I’m not at the ERS, I’m in sunny Dundee, but due to the wonder of social media, we can all follow the goings on in Munich on the Twitter hashtag #ers2014. If you want to see what’s happened on this first day click here Of great interest – those COPD patients with an increased Eosinophil […]
Category: Musings
Conference Time
There’s a thread over on on the Doc2Doc website about the ERS over in Munich. A couple of trainees asked about what to do and where to go – one of the more senior members over there thinks that conferences have become bloated, oversized, and are now so big that they have become too large […]
Should we have a Dr House?
You’ve seen House, right? Prince George from Blackadder III plays a misanthropic “diagnostician” in a fancy Boston Hospital, taking on the hardest cases, those without a diagnosis, and works out what’s wrong through a range of tests carried out by his underlings, a whiteboard that *always* has sarcoid on it, and by being quite rude […]
Summer BTS, Insidious Advertising, Le Grand Dèpart, The benefits of time off.
I’m just back home from 2 weeks of annual leave. 2 whole weeks, with my whole family, without having to go to work. I think the last time my wife and I had 2 weeks off, together, back to back, was our honeymoon. In September 2000. After one week off my e-mail inbox usually has […]
How many beans make 5?
More importantly, how many consultants make a department? We interviewed for two new colleagues recently. 2 posts, 2 applicants, 2 shortlisted, 2 interviewed, 2 appointed. All smiles down at the DCA that night. This brings us up to 6 consultants, but 5 Whole Time Equivalents, for our teaching hospital service. The Royal College of Physicians […]
Summer BTS – Day 1 in the BTS House
I like the Summer BTS. It’s not as well attended as the Winter meeting in London, there’s a smaller choice of talks, it’s doesn’t have a pub right opposite into which to retire post conference, there’s a far smaller number of posters, talks, and it’s shorter, out there’s something relaxed about the Summer meeting that […]
IVOST-ing, and Mycoplasma
The verbalising of nouns is an insidious threat to modern civilisation, some would have us believe. Things are ‘actioned’, when the already existing verb, ‘to do’, would seem perfectly suitable. Adjectives seem to be replacing adverbs: the triathlon magazines I read each month promise to tell me how to ‘run fast’, or how to descend […]
What’s Pneumonia Anyway?
This afternoon a patient on the ward asked me “So do I have pneumonia then?”. Not a straightforward answer. She has a productive cough, crackles in her left base, a WCC of 24, CRP of 140, and presented with a lactate of 3.4, and a bicarbonate of 14. And a normal CXR. SIRS? Yes. Sepsis? […]
10,105
10,105 runners and walkers lined up this morning for the Navy Bridge Run. Fantastic event, great course, albeit tough. Results are here – a reasonable 46th position for me, and 3rd Lady… Off to conference proper now. […]
Roaming
It turns out that roaming charges in the States are ridiculous. £8 a MB means only a few tweets, FB updates, and attempts at writing up a blog post leas to an astronomical phone bill… The ATS starts proper tomorrow. San Diego is it’s usual mix of great places to eat, deceptive heat, and a […]