I have always been curious as to whether or not providers watch shows like Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, ER, House and so on....most tell me they don't but the Amednews article "TV doctors' flaws become bioethics teaching moments" by Kevin O'Reilly seems to indicate otherwise.

The article refers to a 2008 study in the Journal of Bioethics in which of 400 medical and nursing students at Johns Hopkins University, 76% of doctors in training watch "House" and 73% watch ABC's hospital soap opera "Grey's Anatomy."

If you're an iMedExchange member, join your colleagues in the discussion "Dr. House Gets Bashed as a Disruptive Physician".

I travel pretty regularly and inevitably there is the moment on the trip where I have to refill the rental car gas. I pull into the filling station only to realize once again I didn't remember to check which side the nozzle is on. Did I get lucky on this one? Crap! Back up, Redo.

Until now....a colleague just gave me a little nugget of information that has instantly enhanced my travel life. Most modern cars apparently have a little arrow on the fuel meter indicating which side the gas cap is on.

It's amazing how this little nugget has been overlooked by so many. As I searched for an image to embed in this post I came across lots of similar posts including one by a sharp Ruby on Rails developer named Paul Gross.

I hope this odd little tip is as useful for you as apparently it has been for many of us.

Today we in the medical community are sobered to learn of the apparently deliberate bombing of West Memphis, Arkansas physician and Chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board, Dr. Trent Pierce. Dr. Pierce is a Family Physician.
Authorities report that on Wednesday morning, February 4th, 2009 a car bomb exploded at Dr. Pierce's home critically injuring him. Although his condition appears to have been stabilized he is still listed in critical condition and has serious injuries.

Dr. Pierce...our thoughts are with you and your family.

Here's the full text of Ballmer's speech:
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Well, I want to thank Jay, I want to thank the speaker and all of you for the opportunity to be here today and chat with you. It's a real honor to have a chance to share some thoughts on the economy and on innovation, and hopefully spur some thoughts on how we all participate in restarting long term economic growth.

As Jay was telling my story, so to speak, I thought I'd put in one parenthetic that might be of interest. When I got to Microsoft and we were this tiny little company, we didn't have the budget to put people up in hotels, so I lived with Bill. And every time I sat down, in every corner, nook and cranny of couches, tables, I'd find these little yellow pieces of paper with Bill's writing that had a bunch of people's names and companies' names and numbers.

So, finally-I think of myself as pretty good pattern matching. Actually I was sitting next to Congressman Frank, and we were both trying to see which of the six states that are going to be still bigger than North Carolina by 2015. So, we're going through the pattern matching game, and I just couldn't figure out what these numbers were.

So, finally I said to Bill, what is this? He says, Steve, I'm really always worried about whether we're going to have enough cash to pay people. So, every night I write down everybody who works for us and how much we pay them, and every contract we have and how much it's worth. I've got to count the pennies tightly and that's why you're here now.

In this economic climate, whether you're talking about businesses or consumers, everybody I think is having the little yellow sheets of paper out, and counting pennies pretty tightly.

I'm going to make one thing clear up-front: I'm not going to claim to be an economist. On the other hand, I think it's sort of the responsibility of every businessperson to really form a model of what's going on in the economy, if you're going to provide proper stewardship to your business; big company, small company, it's important to have a model of what's going on, and certainly have been thinking a lot about the economy in the context of how we think about and plan for the future of Microsoft.

Back in the bad old days before the Internet was accessible to the masses (i.e., the early 1980's) social networking amounted to setting your telephone handset in the cradle of a 300 baud acoustic modem, saying a little prayer that you'd stay connected for more than a few minutes and then staring at tiny green and black text for the next several hours. These were the days of the BBS, i.e., "bulletin board service". BBSs were hosted by individuals from computers in their own homes, similarly hooked up to their home phone line. The earliest BBSs only supported a single phone line so you'd have to wait your turn to login. During peak times you might have to wait hours to get connected. Once you were in, you could download files (mostly text files in those days) or post messages that other users of that particular BBS could see. A few weeks or a few months later, you were thrilled to see a response to your post -- private messaging is born!

Soon after the birth of the first BBS in Chicago in 1978 and the widespread proliferation of single-line BBSs around the country, the development of multi-line BBS software rocked the community. These new systems would allow anyone with two or more phone lines along with two or more modems to host multiple simultaneous users. (I actually ran my own two-line BBS for a couple of years way back then and yearned for one of those fancy fancy 8-line modems!) With more than one user logged into the same BBS at the same time, it was now possible for more-or-less real-time communication between users. From these humble beginnings was launched the first widespread use of instant messaging. We take IM for granted these days so it's hare to express or understand what a huge deal this was back then.

The next innovation propelling "social networking" forward in the 80's was FidoNet, the next generation of BBS software that lead to rabid growth of many thousands of BBSs all over the US and the world. Most BBSs were run by and frequented by members of special interest groups. While iMedExchange would have been an impossibility in those days, as early as the mid-80's you could begin to see the trajectory that would lead eventually to iMedExchange. What was missing that would have prevented an iMedExchange BBS in the '80s? Even though FidoNet reduced the complexity of setting up a BBS and using a BBS, it was still a relatively complicated technical exercise to use the early MS-DOS based PCs let alone to find, configure access and participate in a BBS. Also, there just weren't very many PC's out in the general market in the '80s and most of those who had them were, well, tech geeks. So achieving the critical mass necessary to create a vibrant community among doctors would have been virtually impossible.

For anyone interested in the technical, social and political history of BBSs (and the earliest days of geekdom), check out the 8-part documentary on the topic, The BBS Documentary. WARNING: you will need to be REALLY interested in BBSs to make it through all eight episodes! ;)

While visiting members and partners in New York this week I had the fortune of attending the Westminister Dog Show. I have watched the show for years and actually didnt realize it was taking place while I was in town...so a nice unexpected surprise. Further, my friend Tony Carter was showing both a champion Shar-pei and Champion Rottweiler.

I am a huge fan of Rottweilers and my US/Canadian Champion is pictured here. His name is Ubu and he has been an integral part of the iMedExchange team and my family since he was a puppy.

I know for a fact that many of our physician members are dog lovers and owners and welcome you to share pictures and stories of your canine friends on the site.

Finally, The Doctor's Channel has done a nice job of combining both our love of dogs and Valentine's Day. Enjoy!

I stumbled across this hysterical business idea brainstorming session initiated by Seth Godin and his Alternative MBA program. The quote by Jon Dale says it all though: "Ideas are a dime a dozen....the money is in the execution."
Some of our physicians on iMedExchange are quite entrepreneurial. Do you have your own business idea? Start a discussion in the Business forums and get feedback from other doctors.

Rick Carlson, a friend of iMedExchange and of the team, has sadly passed away. While we were only introduced to Rick this past year, he had already made an impact with his guidance, ideas and friendship. His warmth and generosity were apparent from the first time we were introduced by our colleague Rob Coppedge. In honor of Rick, we will name a particular educational program on the site that Rick was helping put together. Unfortunately we can't yet divulge the nature of the program but we look forward to its release late in the year with Rick's name attached.

For a nice tribute to Rick, please read Rob's post on NextThingsFirst.

Every so often a product moves me enough to share it with friends. Sugarsync is just such a product.

Sugarsync is the quintessential "cloud" product to leverage web-speak. You simply install it on computers from the home or office, and determine which folders and files you want to be able to access remotely and voila...you can now effortlessly get to any of your computers anytime or anywhere you have a browser connection. Moreover, you can use the mobilephone/iPhone app to access any of the selected computers/folders/files from your phone.

Unlike most backup and remote access programs that promise lots with sketchy results, Sugarsync can truly live up to its motto: The world's simplest online backup with remote access,multi computer sync and online sharing built in.

The Kindle 2 is scheduled to begin arriving via UPS all over the country today. I am excited to be amongst the first to receive one having been a loyal advocate of the original Kindle since it was released. TechFlash did an expose on the new version which you can view here, or by clicking on the video below.

For those of you who travel, this product is an absolute must. I use it to stay abreast of blogs, key newspapers and of course a half dozen books at a time.