Category: Uncategorized

As I have mentioned (and as evidenced by a few holes in the posts over the last several weeks), I am on a ridiculous travel jag right now that has me in 12 cities over 8 weeks across all 4 continental US time zones (thankfully the international travel doesn’t begin til the Summer), military and civilian. Last week it was Dallas and DC for a combined 8 days. Tomorrow I leave for San Francisco for a week, although happily, my family will join me for a portion of that trip. I figured now was a perfect time for a new 10 Things post…

Boys and Girls Club of America is hosting a free webinar on bullying March 23rd at 2pm ET.  “This session will focus on the issue of bullying, child safety and the effects it’s having on our nation’s youth.  You will receive insight into why bullying occurs and excellent information and resources to help youth development and family strengthening professionals, as well as parents, prevent bullying in their own communities”.

ReachMD has a fascinating offering over at their site on addressing language access. It’s actually a practice assessment for healthcare professionals, and the objectives include:

1. Identify three reasons why we should work to bridge language barriers when communicating with our patients
2. List five ways to improve our ability to communicate with limited English speaking patients including how to work with trained or untrained interpreters, and
3. Identify available resources to make our practices more friendly for limited English speaking patients

Many of you have probably followed the case of the 2 Texas nurses who reported an emergency department physician’s negligent practice to the state medical board and were ultimately prosecuted for doing so. Now Medscape has a follow-up article on the story with some excellent points for us to consider about our professional and ethical obligations to speak up in the face of substandard care delivery. It also provides some updates on the status of the case.

Congratulations, Laura Maguire! Random.org picked you out of the bunch (a fact I will you all to trust me on as I am posting mobile-ly today and can’t capture the screenshot of the randomizer). Laura, give me a shout through the Contact form so I can get a mailing address for you.

Stay tuned for our next giveaway announcement. Might just be mixing things up a bit…

I’m on my last day of a {much needed} vacation, but don’t forget: you have until Wednesday, March 3rd to enter our newest giveaway. Just leave your response to the question in the Comment section to be eligible.
It looks like a great text and it’s brand new, so don’t miss this opportunity to add a new resource to your library!

Forgive me, my friends, because it’s been a hell of a day with the Army and I am bleary-eyed and incapable of stringing much more than a couple sentences together. So I’ll be forgoing a post tonight if that’s okay with you all. Promise me you’ll come back tomorrow, though, okay? Because we have a new giveaway from our friends at GW Medical–a brand new book that I think you’re going to want to check out.

Good night!

Lots of focus on training this week over at the sustainability site this week:

*A sampling of some of the excellent training events and conferences coming up in the next two months. March and April are always packed, and this year’s no exception. If you have money to spend on live events, there’s plenty to choose from. I hope to see some of you at several of them.

*Even if you can’t afford to travel right now, there’s an interesting web forum being sponsored by OVC on strategic planning for victim service providers. Definitely worth checking out, and free.

I’m heading out to DC this weekend for a week of training with the Army (and some of my very favorite people). And then, if you can believe it–I’m taking a vacation. A short one, but a vacation nonetheless, with the Girls’ Vacation Club. We’re heading to Key West and it’s entirely possible I won’t even have my computer with me. If there’s no post next Friday you will know that I have completely committed to the whole relaxation thing…

Have a great weekend!

The APA has posted proposed revisions to the DSM that might be of interest. Comments can be submitted until April 20th should you be so inclined (the DSM-V is due to be published in 2013). Rewriting the DSM has not been without controversy, thus far.

I frequently create a supplemental medical record as a tool for trainings I conduct. Unfortunately, I have been creating them from the same 2 medical record forms for years now, so it’s time to mix it up a bit. I am in search of electronic blank medical record forms for the following areas: Emergency, Forensics, L&D, and any adult primary care focus. 

It was really only a matter of time: FHO is now on Facebook. I’ll be posting relevant news articles and other print resources on our page, so there won’t be a lot of duplication between the 2 sites. Hope to see you there!

This week over at the Sustainability site:

• *The beauty of under-reacting, and why you might want to indulge in a
•   little under-reacting yourself
• *Social networking and Twitter: check out who else is expressing 
•  themselves in 140 characters or less…

By the way, this week marks my last full week at home for the foreseeable future. Starting Monday, I will be on the road for part of every week through the middle of March (ouch), so if I miss a posting here or there, you know why. I’ve got a bunch of small trainings coming up, so it’s unlikely I’ll see too many of you in my travels, but I’m hoping at least a couple of you will be at the Crimes Against Women conference in Dallas, where I’ll be speaking with one of my fabulous AEQ partners, Chris Mallios. In the interest of full-disclosure, I am indulging in a quick weekend getaway with the Girls’ Vacation Club (hello, Key West!), so I have some recreation on the horizon. As for this weekend, I will be cuddling up with my kiddo, because it’s a balmy 10 degrees today in the 216 and unlikely to get too much warmer.

Have a great weekend, everyone. And don’t forget–check back Monday for our latest giveaway winner!

One of our lovely Australian readers sent me an email that said, in part, “Love the 10 Things posts you have done in the past. How about 10 Things about you, so your readers can get to know you a bit better? And no referring us to the About or FAQ pages, please…” Okay, then–it’s snowing outside and I’m looking for a reason to take a break from writing that doesn’t involve going for a run, so I’ll take that assignment:

I’ve added one more way to stay current with FHO. We’re now on Twitter (yes, we’re the last ones to get there, I know). If you would like to subscribe to FHO via Twitter, you’ll now see that link in the right hand nav. And you’ll be able to see recent updates in the left hand nav, should you be interested. I will try to keep tweets pretty focused, so you won’t get a lot of navel gazing. It will allow me to easily post in real time from relevant conferences and such, so I think it’s going to be a valuable tool. And of course, if you’ve had difficulty getting updates in your inbox, this format will ensure they come to you as links should you be so inclined to follow me: @ForensicHealth.

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.