Amazing new technologies for arthritis, away with knee and hip replacement?
Arthritis and injury grind down millions of joints, but few get the best remedy — real biological tissue. Kevin Stone shows a treatment that could sidestep the high costs and donor shortfall of human-to-human transplants with a novel use of animal tissue.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Often I will tell my residents that if you can’t take care of yourself how do you expect to take care of your patients. Or in another way: the only difference between God and a doctor is that God knows he’s not a doctor. These sound like cliches but there is some truth in them. In short doctors are just ordinary people with ordinary problems who can make mistakes and who should look after themselves.
But how to take good care of yourself in a job as a doctor or even a resident? Working as a doctor can at times be very stressful. To much of this stress can lead to problems such as burnout, depression, alcohol misuse etc etc. Most doctors think they can cope with this stress but as other ordinary people coping with stress needs good coping strategies. Doctors normally just keep on working. Run from the first to the next problem without paying attention to their well-being.
This experience is recently supported by research. From this study it was evident that often workplace coping strategies of doctors were inefficient and increased the risk of emotional exhaustion. The most prevalent coping strategy was “just keep on going”, “soldier on” or “get the job done”.
… I don’t think I do much to deal with it at work. I just keep, keep, keep on going and I’m somewhat obsessive compulsive I think. I know I am and I think that most doctors are quite frankly. So part of what relieves my stress is getting everything done. And if I have a dictation that’s hanging over my head like I did today, that stresses me, so I try and get that kind of stuff done… I relieve stress by continuing to work. I mean, it’s kind of sick
This coping strategy is associated with higher frequency of emotional exhaustion. Other coping strategies with high risk on emotional exhaustion were: keep it to myself, go on as if nothing happened. It’s inefficient and can mainly be classified as denial responses to stress.
Better coping strategies were: talking to co workers for emotional and informational support, using humor, joking with staff about stressing incidences. The best coping strategies were those used outside of work such as spending time with family, talking to one’s spouse and physical exercise were associated with lower frequency of emotional exhaustion, they were much healthier coping strategies. They improve mental health in stressful work, they’re better in coping with stress.
These finding, these differences between bad and good coping strategies were consistent with previously published work on this subject. Moreover, it has been shown that time away from work, switching off mentally and enjoying a psychological detachment from work during off-job time, and other leisure activities that allow recovery in between work periods result in positive benefits.
Some limitations of this study
But even with these limitations in mind, it’s sounds very true and recognizable, what do you think?
Jane B Lemaire, & Jean E Wallace (2010). Not all coping strategies are created equal: a mixed methods study exploring
physicians’ self reported coping strategies BMC Health Services Research : 10.1186/1472-6963-10-208
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This is the trailer of the film: Just Trial and Error.
In an attempt to understand consciousness, filmmaker Alex Gabbay invites sculptor Antony Gormley, eminent neuroscientists Prof Brian Butterworth and Dr Beau Lotto and internet entrepreneur Twain Luu – whose study of the ‘global brain’ makes fascinating reading – to explore its meaning and how it affects their area of work. Structured in a non-linear way, the four protagonists present insights on the human brain, global consciousness, the role of the internet, perception, the space art occupies, etc. While the subjects weave in and out of each other to create the arguments, each interviewee has his or her own narrative arc.
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Does Facebook and other social networking services damage the profession of physicians or the public trust in this profession? So far no systematic research into this topic has been published. However several cases were presented in the media resulting in disciplinary measures. On social networking sites patients may learn information about their doctors that compromises the professional relationship. Threats to patient confidentiality is another danger of facebook and other social networking sites.
How to deal with this issue?
Well recently discovered the best solution to this problem. Don’t forbid the use of these sites or pose heavy restrictions on it’s use but instead educate medical students about the dangers. Teach them how to be professional on these sites, teach them professionalism. To my opinion the most mature way of dealing with it as well as an opportunity to use social networking sites to teach medical students one of the many competences: professionalism.
Medical educators can support students as they explore their developing sense of professionalism by designing courses or educational experiences that create communities of reflective practice on social networks such as Facebook. Such programmes could challenge
students to think critically about their online personae and the potential repercussions of online activity for themselves and for the profession.
Since data on facebook use by medical graduates are lacking a New Zealand group did a study with a cross sectional survey. They studied the extent of facebook use by junior doctors, the use of the privacy options and the nature of the material readily available to the public.
Results
A total of 220 (65%) graduates had Facebook accounts; 138 (63%) of these had activated their privacy options, restricting their
information to ‘Friends’. Of the remaining 82 accounts that were more publicly available, 30 (37%) revealed users’ sexual orientation, 13 (16%) revealed their religious views, 35 (43%) indicated their relationship status, 38 (46%) showed photographs of the users drinking alcohol, eight (10%) showed images of the users intoxicated and 37 (45%) showed photographs of the users engaged in healthy behaviours.
So only a quarter of all graduates did not use the privacy options and the information revealed could bring the profession in disrepute, breech the professional boundary between doctor and patient. Teaching medical students professionalism with the use of social networking sites is an unique opportunity for their education as well as for the profession. What do you think?
MacDonald, J., Sohn, S., & Ellis, P. (2010). Privacy, professionalism and Facebook: a dilemma for young doctors Medical Education, 44 (8), 805-813 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03720.x
Brown, A. (2010). Social media: a new frontier in reflective practice Medical Education, 44 (8), 744-745 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03729.x
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Excellent talk, humorous. Sex in biological evolution
author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It’s not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Have you written a blogpost or are you going to write something of quality that deals with science, environment or medicine, please submit it to Scientia Pro Publica through the automated blog carnival submission form.
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Amazing stuff, reading the mind with EEG?
Tan Le’s astonishing new computer interface reads its user’s brainwaves, making it possible to control virtual objects, and even physical electronics, with mere thoughts (and a little concentration). She demos the headset, and talks about its far-reaching applications
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This is an excellent but very fast review of e-readers. Myself, I have two e-readers. The first one was an Iliad e-reader with wifi. Bought it with a newspaper subscription. It reads very easy, even in sunlight. The wifi is hard to use. Downloading the newspaper in foreign countries seldom succeeded. Mostly had to plug the e reader into the router of the hotel.
In general file format is a big issue. Not all file formats are supported by all e readers. My other e reader is a Kindle. Also easy to use. The international edition can be used to search and buy books from Amazon via 3G. Other Internet options as promised by Amazon only function on the US version of the kindle. Your not able to read RSS feeds or visit other websites with the international edition. File formats is also a problem with the kindle, it only supports the amazon file format. Will soon be trying the iPad, will let you know.
Techland gadget critic Doug Aamoth looks at how the e-book wars are in full swing, with Barnes & Noble dumping the price of its 3G-enabled Nook. So now that there are all these relatively affordable options, which one’s the best choice?
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Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 – Teaser from Thiago Costa on Vimeo.
This is a new Multiphysics simulation by Lagoa Technologies Inc.
Amazing graphics and simulations, ideal for gaming engine.
Physics engines. We may not understand most of the maths and skill that goes into developing one, but many of us appreciate their use in the latest games across consoles and PC.
While game engines like Unreal, Source, and id Tech 5 may have very capable physics engines built-in, that doesn’t stop new enginesappearing, and in this case blowing us away with the quality of the physics on show.
The Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 engine has been developed by Thiago Costa, who currently works as Lead Technical Director at Ubisoft Digital Arts in Montreal.
Popularity: 11% [?]
This study was really about the question whether facebook and myspace replaced face to face interaction. Apparently conflicting results were reported. This study used a survey to examine the use of facebook and myspace among 183 college students an it confirmed that the use of these social media acted as an extension instead of a replacement of face to face interaction. Nevertheless some users relied on facebook and mysoace as the most important form of social interaction more than on face to face interaction.
But what was more interesting were the results on how these college students used facebook and myspace. Most of all, the result that 40% reported having no friends on facebook and myspace that they have never met in person and those who did have friends on faceboook whom they never had met reported having an average of 7.2 such friends. Amazing. I’ve a lot of friends I’ve never met. College students that much different from adults?
A total of 8% (n¼14) of the respondents reported having frequently used Facebook and/ or MySpace to meet new people that they have never met before, while 75% (n¼132) reported frequently using it to keep in touch with people whom they already knew
More interesting results
These were either very well behaved college students or they were lying or the media are lying about youngsters waisting their precious time on the Internet. What do you think?
Carlyne L. Kujath, B.S. (2010). Facebook and MySpace: Complement or Substitute for Face-to-Face Interaction? CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING : 10.1089/cyber.2009.0311
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