Clinical Evidence, Searching Tidbits, and Other Minutiae

• Death certificates

  Number of comments: 0
  At the Pump Handle today, revere posts a brief overview of death certificates and their use in research, also with a nice discussion of age-adjusted death rates that fits in nicely with this week's post here on the confounding issue.' [...]
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  Posted: August 15, 2008, 9:49am EDT
  

• Confounding

  Number of comments: 2
  Confounding is a concept often mentioned in clinical research - the idea that a 3rd variable can distort or confuse (or confound..) a relationship between two other variables.
  
  When confounding is present, it looks like exposure A is associated with increased risk of disease B, but really a [...]
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  Posted: August 12, 2008, 9:10am EDT
  

• One of the best library training videos ever

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  From Mississippi Public Broadcasting, a video series called Tomes & Talismans about the Dewey Decimal System. Sound boring? But...it uses a sci-fi backstory -- aliens named Wipers from the Black Star Solar System have taken over the Earth,including destroying the intercontinental satellite system (which oddly looks a lot like [...]
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  Posted: July 26, 2008, 8:55am EDT
  

• Hopkins on ABC

  Number of comments: 2
  ABC is posting the full episodes of the short series "Hopkins" filmed at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore... the kind of reality show I can watch while not feeling (very) guilty or voyeuristic :) And a good way to learn some more medical terminology and see some of the concepts [...]
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  Posted: July 08, 2008, 2:28pm EDT
  

• Unofficial impact factors

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  Biomed Central has calculated unofficial impact factors for many of its titles that are not yet covered in Journal Citation Reports -- they used ISI data to figure out the IFs for ~100 BMC titles. Seems like a great way to work around the delay between when a journal [...]
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  Posted: June 17, 2008, 1:40pm EDT
  

• Friday humor: David Sedaris

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  The Fresh Air David Sedaris interview is up on the NPR site -- he talks about his latest book (When you are engulfed in flames).
  
  (he's touring now too -- dates are up in Ticketmaster, including a Nashville date this fall!)' [...]
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  Posted: June 13, 2008, 4:56pm EDT
  

• More on procrastination

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  This feature on NPR's Talk of the Nation fits in really well with my ongoing struggle to trick myself into doing things that I need to do but don't really want to do :) -- How to Be a Productive Procrastinator
  Why do today what you can do the [...]
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  Posted: June 13, 2008, 1:37pm EDT
  

• Finding the right word

  Number of comments: 0
  I'm a huge fan of Roget's Thesaurus; a battered print copy inherited from my dad (copyright 1962) sits on the shelf above my desk and I use it at least weekly. I know I'm not alone in my love of words, and a Lifehacker post today confirms it! A whole' [...]
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  Posted: June 09, 2008, 12:36pm EDT
  

• Organic milk's shelf life

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  I've idly wondered about this from time to time but never tried to find an answer - why does organic milk last so much longer than regular milk? I started buying it partly because of the antibiotic issue, but have kept buying it because it suits my erratic like/dislike relationship' [...]
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  Posted: June 09, 2008, 9:23am EDT
  

• Medical jargon

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  Interesting brief opinion piece in today's Guardian - This epidemic of medical jargon isn't good for us - Professor Jonathan Wolff discusses the linguistic reasons for a professional jargon and advocates:
  To take better care of our health, we need access to clear information. I concede that some specialised [...]
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  Posted: April 01, 2008, 9:11am EDT
  

• Autism and Second Life

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  Great brief piece on CNN's site today about a place in Second Life, Naughty Auties, developed by a young man with Asperger's Syndrome, meant to give those with autism a place to meet online and to provide more information about the autism spectrum disorders.
  
  CNN is going to[...]
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  Posted: March 28, 2008, 1:16pm EDT
  

• Another surgery game

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  I spent way too much time playing this last night -- Amateur Surgeon, a game from [adult swim].
  
  You play a pizza boy with an interest in surgery who operates on a variety of interesting characters, using a pool table in an old warehouse as his OR [...]
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  Posted: March 12, 2008, 5:46pm EDT
  

• Andrew Jackson's "myriad of diseases"

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  In honor of President's Day, Jake Young of the Pure Pedantry blog has a great post about the complex and interesting medical history of Andrew Jackson -- Presidential Medicine: Andrew Jackson.' [...]
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  Posted: February 18, 2008, 11:28am EST
  

• JMLA article

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  Brief moment of shameless self promotion :-) - a paper based on my MPH thesis in included in this month's JMLA -
  
  Jerome RN, Giuse BN, Rosenbloom ST, Arbogast PG. Exploring clinician adoption of a novel evidence request feature in an electronic medical record system. J Med Libr' [...]
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  Posted: January 31, 2008, 9:14am EST
  

• A common health language

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  The newsletter ADVANCE for Health Information Management Professionals has a really nice brief article on health literacy, "Dream of a Common Health Language" by Shawn Proctor. The article a few simple but striking examples from the world of respiratory therapy to illustrate signs and potential implications of low [...]
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  Posted: January 29, 2008, 9:24am EST
  

• Epigenomics initiative

  Number of comments: 1
  Today, the NIH announced a new initiative focused on developing the field of epigenomics in the US.
  
  What is epigenomics, you ask?
  
  The press release defines the field:
  

  Epigenetics focuses on processes that regulate how and when certain genes are turned on and turned off, while epigenomics [...]

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  Posted: January 22, 2008, 9:40am EST
  

• Ethics committees

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  AMNews, the weekly newsletter of the American Medical Association, this week considers the role of the hospital ethics committee, including potential limitations and barriers to ethics consultation by physicians.
  
  The article mentions the VA initiative to transform the ethics committee model, coordinated by the VA's National' [...]
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  Posted: January 21, 2008, 9:56am EST
  

• The Nintendo Wii and virtual surgery

  Number of comments: 0
  From New Scientist -- A Wii warm-up hones surgical skills -- an excerpt:
  
  You might think it a bad idea for trainee surgeons to play games on the Nintendo Wii when they should be studying, but it might be time well spent.
  
  Kanav Kahol and Marshall Smith [...]
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  Posted: January 17, 2008, 4:28pm EST
  

• Visiting the emergency room

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  CNN's Empowered Patient feature today focuses on five things not to do in the ER (more discussion of each of the items in the article:
  
  1. Don't forget to call your doctor on the way to the ER
  
  2. Don't use an ambulance unless you really need' [...]
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  Posted: January 17, 2008, 9:30am EST
  

• Disease origins

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  Tara at Aetiology has a great discussion of research to figure out where syphilis came from. [...]
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  Posted: January 15, 2008, 2:32pm EST
  

• An octopus and his best friend

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  A heartwarming (maybe just to me...) story about an octopus and his favorite toy, a Mr Potato Head, via Zooillogix. [...]
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  Posted: January 11, 2008, 1:37pm EST
  

• Scary and cute at the same time

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  Public Health Response to a Rabid Kitten --- Four States, 2007 in the CDC's MMWR this week gives a great, narrative discussion of the discovery and investigation of rabies exposure via a rabies-infected kitten -- public health epidemiology in action.
  
  Of course, it's also sad that the kitten [...]
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  Posted: January 03, 2008, 12:28pm EST
  

• Variety post

  Number of comments: 0
  Life has been very hectic lately - here are a few interesting things that have been lingering in my feed reader -
  
  - Greenwood DC. Reliability of journal impact factor rankings. BMC Medical Research Methodology 2007, 7:48.
  
  - PLoS Medicine blog: EQUATOR: a new site for [...]
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  Posted: December 07, 2007, 2:13pm EST
  

• More on heuristics

  Number of comments: 0
  The cognitive psychology Thinker has a few great minitutorials that give examples illustrating some of the most common heuristics.
  
  From the site overview:
  A number of factors can affect how we go about making decisions, but it is unusual for us to make a decision completely objectively [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2007, 4:30pm EDT
  by Becky

• Representativeness bias

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  This week's AMNews, the newsletter of the American Medical Association, includes an excerpt from Dr. Jerome Groopman's book How Doctors Think (amazon.com book info). The excerpt discusses a case of missed diagnosis of cardiac disease in a healthy man and gives a great example of the representativeness [...]
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  Posted: October 01, 2007, 4:13pm EDT
  by Becky

• Success story: death of a quality measure

  There's a perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine this week (subscription required for full-text access) discussing a healthcare quality success story.
  
  This brief piece looks at the use of beta-blockers in the acute period after myocardial infarction - how this was operationalized as a quality [...]
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  Posted: September 20, 2007, 4:46pm EDT
  by Becky

• Errata reporting

  I get the JAMA table of contents by email each week, and noticed today that they've started including more detail about the corrections. This week's errata, for example:
  
  

  Incorrect Data and Omission of Trial Site and Personnel in: Effects of Tamoxifen vs Raloxifene on the Risk of Developing [...]

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  Posted: September 04, 2007, 5:04pm EDT
  by Becky

• NLM and Harry Potter

  Number of comments: 1
  The National Library of Medicine currently has an exhibition exploring medicine and medical history in the Harry Potter books - Do Mandrakes Really Scream? Magic and Medicine in Harry Potter.
  

  There is more to the Harry Potter series than a child hero or a fantasy adventure —many of [...]

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  Posted: September 03, 2007, 8:53am EDT
  by Becky

• Book rentals

  Not exactly medically related but interesting - via Lifehacker
  
  Rent Books Netflix Style with BookSwim
  
  3 books at a time for $20 a month, free shipping both ways...
  
  I can't decide if their main competitors are bookstores, or libraries. [...]
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  Posted: August 22, 2007, 4:07pm EDT
  by Becky

• July JMLA case: organ donation

  The July installment in the Journal of the Medical Library Association case study series is now up over at the JMLA Case Studies in Health Sciences Librarianship blog.
  
  Reference: Todd PM, Jerome RN, Jarquin-Valdivia AA. Organ preservation in a brain dead patient: information support for neurocritical [...]
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  Posted: July 19, 2007, 1:47pm EDT
  by Becky

• Medical images

  Last month, the UK's Wellcome Trust made available a large collection of images under Creative Commons license - Wellcome's Images currently includes 40,000+ images representing the last 2,000 years.
  
  And from Worth1000, an entertaining (and sometimes disturbing) collection of hoaxed medical images
  
  (hat tip to [...]
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  Posted: July 12, 2007, 4:05pm EDT
  by Becky

• Easy FeedBurner redirect

  Making things a little simpler for Blogspot bloggers and their subscribers - the FeedBurner blog had a post yesterday about how to easily re-direct your Blogger feed to FeedBurner. [...]
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  Posted: July 12, 2007, 1:41pm EDT
  by Becky

• More on patient privacy

  As a follow-up to this post on the new IOM committee examining research impact of the HIPAA privacy regulations, here are a few additional recent items on the HIPAA Privacy Rule:
  
  
  - An article in the New York Times this week examines variability and errors in how [...]
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  Posted: July 03, 2007, 11:23am EDT
  by Becky

• Moore documentary available online

  I plan to see this and haven't watched it yet, but wanted to pass along the link for those who are interested - Michael Moore's newest documentary, Sicko, examines the American health care system and is now available online (with permission) for free viewing in mp4 format -
  
  [...]
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  Posted: July 02, 2007, 5:12pm EDT
  by Becky

• IOM committee: the HIPAA Privacy Rule's effects on health research

  A new Institute of Medicine committee has been formed to assess the impact of the HIPAA Privacy Rule -- the committee's charge is titled "Health Research and the Privacy of Health Information - The HIPAA Privacy Rule." It began June 1, 2007, first formal meeting in mid-June, and is [...]
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  Posted: July 02, 2007, 10:44am EDT
  by Becky

• Randomized trials and allocation concealment

  Number of comments: 3
  A great example of problems with a randomization scheme for a clinical trial - "Reliable evidence is the best medicine," Howard Brody, The Grand Rapids Press
  
  
  More on allocation concealment:
  
  - Schulz KF, Grimes DA. Allocation concealment in randomised trials: defending against deciphering. Lancet. 2002 [...]
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  Posted: June 06, 2007, 9:05am EDT
  by Becky

• Chatbots; virtual surgery

  Two things from BoingBoing that amused me this week, for completely different reasons -
  
  - I Chat, Therefore I Am... - Discover Magazine has transcripts of two chatbots (ALICE and Jabberwacky) talking to each other. An excerpt:
  

  J: How do you define life?
  
  A: Life is [...]

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  Posted: May 17, 2007, 9:17am EDT
  by Becky

• New WHO patient safety solutions

  The World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety Solutions (with the Joint Commission and Joint Commission International as key collaborators) has launched 9 publications intended to support improved patient safety at the international level:
  
  - Look-Alike, Sound-Alike Medication Names
  - Patient Identification
  - Communication [...]
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  Posted: May 02, 2007, 9:40am EDT
  by Becky

• Weekend variety post: EBM, Open Medicine, safety, research reproducibility

  Cleaning out some of my saved Google alerts...
  
  - BBC News: "Busting modern medical myths" - brief quotes from Andrew Booth and Paul Glasziou about evidence-based medicine
  - News item, "Cochrane researcher admits lid law may decrease bike use," about a recent Cochrane review which found [...]
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  Posted: April 22, 2007, 1:46pm EDT
  by Becky

• Library icons in PubMed's AbstractPlus display

  The NLM Technical Bulletin has a brief article announcing that PubMed's AbstractPlus display has been modified -- now, one library-specific icon now appears closer to the top of the page, right above the Related Articles links.
  
  The icons in the AbstractPlus display are displayed in the [...]
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  Posted: April 09, 2007, 4:16pm EDT
  by Becky

• Skeptic's Circle up at Aardvarchaeology

  The 57th Skeptic's Circle is now up at Martin Rundkvist's Aardvarchaeology blog -- this installment has several great essays about alternative medicine topics, including an update on dichloroacetate (DCA) for cancer treatment and a discussion of Airborne for preventing the common cold, among other very interesting topics. [...]
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  Posted: March 29, 2007, 12:08pm EDT
  by Becky

• New documentary on addiction

  On Thursday March 15 from 8:00 - 9:30 Central time (other air times), HBO will be airing a documentary, Addiction, produced in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). It's part [...]
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  Posted: March 07, 2007, 10:05am EST
  by Becky

• New Medlineplus magazine issue

  NLM has posted the latest issue of the MedlinePlus magazine.
  
  In this issue:
  - women's heart health
  - a large section summarizing key strategies for aging well and staying healthy
  - an interview with Elias Zerhouni, NIH Director, about the future of personalized medicine
  - an overview of [...]
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  Posted: February 28, 2007, 9:17pm EST
  by Becky

• Venter on the Colbert Report

  Last night on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert interviewed Craig Venter about his work with the human genome and the potential future impact of related discoveries, including discussion of possible conflicts of interest associated with commercial development of genome-related initiatives (e.g. synthetic genomics).
  
  A little history about controversy [...]
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  Posted: February 28, 2007, 3:56pm EST
  by Becky

• Picking "random" numbers

  Often in a report of a randomized clinical trial, you see description in the methods section of the paper indicating a bit more detail than just saying "patients were randomly assigned to treatment or control." Due to recognized (and unrecognized), internal (and possibly external) potential sources of bias, it's virtually [...]
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  Posted: February 27, 2007, 8:15pm EST
  by Becky

• Coughing and sneezing techniques

  Number of comments: 2
  Very appropriate for this time of year, with increasing reports of influenza-like illness in Nashville and elsewhere -- a funny and informative instructional video about "better" ways to cough and sneeze to reduce how much you contaminate your hands and the air around you (via Bad Astronomy). [...]
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  Posted: February 21, 2007, 12:00pm EST
  by Becky

• Animation of DNA wrapping and replication

  "Molecular visualizations of DNA" is a 2003 video illustrating DNA wrapping and replication, credited to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Dolan DNA Learning Center -- great animations and narration of both processes (found via Nobel [...]
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  Posted: February 16, 2007, 11:57am EST
  by Becky

• History blogging

  Number of comments: 2
  If you're like me and you believe that librarians need to know at least a little bit of everything, check out some interesting history posts up in History Carnival #48, hosted this month by Martin at Aardvarchaeology. My favorites are the Caligula post and the consideration of why [...]
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  Posted: February 15, 2007, 1:52pm EST
  by Becky

• Friday humor: a tribute to the heart

  The group Hard 'N Phirm has video on YouTube for their song "El Corazón," a dramatic (and accurate) musical tribute to the heart and its functions, in Spanish with English subtitles (via BoingBoing).
  
  (other songs, including a song about pi, are on the group's official site) [...]
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  Posted: February 09, 2007, 12:02pm EST
  by Becky

• The CAST trial: EBM and unexpected answers

  The Houston Chronicle has started a new medicine column, and the first installment, "Evidence is key when it comes to your treatment by Dr. Howard Brody, discusses what evidence-based medicine means to the patient.
  
  Dr. Brody uses very accessible, everyday language - he briefly describes the CAST trial, [...]
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  Posted: February 08, 2007, 8:31pm EST
  by Becky

• "Forgotten Genius" on PBS: Percy Julian's story

  Number of comments: 2
  Tonight on PBS at 7pm Central, Nova is airing "Forgotten Genius," the story of Percy Julian, an African American chemist who made a number of ground-breaking discoveries during the early and mid 1900s.
  
  The 2 hour long program will include "Archival footage, dramatic reenactments featuring Tony winner Ruben [...]
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  Posted: February 05, 2007, 11:49am EST
  by Becky

• Observational and interventional studies

  One of the editorials in this week's NEJM gives a great example of the relative roles of observational and interventional studies in clinical research. The editorial, "The healing power of listening in the ICU," discusses a randomized trial in the same issue that compares two different communication strategies for [...]
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  Posted: February 01, 2007, 6:21pm EST
  by Becky

• January JMLA case posted

  The newest installment in the new case study series in the Journal of the Medical Library Association is now available in PubMed Central.
  
  This month's case looks at using case reports to answer a question about diarrhea in an ICU patient possibly caused by Clostridium difficile (C-diff) infection [...]
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  Posted: January 25, 2007, 11:49am EST
  by Becky

• Comparing diagnostic tests: verification bias

  An article in this week's Archives of Internal Medicine discusses a limitation of study design and execution that can happen in comparisons of diagnostic testing options, an issue known as verification bias.
  
  The scenario:
  You have a new diagnostic test, Exciting Test A, that may be an option for [...]
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  Posted: January 23, 2007, 12:49pm EST
  by Becky