Grand Rounds Lands at Medgadget, Receives a Proper Scientific Perspective

April 1st, 2008 Exclusive

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Let’s see if we understand correctly.
Grand Rounds started at GruntDoc this week…
But he lost steam and asked Dr. Val to pick up…
She thought the submissions were beneath her and asked David E Williams to continue…
But he was humbled by the excellent writing and asked us to step in.
our kitchen
Very well, then. On to the links, Medgadget-style — with an appropriate emphasis on well-conducted research, verifiable findings, and sound conclusions. Our motto: Just because we’re bloggers, it doesn’t mean we can’t be evidence-based.

  • Normally we don’t support anecdotal evidence in lieu of randomized controlled trials, but today, Dr. Dimov at Clinical Cases and Imaging presents, well… a clinical case, and some images. He talks about “Stingray Jim”, one of only a handful of people to survive a stingray barb to the chest. We get the sense that assembling a large cohort was not possible, this time.
  • The blogger behind Wellness Tips offers a review of a century’s worth of diet research. Did you know that the high-protein, low-carb Atkins-style diet was first proposed before World War II? But that research fell out of favor for decades as calorie-restriction fads took center stage. We think it fortunate that, with today’s strong union of science and blogging, such ignorance could never take hold amongst thought leaders, and the general public.
  • Code Blog tells the tale of a sick CCU patient, post-code, who coasted through a revolving door of weekend coverage, with no physician able to step up and curtail expensive but ultimately unnecessary diagnostic tests. She wonders if this is happening in other hospitals, on other weekends… but of course, without solid evidence, generalizing from this anecdote is inadvisable.
  • We understand that the blogger behind ButYouDon’tLookSick.com does not, in fact, look sick. Furthermore, this week, it doesn’t look like she’s blogging, as her husband steps in to share his pride and detail their family’s involvement in the Lupus Alliance, raising awareness in Washington, DC. This post raises the thought with us, that perhaps advocacy and support are at least as important as research… We didn’t know what to do with this thought, so we moved on.
  • Throughout her life, Tess Termulo has been looking for signs to help her make career decisions — but has recently decided that, on this journey, she’s calling the shots and making the signs. We congratulate her, but also note this “n of 1” is underpowered to make such sweeping conclusions. Furthermore, we wish there was better documentation of a placebo arm, receiving ambiguous signs along the way.

    • Dr. Anonymous' 2001 prototype
    Well, this sample of links certainly made for interesting reading, but didn’t produce any scientific breakthroughs. However, we do have one milestone to report:
    We are pleased to announce that artificial intelligence has come far enough to allow virtual blog carnival hosting. Behold, Dr. Anonymous, an entirely official construct. This so-called ‘blog host,’ who seems to have real opinions, feelings, and even a ‘sense of humor,’ is nothing more than a complex array of heuristic algorithms and pre-programmed responses. What you see inside the black & white box when you press play (a color version is said to be forthcoming) is pretty much all there is to “Dr. Anonymous” — yet the effect is so lifelike, the hosting experience is so complete, that much of his audience has been fooled, despite multiple encounters.
    See for yourself, as Dr. A continues with the hosting of this week’s Grand Rounds….

    Nicholas Genes, MD, PhD, has been with Medgadget since almost the beginning. He's now Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai, where in addition to patient care and teaching responsibilities, he studies EHR usability and physician uses of social media. Dr. Genes serves on the editorial boards of Emergency Physicians Monthly and Emergency Medicine Practice. More about Nick: http://nickgenes.com

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