Archive for category Misc

Template for ICU presentations

A great UVA medical student, Ellie Sharp, came up with a template for students and residents to use for ICU presentations. I am including it here. Thanks, Ellie.

 

EAS ICU Presentations Dr. Young

www.UvaTraumaTeam.com

I am happy to invite you to the UVATraumaTeam.com online apparel site. Our goal is for everyone who helps us to save lives to be proud to show people they are part of the UVA Trauma Team.

These are the choices for delivery:

–      If you are a UVA Employee, Resident or Student and willing to pick up your items at a set time and place, choose the “pick up only” option. Bear in mind these will be given out in bulk during a 3-4 hour period at a specified place once a month.

–      For Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad, Charlottesville Fire Department and Albemarle County Fire Rescue volunteer and career personnel, if there are more than 10 orders from your station, I will make one bulk delivery to your station. So, if possible, encourage your people to make their orders in the next 4 weeks. Afterwards, you will need to choose USPS shipping.

–      The other option is USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Shipping. If you choose this option we will ship your items within 7 days of order unless the item is backordered. A photo of the t-shirt is attached.

If you order embroidery, allow at least 4 weeks for delivery.

 

Please forward this email to your areas of responsibility and to anyone else you think would be interested in showing they are part of our team.

 

If you have any questions, please contact us through the site, www.uvatraumateam.com

 

Any profit from the sales of these items, above the costs of inventory, packaging, delivery, shipping, taxes, website construction and management, and embroidery will be donated into a gift account that supports trauma research and education at UVA.

Thanks

 

FDNY Buff trip

Just got back from a great trip to the Big Apple with my friends from Albemarle County fire. The purpose was to buff FDNY firehouses and units and we saw a ton. The link goes to a video of the pictures I took.  FDNY trip pic video

Couple of thoughts about what goes on in NYC. FDNY is an amazing organization, incredible people, incredible equipment, and incredible training. The “Rock” their training school and simulation center is amazing and their devotion to training is astounding, especially since they think a great deal of themselves, and usually organizations like that rest on their laurels, the FDNY doesn’t do that.

But the disdain for EMS in NYC is really shocking. As many of you know FDNY EMS and FDNY are essentially separate organizations living under the same roof. The FDNY firefighters are trained in CFR (first responder) which is less training than EMT, and yet first respond to all major EMS incidents. What they do their other than comfort and help lift is hard to figure out. And that’s fine, I don’t like many EMS calls myself, but it does actually save lives occasionally, and in order to save the lives you should, you need to have a solid EMS system, which does not seem to exist in NYC. Also, as a former New Yorker, I know how hard it is for us to think anything done outside of NY is worth a sh*t, but I think if you took an unbiased person and had them watch the NYC EMS system in work during a complex call, and then watched the Virginia system in most jurisdictions, I think the differences would be striking.

I don’t know the solution for EMS in NYC but the first step in addressing any problem is realizing you have one.

What is Logical Risk Assessment and What is Paranoia?

A discussion with examples of high risk, medium risk, and low risk situations and how we deal with them. How do we set up systems that manage risk, without wasting resources and time. The sound effects are my dogs, Deci and Yogi.  Thanks for listening. JY

Entropy or Why It’s So Hard to Get People to Follow Guidelines

A discussion of why it is so hard to get smart people to control what they do. There is a tremendous pressure toward disorder in the universe, and among physicians, firefighters, and others. It’s one reason why you need to watch what you say around the “kids”.

Chameleon at the beginning and end with Brian Hughley on drums and myself on sax.

Thanks. JY

Transforming Clinical Operations: Lessons from Firefighting Part 2

Second half of my talk. Thanks for listening. JY

Transforming Clinical Operations: Lessons From Firefighting Part 1

This is the first part of my Grand Rounds lecture from August 21 on what we need to change in hospital medicine and what we can learn from how firefighting has improved safety and decreased line of duty deaths. Part 2 next week. Thanks for listening. JY

The Future of Paramedicine Part 2

Continuation of the discussion with Tom Joyce about the future of Paramedicine. Thanks for listening. JY

The Future of Paramedicine: Part 1

Tom Joyce and I discuss the future of paramedics in the rapidly changing health care environment. This is part 1 and ends around the 22 minute mark with some music.  Thanks for listening. JY

Getting into medical school part 2: extracurricular activities

So…if you’ve got a GPA over 3.8 and MCATs in the top  5 percent, you don’t really need to read this. As long as you don’t come across as a shut-in or an axe murderer, you will probably be accepted to at least a few, if not all of the medical schools you apply to. But for the rest of you, let’s talk about the other parts of the application, namely what you did with your spare time in college.

First thing, no one cares what you did in high school. Eagle scout, all-county football, whatever don’t embarrass yourself by putting that on your med school application. They don’t care what you did when you were 16. Now as far as what you did (or should do) in college to prepare yourself, and make yourself attractive to medical schools, here’s my take on it. I gave you my qualifications to make these opinions in my previous post.

Clinical experience: I think it is vital that you touch patients enough to know whether being a doctor is the right thing for you. Even if you think you are going to be a pathologist, you are going to spend a whole lot of time with patients in med school, and you better at least tolerate it. Volunteering in the hospital is more of a high school thing, and is not looked upon with favor.

The choices are: follow a doc around (maybe your parent if you’re lucky) enough to be able to write in your essay how much you feel medicine is a “wonderful mix of science and art where I get to combine my love of the scientific world with my humanistic nature”. Don’t copy that, but I must have seen it on 75% of the applications I reviewed.

Next: be a scribe. This is something that was not around when I was in college and is an interesting choice if you don’t want to expend the effort to become an EMT, or an ER tech, or something else more hands on. You get paid, and you get to be a transcriptionist. Don’t mean to belittle this experience, but you are not making medical decisions, you are not examining patients and synthesizing their  history, physical, and lab data into a diagnosis and formulating a treatment plan. It does demonstrate that you went to the effort to actually work in the hospital, and you get to hang around with docs and residents and maybe get invited to a few parties. Many people do this, and a lot of them get into medical school, but I’m not sure if that’s true, true, and unrelated.

Next: be a lab tech, ED tech, burn tech, etc. These jobs require some training, and you are actually working on the front lines, touching patients, drawing blood, changing dressings, etc. There is a possibility this will turn you off from being a doctor, but better to find out now than when you start your third year. This is impressive because you were willing to get your hands dirty and get in the fight.

Next: be an EMT, Medic, and/or firefighter. This is what my wife and I did, and it pretty much changed our lives for the better. We met people who are our friends after 30 years, it gets you around great guys and gals that you wouldn’t normally be with in college, and it gives you the best possible clinical experience. This experience is that you get medical training, you apply it through direct patient interactions where you actually have to make critical clinical decisions, and most importantly you are exposed to medical error and corrective actions, which are very important to see. It requires you to take time to get trained, to study, take tests, demonstrate your competence, and run shifts. Needless to say, this is my recommendation.

Finally, to make yourself the ultimate triple threat, you need research (grades, clinical experience, and research is the triple threat). It is not hard to find research opportunities if you go to school near an academic medical center, but it takes effort to get something worthwhile out of the experience. I have been the “mentor” for quite a few college students who didn’t do squat, and a few that worked their butts off. It is pretty much up to you. When I did this, I just looked in the back of the scientific journals, and wrote letters to people I wanted to work with. Usually they know people where you are and can hook you up. Also, many colleges have summer and school year research programs that are easy to get into. Research is also interesting. It is important to learn the scientific method, and how to design and interpret an experiment. My research experience has made me a better doctor by teaching me how to evaluate scientific evidence. I think if you can do it, research is very important. You probably will not get to publish anything unless you get real lucky, but the letter of recommendation from the research mentor will be helpful.

 

Well that’s it. Hope this was helpful. Don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help.

JY