Archive for August, 2008

You can save yourself and your patients a lot of time if you work on mastering the ability to “get the ball rolling”. Basically, it means anticipating what the next steps are, and facilitating them. Let me give you an example…

Let’s say you are calling a consult. You are post-call and overnight your patient began to experience a change in mental status. Now, you want to call a neuro consult.

Guess what? You will notice that there’s a pattern. When most neurologists come by, they order the same type of stuff when it comes to a change in mental status. They’ll say let’s check a TSH, a B12, a folate, an RPR and a sed rate. Maybe if there’s no recent head CT they’ll suggest that or an MRI. This isn’t a knock on neurologists… it just is what it is.

Anyway, you can get some of that ball rolling by ordering some of those same tests that you know they’re going to order. And this does a couple of things for you… (more…)

If you use PowerPoint or Keynote in your morning reports, M-and-M conferences, or grand rounds, you might want to watch this comedian first…

If you can think of any other annoying PowerPoint phenomena, post them in the comments…

StumbleUpon is an awesome social bookmarking site that allows you to surf the net in an exciting way. Basically, you install a little plug-in into your browser that provides you with a “stumble” button. Whenever you click on it, you will be sent to a web site that either fits the categories you pre-selected as topics you are interested in, or you will be sent to a web site that your friends have flagged as interesting.

Why am I telling you this? Well, RookieDoctor.com is on StumbleUpon. And as I go through sites that I think may be of interest to you for your training, I flag it. (I give it a “thumbs up.”) You can choose to “stumble” through the sites RookieDoctor.com has given a thumbs up or you can go to RookieDoc’s StumbleUpon page and see which sites they are.

Also, if you happen to like one of the posts on this blog, you can give it a thumbs up by using the icon at the bottom of the post. You can also review it and post comments for other “stumblers”.

If you have any sites you think I should comment on or stumble, let me know. And if you join StumbleUpon, then tag me as a friend.