voyeurism is the way forward for human interaction. you want to know a person? say hello. then take it from there.

the sites seem to apply to several types of ppl:
1 - super shy folk, or people who aren't very good at dealing with people.
2 - stalker type folk
3 - exhibitionist type folk
4 - normal folk who have not thought through the consequences.

i shall leave you with a sesame street sketch, which for some reason is etched into my memory. bert is on a plane, and is sitting next to a guy, who has the same jumper, trousers and socks as him. you hear the thoughts of both characters as they wonder whether they should speak to each other. they then both ask the stewardess for a bowl of hot water for their instant porridge. they eventually get talking only to discover they have many things in common.
as with many sesame street sketch's, the whole plane ends up uniting together in song to the chorus:
'stick out your hand and say hello
you might meet someone that you would really love to know
so stick out your hand and say
isn't it grand today
stick out your hand
and say hello!'

so how would two ppl who 'know' each other from facebook, but never spoken to each other before, begin their conversation? would there be no hint of embarrassment at the voyeurism they had partaken in?

oh sesame street, where are you now? hrmphh.

remember ppl - just say 'hello'. and if you already know them from 'real life', just email them.

a jovial look at the wearing of a stethoscope

(continuing with the stethoscope theme)

the article

and the responses

(and what you can do if a patient is finding it hard to hear you)

Poem: The Stethoscope Song

(A lesson that whatever a stethoscope may find, is only as useful as that thing between the ears that interprets it)

The Stethoscope Song
A PROFESSSIONAL BALLAD
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1848)

THERE was a young man in Boston town,
He bought him a stethoscope nice and new,
All mounted and finished and polished down,
With an ivory cap and a stopper too.

It happened a spider within did crawl,
And spun him a web of ample size,
Wherein there chanced one day to fall
A couple of very imprudent flies.

The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue,
The second was smaller, and thin and long;
So there was a concert between the two,
Like an octave flute and a tavern gong.

Now being from Paris but recently,
This fine young man would show his skill;
And so they gave him, his hand to try,
A hospital patient extremely ill.

Some said that his liver was short of bile,
And some that his heart was over size,
While some kept arguing, all the while,
He was crammed with tubercles up to his eyes.

This fine young man then up stepped he,
And all the doctors made a pause;
Said he, The man must die, you see,
By the fifty-seventh of Louis's laws.

But since the case is a desperate one,
To explore his chest it may be well;
For if he should die and it were not done,
You know the autopsy would not tell.

Then out his stethoscope he took,
And on it placed his curious ear;
Mon Dieu! said he, with a knowing look,
Why, here is a sound that's mighty queer!

The bourdonnement is very clear,--
Amphoric buzzing, as I 'm alive!
Five doctors took their turn to hear;
Amphoric buzzing, said all the five.

There's empyema beyond a doubt
We'll plunge a trocar in his side.
The diagnosis was made out,--
They tapped the patient; so he died.

Now such as hate new-fashioned toys
Began to look extremely glum;
They said that rattles were made for boys,
And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum.

There was an old lady had long been sick,
And what was the matter none did know:
Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was quick;
To her this knowing youth must go.

So there the nice old lady sat,
With phials and boxes all in a row;
She asked the young doctor what he was at,
To thump her and tumble her ruffles so.

Now, when the stethoscope came out,
The flies began to buzz and whiz:
Oh, ho! the matter is clear, no doubt;
An aneurism there plainly is.

The bruit de râpe and the bruit de scie
And the bruit de diable are all combined;
How happy Bouillaud would be,
If he a case like this could find!

Now, when the neighboring doctors found
A case so rare had been descried,
They every day her ribs did pound
In squads of twenty; so she died.

Then six young damsels, slight and frail,
Received this kind young doctor's cares;
They all were getting slim and pale,
short of breath on mounting stairs.

They all made rhymes with "sighs" and "skies,"
And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls,
And dieted, much to their friends' surprise,
On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals.

So fast their little hearts did bound,
The frightened insects buzzed the more;
So over all their chests he found
The râle sifflant and the râle sonore.

He shook his head. There's grave disease,--
I greatly fear you all must die;
A slight post-mortem, if you please,
Surviving friends would gratify.

The six young damsels wept aloud,
Which so prevailed on six young men
That each his honest love avowed,
Whereat they all got well again.

This poor young man was all aghast;
The price of stethoscopes came down;
And so he was reduced at last
To practise in a country town.

The doctors being very sore,
A stethoscope they did devise
That had a rammer to clear the bore
With a knob at the end to kill the flies.

Now use your ears, all you that can,
But don't forget to mind your eyes,
Or you may be cheated, like this young man,
By a couple of silly, abnormal flies.


http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/owh/steth.html

war and peace...

as demonstrated by calvin and hobbes

recognition lies in experience

'Updating the Stethoscope with an iPod'

problem based vs traditional teaching structures in medicine

'... analyzing the difference between diagnoses made by McGill and McMaster medical students, she discovered that while problem-based learning helped students to relate science to their clinical activities, it hindered their ability to generalize. "It was too context-based," she explains. Diagnoses were "hypothesis-driven": students were learning, but not asserting their knowledge. In contrast, McGill students could make confident "data-driven" diagnoses in the manner of expert physicians.

"What this means," explains Patel, "is that the problem-based strategy provides a good environment for learning, but doctors also need the professional confidence to come to closure. In medical schools we're certifying competence; patients want diagnoses." '