Jump into the political fray or you’ve made the wrong moral choice and are guilty of harm

And be sure you line up on the correct side. Berwick.

Language obfuscation: adminspeak

LOL.

Paper in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine makes for hilarious blog fodder

I'll have to agree with the blogger at Rebel MD, that the premise of this study, that MOC is a valid indicator for medical knowledge is, to say the least, flawed. I don't think the results turned out the way they hoped, so I'll give them their due for publishing it in spite of that. From the paper:

OBJECTIVE:

Health disparities exist between rural and urban areas. Rural physicians may lack sufficient medical knowledge, which may lead to poor quality of care...

METHODS:

We studied 8361 FPs who took the American Board of Family Medicine maintenance of certification (MOC) examination in 2009. Data sources were examination results and data from a demographic survey of practice structure and activities, completed as part of the examination application process. FPs' location of practice was categorized as either rural or metropolitan using a moderate and conservative definition based on reported community size. Univariate statistics assessed differences in FP characteristics between rural and metropolitan areas. Logistic regression analyses determined the adjusted relationship between rural status and the odds of passing the MOC examination.

RESULTS:

Metropolitan FPs were less likely than their rural counterparts to pass the MOC examination using both the moderate (odds ratio, 0.67; 95% confidence interval, 0.54-0.83) and conservative (odds ratio, 0.56; 95% confidence interval, 0.42-0.74) definitions. Physicians in solo practice were less likely to pass the examination than physicians in group practice.

CONCLUSION:

Rural physicians were more likely to pass the MOC examination, suggesting that rural health disparities do not result from a lack of provider knowledge.

A history of the hospitalist movement in song

Well, Bob Wachter promised us something different for his keynote at HM 2014 but I wasn't expecting this.




I had to catch an early flight and missed this session. Thanks to Medicina Hospitalar for pointing it out to me.

The state of hospital medicine 2011

Via Sick Hospital and Happy Hospitalist.

Holistic ER

Funny stuff. Unfortunately the video can't be embedded. Via Respectful Insolence.

An absurd article a day from the medical literature

Funny stuff. Via Asinine Academia.

Sleep apnea, narcolepsy or just plain boredom?

Via Gateway Pundit.

Buzzword bingo

For those really boring committee meetings. Available only in paper now, but sooner or later someone will develop an app.

Ever happen to you?

Happy dropped his pager in the toilet.

Unintentionally funny medical writing

Here is a brief compilation. From the article:

Twenty-seven years ago, one of us (HLF) helped create a series of “Dizzy Awards”—awards honoring baseball immortal and legendary syntax-mangler Dizzy Dean. The Dizzys are given for excellence in unintentionally comical, bewildering, or downright terrible medical writing.1–5 These awards also recognize poor editing.6–8 The “winners” are excerpts from articles in prominent medical publications.

Last year, we wrote the 9th report in this series.9 Since that time, we have harvested a new crop of winners...

Read the rest.

Hospitalist anthem

Via ZDoggMD


HT Kevin MD

If you're more interested in getting your paper cited by the New York Times than by UptoDate

---you might try this trick:

It's always interesting the see the incredible media buzz a so-called "scientific study" can receive if its release is timed to some upcoming predictable news event. This weekend's story is, of course, Superbowl XLV.

Just in the nick of time came this study entitled "Role of Age, Sex, and Race on Cardiac and Total Mortality Associated With Super Bowl Wins and Losses" published online in an online publication called "Clinical Cardiology" on 31 January 2011.

Coincidence?

Unlikely.

Aside from the matter of timing the study had several flaws that Dr. Wes pointed out. But no matter. It got the job done. The popular media were all over it in no time.


It reminds me of similar instance in which years old data were dredged up and published just in time to weigh in on the debate surrounding Bill Clinton's impeachment.

Impressionist David Frye dead at 76

David Frye was perhaps was best known for his impersonations of Richard Nixon. His Watergate satire LP “Richard Nixon: A Fantasy” is available in full as free streaming audio at the Internet Archive.

Dr. ACO

Via Health Care Renewal.

The 2010 dumb awards for public policy speech

Bright people in high places occasionally say dumb things. In such a politically charged time as 2010 it made for great entertainment. Here are a few that made me laugh, mostly about health care reform. In no particular order.




Democratic Congressman Phil Hare on health care reform.


“I don't worry about the Constitution on this.”



And at 1:00 the Congressman confuses the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence.






Peter Orszag's New York Times column on October 3---


in which he implied (in a smooth way, but still strongly implied) that doctors don't work hard enough, doctors aren't used to having their performance measured, and hospitals shut down for the weekend.






A NEJM writer declared that if the Republican agenda on health care moved forward it would be a recipe for a failed republic.

Well, they won big in November. Better stock up on some survival provisions.






Nancy declared that we had to pass health care reform in order to find out what was in the bill.






Paul Krugman dropped the bomb about death panels.



This was such a bunch of double talk, it's hard to know what he really meant, but the plain point seems to be that we need to soothe the death panel alarmists now, then implement the panels later. Whatever he meant, it was dumb.






The interview with Bill Maher in which he said...


Well, he said a lot of dumb things. The whole clip is stupid. You'll just have to watch.

Blackberry not working? There's help.

HT SHS.

Sarah Jackman

I tried to find the original Allan Sherman version of this song, but couldn't. These folks nailed it pretty well.

Criticize death panel alarmists out of one side of your mouth and advocate death panels out of the other? Oops!

Via Secondhand Smoke.

A hospitalist fights the invasion of the woosters

RW's first effort with Xtranormal.