Grand Rounds Vol. 6 No. 49 – a conference in a tropical island resort

The summer is almost over, but we can try to remain in the summery mood just a little bit longer. Perhaps we can go to a medical conference held at a luscious tropical island resort, listen to presentations, chat in the hallways, and then have great fun at the bar in the evenings. And call it Grand Rounds. No coats and ties allowed – this meeting is supposed to be fun!

Day 1 – Morning session: Biomedical Science

Let’s start with controversy! Laika’s MedLibLog digs into the XMRV controversy with another comprehensive treatment prompted by the newest paper in the field – Does the NHI/FDA Paper Confirm XMRV in CFS? Well, Ditch the MR and Scratch the X… and… you’ve got MLV. And Abbie at ERV covers the same paper without mincing her words – ouch! – in XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome: Scientific Blue Balls.

Diane Meier at The John A. Hartford Foundation blog wrote a review and summary of a blockbuster study on palliative care and quality (and length!) of life: Palliative Care: We Still Have a Lot to Learn.

Day 1 – afternoon session: The Brain and The Mind

SharpBrains contributors have two entries this week. The first one is by Jo Ellen Roseman and Mary Koppel at AAAS: The Brain in Science Education: What Should Everyone Learn? The second one is Why working memory matters in the knowledge age: study by Dr. Tracy Alloway.

How to Cope with Pain reviews exciting, new, non-invasive and non-medication treatments for pain, in Brain Re-training To Decrease Pain.

Will Meek, PhD is working through human psychology, one post at a time. The latest installment is Romantic vs Committed Love.

Dinah at Shrink Rap, differentiating normal moods from those associated with mental illness: Emotion versus Mental Illness.

Day 1 – hallway conversations: Practice, Patients, Nursing and Cases

Katrina Racial Violence is a poignant recollection of treating a Katrina survivor, who had been threatened with violence, by Toni Brayer, MD at EverythingHealth.

‘Nancy Nurse, RN, MD’ on the Muse, RN is a post motivated by the phrase “If she’s so smart, why isn’t she a doctor?”. Its a little dicey…but Nurses need some dice every once in a while.

Medical Resident, from A Medical Resident’s Journey responds to a recent blog post in the New York Times by Pauline Chen on medical errors: On Medical Mistakes…. And another post on the same topic, at Supporting Safer Healthcare – I Care For You; I Am Your Doctor – focuses on the fact that, unfortunately, communication can break down at this most crucial time.

Physician Quality Report Cards, Part II on Kent Bottles Private Views is a post about a physician’s resistance to administrative review and patient feedback. Doctor report cards, NFL football, teachers, controversy, and nasty comments. What more could you want in a blog post?

Fizzy, last week’s host of Grand Rounds over on Mothers in Medicine, starts with a cartoon and writes about looking too young to be a doctor: Get confident, stupid!

Waterworks at Other things amanzi is a great story by Bongi about a joke he played on a not-so-hard-working urologist.

From Kimberly Manning, FACP at ACP Hospitalist, Life at Grady: Black and white, a story about a patient questioning his doctor’s race.

When do medical students start learning to practice medicine defensively? It didn’t take long for this one to encounter the opening lesson: Defensive Medicine 101… it starts now, at The Notwithstanding Blog.

And a little comparative medicine from Dog Zombie: Comparative medicine: what is a wallaby?

Greg Friese at Everyday EMS Tips: Paramedic that Knows Everything Declines Additional Learning

Day 2 – morning session: Medicine and Technology

Livetweeting surgery is becoming all the rage these days. Ramona of Suture for a Living writes about the latest case: Double Hand Transplant on Twitter.

Physicians are a group that greatly adopted the use of smartphones in theor work. Ryan DuBosar at ACP Internist comments in QD: News Every Day–What smartphone are you using?

In Doctors Not Using Email Like It’s 2010 It’s 2010, Elaine Schattner, MD at Medical Lessons considers physicians’ selective use of email, a no-longer-new technology that might, if embraced, facilitate communication between doctors and patients.

Michelle R. Wood of Occam Practice Management looks at some Famous Last Words in regard to technology, and how those words turned out…including the worries about the “paperless” Health Information Technology.

Day 2 – afternoon session: History of Medicine

Delia O’Hara at Birth Story introduces us to a historical figure of Alexis Carrel, who pioneered vascular surgery and transplant surgery.

At From the Hands of Quacks, Jaipreet Virdi gives us a glimpse of quirky medicine from the past, in How to Avoid Deafness and for those who want to know more, there is a Reading List.

Day 2 – hallway conversations: Healthcare policy

Louise at Colorado Health Insurance Insider discusses Amendment 63 On The Ballot In Colorado which will determine who can purchase health insurance.

Day 2 – evening at the bar: The Fun Stuff

The Happy Hospitalist tried something new – to draw a cartoon: Parkinson’s Cruise Cartoon (The Happy Hospitalist Original)

The Poetry Contest at The Examining Room of Dr.Charles ends tonight. Many great health/medical poems were submitted and some of them were posted there. Here is Thirteen Ways of Seeing, a poem (in 13 parts) by Aidel Moodnick.

And with this, the tropical island resort conference ends. Have a great trip home! We’ll see you all again next week at the Grand Rounds hosted by Musings of a Dinosaur.