1. An article
in Time magazine is headlined "It's Not You, Doctors Are Just Rude."
The first sentence of the article is " Doctors-in-training
are in need of a dose of compassion."
It describes a paper from Johns Hopkins and the University
of Maryland about intern communication behaviors. Interns were watched by
trained observers.
Although interns were pretty good about touching patients
and asking open-ended questions, they only introduce themselves 40% of the time
and explained their roles only 37% of the time. They also sat down with patients
just 9% the time.
Observations were made on 732 patient encounters, but only
29 first-year internal medicine trainees were involved.
The abstract
did not explain whether these first-year interns had received any training in
communication ("interpersonal skills and communication" is one of the
6 ACGMA core competencies), nor did it state at what point in their first year the
study was done.
The headline of the piece in Time is a bit misleading since
it suggests that all doctors are rude. Similarly, the first sentence of the
article somehow brings in compassion.
The study was not about rudeness or compassion; rather it
was about communication.
Maybe Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland need to
do a better job of teaching its interns, and maybe Time magazine needs to do a
better job of reporting.
2. An article
from a website called iMedicalApps gushes with excitement about the fact that
Google Glass can be used by a surgeon to view continuous vital signs while
operating.
It could be that Google Glass is going to revolutionize
medical care, but I don't think it's going to be useful in the context of a
surgeon looking at vital signs while she is operating.
You cannot concentrate on the operation and look at a Google
Glass display of vital signs.
When I was operating, I was fully focused on the procedure.
I depended on the anesthesiologist to alert me to any significant changes in
the patient's vital signs.
If I wanted to know what the vital signs were, I simply
asked the anesthesiologist. For me, that low-tech action was adequate.
3. Here's a headline
from the Los Angeles Times. "Walk this way: Men slow down when sex is at
stake."
This one is about a study
from PLOS One that looked at 11 male and 11 female college students who walked
around a track alone, with a significant other or with friends of the same or
opposite sex. The study found that men walked significantly more slowly when
they were paired with a female romantic partner compared to walking with another
man or a woman who was simply a friend.
The authors concluded following: "Because the male
carries the energetic burden by adjusting his pace (slowing down 7%), the
female is spared the potentially increased caloric cost required to walk
together."
This finding supports the idea that men are helping their
romantic partners conserve energy and thus promote reproductive success. This
is apparently a big issue in hunter-gatherer societies who walk long distances.
It's not quite so clear why college students walking 400 meters would do the
same thing. The authors speculated that it might be an evolutionary issue.
Regarding the article, a woman who follows me on Twitter
said, "Not my hubby, tho we do have 2 kids."
Sorry LA Times, this one's not about sex, but I guess it makes
for a better headline.
