This morning when I booted up my email I found two great things to share. The first is a fantastic blog entry over at Chief Complaint (the Medscape ED Physician’s blog). It briefly discusses an encounter with a patient who threatens to kill an ED nurse (among other unpleasant things), and asks the questions: “Is the emergency department a criminal-free zone?  Perhaps once an individual crosses the ED entryway, society’s laws regarding physical assault and homicidal threats no longer apply?” It’s a great read, but as with all Medscape offerings, you must register for the site to access it. Thanks, Kim for the tip!

Donations and supplies are still desperately needed for Haiti. Please consider making a donation to Partners in Health at the FHO contribution site: http://act.pih.org/page/outreach/view/haitiearthquake/FHO. We’re so close to our goal!

About once a week someone emails me to ask what’s on my bookshelf. So I’ve added a widget in the lefthand righthand nav that links to some of my essentials over at my new FHO store on Amazon. It’s broken into categories, so if you’re interested, you can see what’s on my clinic shelf, and you can see the geeky business and presentation titles I love, too. I’ll make it a point to keep the store updated as new stuff comes my way.

Make sure to check out our Canada page for new updates!

The United States VA/DoD have developed new guidelines for managing concussion and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Whether as combat injuries or resulting from assaults or MVAs, this is an issue we’re seeing pretty regularly. Medscape is offering a free CE/CME on the new guidelines; maximum of 0.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ for physicians, 0.50 ANCC Contact Hour(s) for nurses.

I spent most of my holiday weekend writing. But tonight, in between the Cavs game, Iron Chef America and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (we’re geeky here, but our interests are broad), I played with code (like I said–geeky). Happily, I neither wiped out all of my data, nor did I inadvertently convert all the text to the Cyrillic alphabet. Nope, instead I managed to tweak the functionality of the site. Most of it you probably won’t notice, but I would like to point you toward the new mobile version of the site. Now you can browse the site from your iPhone or web-enabled device of your choice. Just dial us up on your browser as usual–you’ll see a much more streamlined page, easier for viewing on small screens. Enjoy!