Astronaut foods during the Gemini and Apollo programs were highly processed, because “low-residue” food meant fewer encounters with the dread fecal bag. To prevent crumbs, which could float into eyes and instrumentation panels, many foods – even “sandwiches” — took the form of bite-sized cubes lacquered with waxy, congealed oils. Rarely has anything so cute been so loathed. The coating stuck to the roof of the mouth and the cubes had to be rehydrated by “holding in the mouth for ten seconds.”
It’s a great pleasure for me to host Grand Rounds again after almost a year. The idea of Nick Genes shines more than ever so I hope I can show you plenty of useful and valuable submissions from the medical blogosphere. So this time, the topic is the future of medicine which means I’ll feature some blogposts about genetics and web 2.0 as medicine might be centered around these two terms in the future. Enjoy it!
Editor’s Choice (Genetics or Web 2.0):
Karina S. Descartin at The story of healing talked about Jay Parkinson, the web-savvy doctor and use of media in medicine.
Louise at Colorado Health Insurance Insider wrote: “A list of eight preventable medical errors that result in extra medical charges will no longer be reimbursed by Medicare”.
Laurie Edwards at AChronicDose hadarecent issue with her health insurance to explore preventative health and offer resources to think critically about the future of healthcare.
Michael C Hébert at Dr. Hébert’s Medical Gumbo pointed out the problem with Economics Stimulus Package is that, like taking antibiotics for a cold, it fails to properly address the problem.
Kenneth F Trofatter at Fruit of the Womb addresses a query from a reader who wonders if abnormal sperm morphology, in the absence of other maternal or paternal indicators, might be associated with recurrent early pregnancy loss.
David Bradley at ScienceBase is curious whether our doctor inhales or not. “A survey of medical students in Brazil found that more than 80% use alcohol, while cannabis use is limited to about one in four, a quarter use solvents and just over 25% use tobacco.”
That’s all for now. I always enjoy hosting Grand Rounds because I come across new blogs and make contact with great medical bloggers. Thank you, Nick Genes, for giving me the opportunity again. I hope to host a third one in 2009. The next edition will be hosted by ChronicBabe on the 4th of March.
It’s a great pleasure for me to host Grand Rounds again. Grand Rounds is the blog carnival of the whole medical blogosphere and the project of Nick Genes. The next edition is due to be published on the 26th of February. The deadline is February, 25, 22:00 CET.
I actually hate themes so you can submit any kind of posts. But if you have written something about the future of medicine, I’d love to include it!
Send your submissions to berci.mesko [at] gmail.com.
Recently, some of the researchers here in Debrecen have asked me how they could track the changes of their field of interest. Even in the field of medicine or science, it’s crucial to be up-to-date and to find methods/tools that can make your work easier and more comfortable. So here are some tips on how to track the information you need, how to be up-to-date in your field.
PubMed Save Search:
Most of the physicians and scientists I know, go back to PubMed time by time and search for the old terms to see whether there are new additions to the database. If you use the Save Search function, you can get your PubMed updates via e-mail or RSS. You don’t have to search again and again, just sit back and wait for the next letter containing the newest articles in your field. How? Create an NCBI account, make your regular search and click on the Save Search button:
Then edit the preferences, that’s all:
Third-Party PubMed tools:
I couldn’t come up with a better expression. These sites/tools are based on PubMed but try to open new ways in searching for different scientific/medical terms. For example, NextBio is a scientific data search engine with which you can use PubMed in a more dynamic way. The CureHunter provides interactive network graphs of related drugs, diseases and therapies. Or take a look at PubMed Reader, a free web-based research program for displaying PubMed / Medline search results on an individual basis. It means you can create your own up-to-date Medline and PubMed literature search.
If you have to track more and more papers and online journals, then you should start to use RSS. It’s the best and most comfortable way of getting the selected information automatically what means you can read the articles in one place. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at some of my interviews with famous bloggers and see how many blogs/journals they follow every day. How? All you need is a feed reader program (like feedreader.com) or log in to your Bloglines, Google Reader or Netvibes account. Then open your favourite medical/scientific journal or blog and click on the feed icon:
Insert that link into your program; browser or online tool and you made it. Let the information come to you!
The service filters the RSS noise by scoring each post by the number of comments it received, number of times it’s been tagged in del.icio.us, inbound links from a number of blog search engines, etc.
It will definitely improve your productivity and makes it even easier to track the content you like. For example, you can get only the good articles or the best ones of a blog or site via RSS, it depends on your decision.
Use tags!
Tags are one of the most important features of web 2.0. Tags help you how to find content absolutely relevant to your needs. If you want to track your field of interest like this, try del.icio.us. If you’re a scientist or a physician, then your site is Connotea. Connotea can quickly save and organize links to your references, moreover you can follow the new additions to a tag by RSS. Here is the example: follow the best/selected articles about medicine 2.0.
BioWizard.com:
I know BioWizard should be in the category of 3rd-party PubMed tools, but I think this service is much more than that. It keeps you up-to-date with the most important published literature as chosen by the global biomedical research community. How does it work?
BioWizard users submit relevant, timely research articles they have found to be useful and interesting. The articles you submit are then read by the rest of the community who promote articles they feel are deserving of recognition. The best articles in a research field are brought to the top page for all to read and discuss.
Through Biowizard, not just you can track all the papers writing in the field of yours, but you can get the best articles (selected by the scientific community) via e-mail.
Google Alert:
If none of these work for you, or you’d prefer an even simplier method, then use Google Alert. It will bring all the recent articles/blogposts to you, all the new results for your search term. Personally, I follow the term personalized medicine via this free service to know about all the new articles written on this topic.
As it’s so important to be up-to-date in your field, use these simple, free and comfortable methods to track the information you need. If you happen to know more tools/services, don’t hesitate to leave a comment for us.
I always let you know about the new issues of Grand rounds, the blog carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere. This week, the host is Med Journal Watch and Christian Bachmann proved again his enthusiasm by creating a submission-full, cleary organized carnival edition. Don’t miss Kim’s funny comment as well!
But what is this all about?
For you, dear readers:
It’s easier to find the medical articles of the best quality in one place, so you don’t have to go through all the medical blogs. Every week, you will find the best works in one place for sure.
For you, dear bloggers:
You get a safe and easy possibility to promote your best posts.
Thank you, Nick Genes, for maintaning the medical blogosphere’s most important event and for making it easier to spread the information.
Our favourite genetic blog carnival, Gene Genie is up at My Biotech Life. Gene Genie is a blog carnival on genes and gene-related diseases. Our plan is to cover the whole genome before 2082 (it means 14-15 genes every two weeks). But we also accept articles on the news of genomics and clinical genetics.
Also keep in mind that the next issue of Mendel’s Garden will be held at Scienceroll on the 5th of August. Send your submissions here: berci.mesko [at] gmail.com!
Medicine 2.0 is the blog carnival of the relationship between web 2.0 and medicine/health. We try to collect articles, posts that could ease the work of physicians, medical students, nurses or medical librarians. We focus on web 2.0’s impact on medicine. The fourth edition is up at Healthline Connects. JC Jones created a unique edition. More than a dozen of submissions; interesting topic; nice selection and images. Thank you, JC Jones, for hosting (and for mentioning this awful heat here)! I loved this section:
I hope you will all bear with me for being late with this and help me wrap my brain around this issue. Here we are – pioneers on the new frontier of Medicine 2.0 – the marriage of new technology and health care.
Grand rounds, the weekly blog carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere is up at Wandering Visitor. For the first time, there is an extended list of the authors. I loved it as it makes the post really serious. Anyway, Scienceroll has been mentioned:
Grand rounds, the weekly blog carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere is up at CodeBlog. Scienceroll has been mentioned:
Bertalan Mesko of ScienceRoll shows us what could be in store for the future, wheelchair-wise.
The Pediatric Grand rounds is also up at Med Journal Watch. Christian included Scienceroll as well:
When quackery issues hit the mass media, other topics that ought to be hot are in danger of being forgotten. Primary immunodeficiency is such a case, presented by Bertalan Mesko at Scienceroll. He makes himself an advocate of giving babies a chance to survive. An effort that is worth being supported.
I’ve recently realized that I’m a blogcarnivaloholic. Be ready for this Sunday’s Medicine 2.0 edition at the Gene Sherpa!
ScienceRoll 