So a reader writes to NYT technology columnist David Pogue, saying he wishes there was one button he could push to receive all Pogue’s writings and videos. The reader even suggests a name for this: “David Pogue Direct.” It’s a great idea. But David Pogue says there’s no “one-click Pogue subscription” and that to [...]

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The Health Tweeder appears to be an attempt at visualizing tweets about health conditions on Twitter. Interesting.

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I finally broke down and bought a Motorola DROID from Verizon several weeks ago- that’s the new phone that runs Google’s Android 2.0.1 Operating System. Thus far, I don’t regret the decision. AT&T’s coverage where I live stinks, so as much as I like the iPhone, it just wasn’t an option for me. Fortunately, the DROID [...]

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So it would look like Amazon has blinked first. On Amazon's discussion board, “Dear Customers: Macmillan, one of the “big six” publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging $12.99 to $14.99 for e-book versions of bestsellers and most hardcover releases. We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We

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For those people who are interested in ebooks and the technology market the past few days have been 'interesting' to say the least. It started when Amazon pulled all the ebooks published by Macmillan from their Kindle store. Speculation ran rife - it eventually seems to have boiled down to Macmillan wanting to set the price of their ebooks and adopt an 'agency' model while Amazon wants to keep the status quo. I shall leave it to the wonderful John Scalzi and Charlie Stross to explain. Do I th

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Perhaps I can write a bit more about my trip to Arizona soon, but for now I wanted to get the slides posted for those who attended. It was lots of fun and a treat for me to get to leave Syracuse in January and gape at palm trees for a couple of days. [...]

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We had a student with us for the past two weeks. It was her first ever time on a real working ambulance so she had a more than a few 'firsts'. She saw her first dead body. She drove for the first time with the blue lights and sirens. She used the radio for the first time, talking to Control. She spoke to her first patient, calmed her first scared patient. She met her first alcoholic (who was nice) and her second alcoholic (who wasn't). She got cut out of her first car, holding the neck of the dr

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She's in her late eighties, she has arthritis, sores covering her body and brain cancer. Every movement causes her pain. She's been moved from one hospital to another - all for her own benefit, but she only seems to stay in one place for a few weeks before going to somewhere more suitable. She's getting good care, people are looking out for her, the place where we pick her up from is a nice unit - she's going back to the local hospital because of a new symptom that is causing her pain. We p

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Queen's Hospital in Romford is closed King Georges Hospital, a bit closer to my station is closed. Whipps Cross hospital remains open for more of the day, but then closes. Newham, Homerton and the Royal London are now the only hospitals in East London accepting patients. ----- Queen's and King Georges being closed in the east means that ambulances local to them are bringing patients to Newham. Crews local to Newham (i.e. me) are being told to take patients to either the Homerton or to t

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Previous video John’s article _______________ Feed-only Footer: I still think it is a huge waste of resources for a library to invest any time or money in a Second Life presence.

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Good News Patients suffering an out of hospital cardiac arrest in London now have more chance than ever before of being resuscitated by staff, according the latest Service figures. The report, published by the Clinical Audit & Research Unit (CARU), also shows the Utstein* survival rate is up to 15.2 per cent from 12 per cent the previous year. So, if you have a cardiac arrest in London (for certain values of cardiac arrest), you have a 15.2% chance of survival. Which is great but won't

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We get another one of our bog standard 'nan down' calls. An elderly person, not too spry on their feet has fallen over and needs us to come and pick them up again. The door is opened by her son, two eyes stare at us suspiciously from over a foot long beard. A half smoked cigarette is dangling between his fingers. 'Come in then', he says gruffly then, indicating his mother's bedroom, he disappears into the living room to continue smoking. His mother is on the floor in an awkward position.

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Brand new year! Full of energy, I walk into my hospital's locker room on my first day, brimming with love and joy and the desire to help as many patients as possible. My mind full of all the reasons I chose medicine and all the ways I can make humanity better today, I walk to my locker and see this:Thankfully even a mince-pie-addled idiot like me knew better than to leave anything in it over the holidays. As I turn away I see this pasted on the back of the door, along with some astute medical st

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I have a feeling, somewhere deep in my urinary tract, that 2010 will be the year that I can finally live digitally. By this I mean that I can get through life without buying a physical piece of media. Be that DVD, Blu-ray, CD, Book, Magazine or any other thing that has a physical existence. Instead I shall be surviving on a diet of purely digital media - downloads of music, films and books. ----- Films iTunes. Music iTunes, Amazon, Indie download services. Books Waterstones, Kindle store, Direct

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With New year's eve night approaching the LAS has put out it's usual call for people to be sensible. Our head of Emergency Preparedness says this, “Alcohol-related calls put extra pressure on the Service, so I’d ask people to be sensible. Every minute that we spend looking after somebody who is simply drunk, is a minute that could have been spent helping a patient who is seriously ill or injured. We want people to enjoy themselves, but they should think carefully before dialling 999. It sho

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My brother, Andrew, a Web developer, is a very clever guy and a fan of woot.com. Recently, he bought a digital picture frame from Woot that can be fed photos via RSS- as a gift to my parents. The clever bit is where each of my siblings created a Flickr or Photobucket account in which to post [...]

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Contrary to popular opinion (and by popular opinion I mean moronic spammers who scoop their brains back out of the toilet bowl every morning after their daily dump and whose vocabulary is limited to Chris Rock lines minus all the bits that are actually clever -- man that felt good. --Editor), I am still alive! Just busy, very busy. Which I'll admit most people are (except for aforementioned spammers --Ed.) except that most people have better time management skills than those of a mentally chall

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He's ninety years old, ex-army. He's slipped on the ice coming out of his house, we are sent to the call as 'Fallen over, leg is at a funny angle'. We get there, he's broken his leg all right. He's lovely, the family are lovely. He has waited one and a half hours for an ambulance. I am furious. He has been laying on the ice for that long without an ambulance. I've just come from the hospital - the police have been bringing in patients with possibly broken ankles because there are not enough ambu

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I've not died - my plan was to blog at least every second day, but that has gone for a burton as my internet connection is up and down more times than a *insert metaphor*. I'm trying to get it fixed, but of course that means some time after the bloody waste of time that is Christmas. ----- I must admit that I saw this on the BBC, and thought it sounded somewhat familiar. The government has been urged to review its targets for ambulances responding to 999 calls, following claims that patient c

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I've mentioned before in passing my call where I was told that 'Patient wants a cup of tea'. An 'amber' call - lights and sirens if you please. Drive down the wrong side of the road as well. Our 'patient' was an eighty year old woman who got up and opened the front door when we arrived. Trying to be as polite as possible I asked her what the problem was. 'My carer hasn't arrived, I need a cup of tea'. My immediate thought was that this patient wouldn't have much problem making her own cup of

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I find myself going to a lot of 'victims of crime' that are nothing of the sort - people who have been assaulted by 'some bloke', often 'some big black bloke' who has beaten them up for no reason whatsoever. Now, while there is random violence and muggings on the streets of Newham and Tower Hamlets, I rarely see it - often the causes of the injury are blatantly obvious. Normally it's gang activity, or rival drug dealers, or more often X's girlfriend has got off with Y, while X was shagging Z at

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I know I moan a lot. It's one of the 'Yellow Card' symptoms of working in the NHS - not enough resources, too much in the way of demand, daft governmental interference, management who apparently have no idea what they are doing... But, like many of us, I don't look at the good things - the things that floated on down from the future and snuck up on us. I'm not talking about robots, space travel or meals in a pill - I'm talking about the future that has, like the water that is slowly boiling the

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Once more I find myself concerned with Capacity and Consent. Capacity and Consent are two linked words that govern how I can treat patients and it always needs to be at the forefront of my mind. Capacity Is the ability for someone to understand what I am telling them and to be able to make a decision based on being able to understand the risks of choices that they make now. Consent is my patient allowing me to do things to them, be that blood pressure measurements, giving them medicine or taking

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A mentally ill, suicidal teenager was ferried around for hours by an ambulance crew because no NHS unit would accept her, the BBC has learnt . The girl eventually had to be taken to a police cell, documents revealed under the Freedom of Information Act show. This is just shameful. Sadly I have often said that of all the psychiatric referrals I have made over the years first as an A&E nurse, and then for the ambulance service - only a handful have gone without incident. I've had units

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When the last chairman of the London Ambulance Service left earlier this year he gave an exit interview in our internal newsletter, he said, "We are not an emergency service any more, we are a problem solving service". Which is kind of the root of our problem. For my last four night shifts I'd spent my time going to people who really didn't need an ambulance. They fell into one (or more) of a number of categories. The 'I want treatment now'. This group of people really have no idea what an ambul

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