Thinking of a Thesis Topic is Migraine Inducing

I have been hammering away for the past few days thinking of a thesis topic for my Masters in Emergency Medicine program. Finding something relevant to emergency medicine  is proving to be more difficult than I thought. There are many things that I would like to research, many exciting and long haul ideas but for the sake of completion I am going to have to pick one that is short and doable within the next year. So far the topic that I have decided on:

Icepack Application as Analgesia in Suspected Closed Extremity Fractures in Children

Now isn't that a mouthful. But does it say "publishable"?

Semisonic's Secret Smile

"Nobody knows it but you've got a secret smile 

And you use it only for me" 

Emma Hamilton, You Secretly Haunt Me

Emma Hamilton (nee Hart) was the very young wife of Sir William Hamilton, meeting her initially as the mistress of another nobleman. Hamilton who was sixty when he wed the young Emma Hart, soon kicked the bucket and Lady Hamilton, as she was then officially known, became a mistress once again - this time to the great but vain Lord Nelson. 

If this wasn't complicated enough, somewhere in all this mess comes George Romney the painter. Romney is infatuated ( some say engrossed ) with Lady Hamilton and she would eventually become his muse. Not happy with merely doing a dozen or so paintings, Romney goes on to paint more than sixty of her in various poses. It is disputed whether if indeed Romney was in love with Emma Hamilton but I find it hard to believe that anyone could produce work so beautiful of a woman if he weren't secretly in love with her. 

After the death of Lord Nelson, Lady Hamilton would drink away her youth and eventually die broke and alone at fifty from liver failure. 

If you're wondering why this portrait looks so familiar, it's because its been used countless times as the front cover for Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Love Really Hurts Without You

Blowback

Over the past few weeks I have had the displeasure of listening to some close friends let in on the less than palatable stuff said about myself by a certain other. Yes, there are other falsehoods and accusations leveled at those close to me but those matters will have to be settled in their own time. The issue with what was said is that it is potentially damaging, and for reason that this person will soon find out, will inflict far greater pain to themselves than they would the blowback from the poorly placed picnic fire they started.

I am not to be messed with. My family is never to me messed with.

Shut Up Already, Its Science

My favourite tag line of the month. Will be playing this every time I hear someone blabber on about something unscientific.

Ionesco's Rhinocero - via the Guardian (2007)

It has been compared to George Orwell's Animal Farm, but Animal Farm is about power corrupting Russian communists. Rhinoceros is allegedly a parable about French collaboration with the Nazis. A comparison to Albert Camus' The Plague is perhaps more appropriate. Both The Plague and Rhinoceros evoke the French response to the Nazis, but more interestingly today, they describe a human response to creeping transmogrification. Both seem rooted in an existentialist tradition, which is as much about the futility and absurdity of the human condition as it is about our historical capacity for cruelty

Mr Ionesco wrote my favourite  quote of all time “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” 

The NHS: we can make it better

We need a system that is more open and flexible and which celebrates excellence and doesn’t tolerate failure. The chance to make the health service the admiration of the world has come round again. We must not let it pass.

I'd really hate working for the UK NHS right about now. "Doesn't tolerate failure" are words that only cause increases and wastage in health care.

Want better healthcare? Make hospital staff worse less by hiring more. Want targeted treatment ? Use non generic , broad spec next generation medication. Wasting time with tests? Why not run everything under the sun on the first visit. These things are costs, none of which the patient, taxpayer nor government can afford.

There is a difference between negligence and failure. Negligence is when the right treatment or counsel was denied to a patient knowingly. Failure is what happens everyday in healthcare. Tweaks and treatment detours is what every patient needs when the some part of the provision of healthcare fails.

No two patients are ever alike. Getting this message to the care providers is what is needed rather than holding up these overworked providers to increased accountability which almost inevitably means increased paper work. 

Medicine in modern history has been practiced in a step wise and escalating manner. Failure is part that stepwise management. Patients should always be forced to walk, never to run.

New EOS-M Lenses Soon?

We’re told 3 new EOS-M lenses will be announced in the coming months. A 55-300 style lens will appear along with a “fast prime” first, followed by a super zoom with a new EOS-M body.

It is surprising that Canon Rumors thinks that they will be a long zoom lens for the EOS-M.  I think such a lens would be a little too big, a little bulky and defeat the reason Canon came up with such a small form factor for the current EOS M Line. I haven't heard any news similar to this before so I'm guessing he has some inside information. Not a bad thing considering a heads up now and then will be good to prevent unnecessary purchases.

'The shark nearly took my leg off in a split second'

When he heard the cry of 'Shark!', brave British holidaymaker Paul Marshallsea did not hesitate. The 62-year-old rushed from his beachside barbecue, dashed to the water and found the shark in shallow waters close to where a group of toddlers were innocently paddling.

You have to give it to this grandpa. I wouldn't have done anything remotely as brave.

Horrible Parenting

Every time the telephone rings in their motorcycle workshop in Subang Jaya, Yau Kok Kang and his wife Goh Ying Ying pray that it is someone with good news about their six-year-old son, William Yau Zhen Zhong, who has been missing since last Wednesday - The Star Online

Everyday we are faced with new choices and as adults we try to make the best one possible. Leaving your children in the back of a car, unsupervised, with the windows down is the hallmark of bad parenting. The very sad story of young William proves more needs to be done to educate parents on their parental responsibilities and potential threats to the safety of their children. Mistakes such as those that were committed by these young parents should never be repeated by others in Malaysia. I do hope that they do find William, we have had enough bad news in the press already this year.