blog-carnival

Grand Rounds: Best of Health and Medical Blogging

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Grand Rounds blog car­ni­val, the week­ly edi­tion of what’s best in the health and med­ical blo­gos­phere. This week, twen­ty four blog­gers share data, insights, ques­tions, reflec­tions and more. Enjoy! [Read more…] about Grand Rounds: Best of Health and Med­ical Blogging

Upcoming: Grand Rounds Blog Carnival and Brain Fitness Q&A

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Just a quick note to announce that next Tues­day, Novem­ber 15th, SharpBrains.com will be host­ing two great resources:

1- Grand Rounds Blog Car­ni­val: the week­ly col­lec­tion of what’s best in the health and med­ical blo­gos­phere (see great lat­est edi­tion Here). If you want to con­tribute your own blog post, please do so via this Con­tact Us form.
2- Live Q&A Ses­sion with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, coau­thor of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (recent­ly select­ed as one of the Best Books on Brain Fit­ness by AARP). Ses­sion will take place at 11am Pacif­ic Time/ 2pm East­ern Time, and will be mod­er­at­ed by Har­ry Moody, Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­m­ic Affairs at AARP. To learn more click Here.

Please make sure to vis­it us Tuesday!

    Grand Rounds 5:12 — Healthcare Reform Q&A

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    “If Dr. Rob can inter­view San­ta, why can’t I inter­view a select group of health & med­ical blog­gers? They will have some good ideas to share”.

    So did Pres­i­dent-elect Oba­ma came to real­ize a few days ago. After his peo­ple kind­ly con­tact­ed our peo­ple, we felt com­pelled to grant him open access to our col­lec­tive wis­dom. With­out fur­ther ado, below you have Grand Rounds 5:12 — a Q&A ses­sion led by the incom­ing Pres­i­dent on how to reform (for the bet­ter, we hope) healthcare.

    On Health Insurance

    Q:  How does the blo­gos­phere per­ceive the prob­lem of hav­ing a sig­nif­i­cant group of peo­ple uninsured?

    Health Insur­ance Col­orado: a grow­ing eco­nom­ic bur­den, which may lead to emer­gency rooms turn­ing peo­ple away if they are unable to pro­vide proof of health insurance.

    Dr Rich: well, a recent arti­cle in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion showed how over­crowd­ing in Amer­i­can emer­gency rooms is NOT due to the unin­sured. Rather, it is due to insured Amer­i­cans who can­not get in to see their pri­ma­ry care physi­cians. We may need improved care both for the insured and unin­sured groups.

    Insure­Blog: I’d sec­ond that. Lack of health insur­ance is a major prob­lem but is it real­ly our Biggest Problem?

    It’s All about Attitude

    Q: You may have heard my cam­paign mantra, “Yes We Can”. Can I count on your support? 

    ButY­ouDont­Look­Sick: Yes. If Leslie Hunt can talk so open­ly about her chron­ic ill­ness (Lupus) yet ful­fill her Amer­i­can Idol dreams, we can ful­fill our dreams too.

    Notes of an Anes­the­sioboist: you are talk­ing to the group of pro­fes­sion­als will­ing to self-exper­i­ment with our own body for the ben­e­fit of sci­ence and our patients.

    Med­views: My wife, son, and I signed up to work as med­ical vol­un­teers for your upcom­ing inauguration.

    Emergi­Blog: I am on board too. But, please, remem­ber that car­ing is the essence of nurs­ing. And that is why my patients will always be my patients and nev­er my  clients.

    Neu­roan­thro­pol­o­gy: Mr. Pres­i­dent-elect, it seems to me that, despite all our good inten­tions, bal­anc­ing the bud­get and mul­ti­ple com­pet­ing pri­or­i­ties will be a chal­lenge. May I sug­gest you start prac­tic­ing some capoeira for equi­lib­ri­um training?

    Shrink Rap: Hap­py to help. Now, we will need to pro­tect some time for qual­i­ty sleep time.

    Train­ing

    Q: I am encour­aged by your words. How can my team and I bet­ter sup­port you in your dai­ly activities?

    Aequa­nim­i­tas: we need more role mod­els for us to “learn to think, observe, and com­pare” and that the patient is our “first, last, and only teacher”.

    Mud­phud­der: Could­n’t agree more. We need [Read more…] about Grand Rounds 5:12 — Health­care Reform Q&A

    Encephalon: Briefing the Next US President on Neuroscience & Psychology

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    Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,

    We are glad to wel­come you to our blog car­ni­val. After a short hia­tus, Encephalon is backScience Debate 2008 and gath­er­ing steam. We have pre­pared this “revival” edi­tion just for you, so you can be well informed and impress us all dur­ing the upcom­ing Sci­encede­bate 2008.

    With­out fur­ther ado, let’s pro­ceed to the ques­tions posed by 24 blog­gers on neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy issues. We hope they pro­vide, at the very least, good men­tal stim­u­la­tion for you and your advisors.

    Big Ques­tions

    Do I deserve to vote even if I don’t have Free Will? (Marc at Neu­ro­sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Challenged).

    If cul­ture sculpts our brains, what can our brains do to refine our cul­ture first? (Stephanie at Brains On Purpose).

    Is God more than a fly­ing brain? (Jes­si­ca at bioephemera).

    Is Your brain real­ly read­ing This? (Pete at Brain Hammer).

    A Few Intru­sive Questions 

    Do you play any musi­cal instru­ment? (Megan at SharpBrains).

    [Read more…] about Encephalon: Brief­ing the Next US Pres­i­dent on Neu­ro­science & Psychology

    Brain Fitness News: Posit Science, Slate

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    A cou­ple of quick links

    • DISCOVER Mag­a­zine, May 2007 issue, brings a great arti­cle titled “The Elas­tic Brain: Michael Merzenich believes you can tone your mind and stave off mem­o­ry loss. All it takes is time in his men­tal gym”. The arti­cle (which is not avail­able online) pro­vides a great overview of the amaz­ing work of Prof. Merzenich (a UCSF neu­ro­sci­en­tist) with Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing and Posit Sci­ence, pio­neers in the field. The writer’s tone is pos­i­tive over­all but adds a note of skep­ti­cism, say­ing that “Yet despite the enthu­si­as­tic tes­ti­mo­ny I heard from senior cit­i­zens who have tried the pro­gram, there are no for­mal stud­ies pub­lished in peer-reviewed jour­nals that demon­strate the pro­gram’s effects” and gath­er­ing crit­i­cisms out­lined by oth­er researchers. Hav­ing said so, in our opin­ion, Posit Sci­ence offers the best pro­gram we have seen focused on improv­ing audi­to­ry pro­cess­ing, and we expect to see more clear stud­ies soon-the field is rel­a­tive­ly new.
    • Slate Mag­a­zine presents a spe­cial issue on the brain. We will review and com­ment on it soon, includ­ing a neu­ro­bic club/ brain gym.

    You can see here an inter­view with inter­view with Dr. Michael Merzenich