May

15

There Are Days…

May 15, 2008 | 141 Comments

My Good Friends and Patient Readers,
I’ve decide to stop blogging. Although I have enjoyed writing this blog and mightily appreciate all of you who have taken the time to read and comment upon my many articles, keeping the blog going has taken an appreciable toll on my sleep, studying, and even on my family time. […]

May

12

No, I haven’t Disappeared…

May 12, 2008 | 13 Comments

Just taking a break from blogging for a couple of weeks. If you want something to read need I remind you, oh my regular readers as well as those who have accidentally arrived at my blog after a fruitless Google search for “stuffed panda bears” or “panda bear mating habits,” that my archives, […]

May

2

Up and Down and All Around The Pandaverse

May 2, 2008 | 34 Comments

I Needed That
Let’s just say I don’t know as much about pediatric resuscitation as I should. I know the basics of course, but there are nuances in the the emergency treatment of children that are not as easy to remember as they are for a standard 75-kilogram adult. We also get many, many […]

Apr

28

Randapanda III

April 28, 2008 | 45 Comments

A reader comments : “I have serious trepidations about electing a president who was a POW for 5 yrs and remained in solitary confinement for two of those five. I have total respect for the service and valor of John McCain, but I don’t believe you can endure this type of treatment and come out […]

Apr

27

Randapanda II

April 27, 2008 | 10 Comments

Actual Patient Encounter:
“I’m really, really annoyed.”
“Really? Why?
“I’ve been sitting here for an hour and you just now walked in.”
“I’m sorry. We’re pretty busy tonight.”
“Well, I’m still annoyed.”
“How annoyed?”
“Like, a 10 out of 10.”
“You know, my Great-grandmother was driven from her home in Asia Minor by the Turks and had to walk two hundred miles […]

Apr

23

Randapanda

April 23, 2008 | 34 Comments

(I can’t concentrate. I admit it. Sorry. -PB)
Hey…
So I was absent for about a week from my blog and my daily readership actually went up. Clearly there is some optimal number of posts per month that will maximize daily hits and I am usually exceeding it….or maybe if I stopped posting altogether […]

Apr

21

Madhouse

April 21, 2008 | 18 Comments

It’s Only Getting Crazier
Maybe it’s the change in the weather but our Emergency Department seems to have gone insane. It’s always been pretty busy but since the beginning of this month (and Spring temperatures) it seems like the patient population of our city has exploded as if there is some kind of Vague Abdominal […]

Apr

13

Medical School Pre-Clinical Years: Twenty Questions (Part 3)

April 13, 2008 | 20 Comments

What About Student Government in Medical School? Waste of Time or What?
Every medical school has some sort of student government. You will have class officers and the usual student body President, Vice-President and other offices filled by medical students looking for…well…who knows? At the basic level it cannot be denied that the predominant impulse for […]

Apr

9

Medical School Pre-Clinical Years: Twenty Questions (Part 2)

April 9, 2008 | 20 Comments

What About “Early Patient Contact?” Is It Important?
No. “Early Patient Contact,” like “All Natural” and “Holistic,” is a marketing phrase designed to entice earnest pre-meds into one medical school over another. Like “Problem Based Learning,” another slick marketing phrase, if I had my choice I’d flee as if from the Devil himself […]

Apr

7

Medical School Pre-Clinical Years: Twenty Questions (Part 1)

April 7, 2008 | 23 Comments

(With a hat-tip to EMphysician for the idea. -PB)
What’s the Secret to Medical School?
There is really no secret except the obvious. First, you have to be intelligent. Not necessarily Mensa material but smart enough to assimilate the material. Next you have to study…a lot although the actual amount and method will vary. […]

Apr

2

Brief Notes From a Travelling Panda

April 2, 2008 | 28 Comments

(I am on vacation and we have made the 1200 mile trek from frozen Yankeeland to Louisiana to visit the family.  Please accept some short observations hastily typed on borrowed computers, apropos of nothing in particular and perhaps not really related to anything you want to read about. -PB)
A Modest Proposal
Although you wouldn’t believe it […]

Mar

28

Liberating Us From Crap (And Other Totally Random Stuff)

March 28, 2008 | 67 Comments

Techno-Savvy
I am no Luddite. Like most of the younger physicians today, I grew up with computers. My father had one of those suitcase-nuke Osbornes and I am old enough to remember how cool we thought the Commodore 64 was, what with its sweet cassette tape drive and way cool BASIC instruction set that let you […]

Mar

25

Defending the Pie

March 25, 2008 | 29 Comments

(The pie is a metaphor. I’m only mentioning this because the last time I mentioned pie, I received several irate emails, the gist of which were that pie is not to blame for the collapse of society. -PB)
Primary Snake Oil

The silliest thing about the practitioners of Complementary and alternative medicine is that they don’t know […]

Mar

20

Evidence Based Medicine? We Don’t Need No Stinking Evidence Based Medicine

March 20, 2008 | 35 Comments

The Free Netter’s Ain’t Worth It

I am an educated man. I have an extensive liberal education, a degree in Civil Engineering, a Medical Degree, and am almost done with residency training in Emergency Medicine. Just for fun, I read the kinds of books they forced you to read in your long-forgotten English literature course (not […]

Mar

17

The Best-Laid Schemes O’ Mice an’ Men Gang Aft Agley (And Other Things)

March 17, 2008 | 15 Comments

(With apologies to Robert Burns. -PB)
Less is Better
I imagine that some day Graham, the author of the superlative medical blog Over!My!Med!Body, who is just now emerging Siddhartha-like from the palace of his father to see the world-as-it-really-is rather than how he wants it to be, is going slam his imported microbrew down on the bar […]

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