I probably should have mentioned in advance my late June hiatus, though it honestly wasn’t planned until I was halfway into it. Because I already have summer vacation 2016 on the books, let’s just plan for it to be an annual thing, please and thanks.
So, we’re not dormant and I still have plenty to say. And with that, let’s launch into the July edition of Reading Round-up, shall we?
With the new academic year came the end of the FIRST study (and our return at Utah to the 2011 PGY1 workhour rules). While I share the investigators’ hopes that it will give us meaningful information, I wonder if workhours will really be rolled back to the pre-2011 workhours if there is no difference- or what the longer-term implications are of sharply limiting PGY1 workhours (and therefore clinical opportunities). We all still have so many questions.
Trying to make a student into a clerkship convert? Apparently quality matters more than quantity, in terms of OR time. Remember that as your med students are there and having “Gee, Whiz!” moments- that one knot or one staple can really make a difference to them.
Burns as a model for global healthcare, and surgery in particular? Of course! Thanks to MSF for this terrific piece that was just published.
I spend a lot of time thinking that as critical care physicians we simply have to do a better job with palliative care by respecting our patients’ goals of care. This new publication from the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group provides more fodder, particularly for the Very Elderly admitted to the ICU.
And finally, as the new academic year begins and I watch medical students struggle with varied levels of moral distress in the clinical setting, it seems a wonderful time to share this essay. I hope the author is able to maintain his sense of humanism and wonder in a system that often seems designed to take those things away from us.
Last but not least, for summer reading pleasure Mink River by Brian Doyle. I am particularly smitten with the Department of Public Works in this fictional town.