Came across a very funny blog authored by an English school teacher by the name of Mr. Chalk.

Here’s just an example of his brand of humor from a post entitled: Sorry, We Cannot Take Your Call Right Now…

Bring-Bring, Bring-Bring…

“Congratulations for correctly dialling the number for St. Thickchilds School! Your call is important to us, so please select from the following options:

If you are unsure about the specific nature of your complaint, but would just like to moan, press One

If you are phoning to let us know that all the teachers are picking on your child, press Two

If you wish to make a false allegation against a teacher; press Three, or contact ‘Ambulance Chasers’ on 0870 565 8484. We will not be able to tell you which solicitor is best for suing us.

If you have a ludicrous excuse for why your child has been absent, press Four. Please note that we are unable to suggest one for you.

If you would like to know why your child is not allowed on the school trip to Scagton, press Five

If you would like to request a School Permission Slip to allow your child to spit on pedestrians whilst travelling on the school bus, press Six.

If you would like to verbally abuse a specific teacher; press Seven, or simply race up to school and demand to see them immediately.

If your child is socially inept and would like to change forms yet again, press Eight

If it is a crucial time in your child’s education and you would like to request two weeks off to go on holiday, press Nine

If you are a parent who appreciates the efforts we make to educate and discipline your child then hang up and do not try again later.”

If you’ve ever had any connection with the world of academia… or you have school-age children… or you were once a child yourself… you should take a moment and visit Chalk’s blog. Very funny stuff.

- Dean

If you’re interested in finding some new blogs to read (or you just like to take trips down memory lane) check out the latest “Change of Shift” hosted by one of my favorite bloggers, Mother Jones of Nurse Ratched’s Place.

She always has outstanding memorabilia threaded amongst her posts and this time is no exception. She even managed to tie some of the contributions (it’s called a “blog carnival”) into specific episodes of TV shows from 30 - 40 years ago. Truly amazing. How she can remember the details of all those old TV shows, I have no idea. I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday.

- Dean

One thing I like about reading blogs is that the good ones give you an insight — a brief glimpse — into someone else’s life. The best ones (in my opinion) give you a candid look at just what that person’s job or career is really like.

I find this to be particularly true of blogs centered around the medical profession.

As a journalist, it’s all well and good to write about research studies and medical procedures … to gather facts and information … and then attempt to present it in some useful fashion. But let’s face it, the real action takes place in the trenches and that’s the sort of thing we laymen rarely get a chance to experience for ourselves (unless something has gone terribly wrong).

The Forgotten Blue Line is the work of a fairly new blogger on the MedBlog scene and one that opens up a rarely noticed aspect of the healthcare field. (Hence the name.) It is about the day to day trials and tribulations of a healthcare security officer.

Yeah, you read that right. A security officer.

I just found this blog today while catching up on the latest installment over at Nurse Ratched’s Place. And, while there are a number of posts worthy of mention, I decided to only give you an excerpt from his most recent post just to get you started…

My partner and I were standing outside assisting with a medical evac… So as we finish and the bird flies off my partner and I step into the emergency room. As we enter we hear the emergency director yelling for someone to call security. We run down to the room and before I opened the curtain a smell hit me like a punch to the nose and I knew then this was going to be bad…

I’ll leave you to read the rest of, If you’re Crazy and you know it II… and be sure to check out his other posts as well.

Very good stuff. I hope that Flashlight 1 will continue to give us more of the same.

Dean

In my previous post I mentioned an observation made by Orac in relation to a story about real doctors consulting chiropractors. It was part of a much larger post entitled, Missionaries of Woo on the Respectful Insolence blog that deserves mention in it’s own right:

GruntDoc’s anecdote got me thinking about another case of wildly inappropriate use of alternative medicine. It’s a case that came up on a mailing list that I subscribe to, and it caused a fair amount of discussion. In essence, I’m talking about an organization called Natural Doctors International. It is, in essence, Doctors Without Borders, except with woo. This is what they do:

Natural Doctors International provides free healthcare
services to underserved communities by offering volunteer medical rotations for licensed naturopathic physicians and other Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners worldwide.

Natural Doctors International

• Offers long-term volunteer rotations for naturopathic physicians.
• Provides donations of medicine, medical supplies, and equipment.
• Establishes and develops community projects that improve health.
• Organizes short term medical brigades for ND’s, DO’s, DC’s, MD’s NP’s, herbalists, acupuncturists, and Lac’s that deliver free health care.

Yep, it’s just what developing nations need: More non-evidence-based medicine.

Orac goes on to discuss the situation in depth and then writes:

Certainly, they should be applauded for their desire to help. However,
there’s help, and then there’s effective help. This sort of “help” could well be worse than no help at all. What these impoverished regions need is not more woo, but more scientific medicine.

He concludes with the following:

Finally, what is one really huge cause of morbidity and mortality
among infants in such countries? It’s something that we in developed
countries hardly even think about because it is not a problem. I’m
talking about infectious diarrhea, which claims 1.5 million children a
year worldwide. You may also remember that I discussed a clinical trial
examining the effect of homeopathy on infectious diarrhea and
questioned the ethics of using woo in Third World nations. At least the
clinical trial was done with some supervision by physicians; letting
loose naturopaths would guarantee no oversight.

It’s an old cliche that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Here I see good intentions and a dirt road…

I think we should look on the bright side.

This may be the perfect opportunity for those fake doctors
to learn just how ineffective their nonsense is when faced with real sickness
and disease. I mean can you imagine some chiropractor actually attempting to
treat malaria or AIDS? One commenter summed up my feelings exactly:

My understanding is that in the U.S. most so-called alternative
medicine practitioners usually treat the “worried well,” folks with
problems which tend to heal themselves, or people with chronic
conditions which fluctuate over time. Something tells me that this is
not the sort of thing that’s going to be coming into third world
emergency clinics.

For some Natural Healers, it could be a rather rude awakening. How
many acupuncturists, homeopaths, and Reiki Masters in the local
“Wellness Clinic” at the strip mall have had their patients regularly
die on them?

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Dean

I ran across this rather amusing anecdote posted by GruntDoc about the guidelines for chiropractors in the ER, which I won’t quote from since he prefers that you read it in context.

However, Orac of scienceblogs fame made a rather astute observation in respect to GruntDoc’s post:

Whatever benefits (or lack thereof) chiropractic may have in the treatment of chronic back pain, one thing you can say about alternative medical treatments with some confidence is that they are in general pretty useless for acute problems of the kind seen in most emergency rooms. Next they’ll be calling chiropractors in to treat spinal fractures.

Sums it up pretty well if you ask me. (By the way, if you’re curious about my opinions concerning chiropractic treatment be sure to read: Don’t I Need a Chiropractor?)

But putting all that aside, what was also interesting was a comment about rebound headaches left on the post by A Bohemian Road Nurse that reads as follows:

I’ve also found a lot of people with constant “migraine” headaches whereby Immitrex, narcotics and NSAIDS are not working are really having “rebound headaches”. My sister, who suffered from just such a headache merry-go-round didn’t believe me about the existence of rebound headaches. But she reluctantly tried my suggestion of weaning herself from pain meds. After three days of misery, she was headache free. It worked. Now, she only gets the ocasional “real” migraine, around her menstrual cycle, for which Immitrex DOES now work. (I know this doesn’t cover everybody, but it is a thought to consider for some people with lots of headaches….)

I first heard of rebound headaches a few years back from (I believe it was) Dateline NBC. The gist of the story was that constant use of NSAIDS like Ibuprofen can actually lead to worse headaches once the medication wears off.

It eventually turns into a vicious cycle.

I can’t help but wonder if there might not be a similar “rebound back pain” associated with over-reliance on pain meds for the treatment of back and neck problems. It would explain why a lot of minor injuries develop into chronic problems.

I’m sure there is a flaw in my logic somewhere… I’m just thinking out loud.

Dean

I ran across this post on Dr. Flea’s blog this morning that was too good not to share with you. For those of you unfamiliar with Flea he is a pediatrician and one of the more prevalent medical bloggers.

This quote is from his response to the question, Why Do You Blog?

Our culture is suffused with messages telling parents that their children are sick, or potentially sick: one sniffle away from certain doom. Flea’s message is that American children are the healthiest children that ever lived on planet Earth. We should celebrate our good fortune.

The culture tells us the children are defined by series of capital letters: ADD, ADHD, ASD, PDD-NOS, OCD. Flea wants children to be called by the names their parents gave them.

Pediatrics today consists of daily exercises in over-testing, over-diagnosing, over-treating, and over-admiting to hospital. Flea wants the folks to
know that often the best thing to do for a child is to keep him or her
the hell out of the pediatrician’s office!

Pediatricians who write for newspapers and magazines produce icky, squishy pap that bears only the faintest resemblance to expository writing, and that is astonishingly void of original points of view.

Flea is trying to keep it real.

(Editor: Flea has decided to close his blog for the time being. We can only hope this is only temporary.)