Over a span of several years, I’ve been blogging about almost everything related to my practice. That same time I “grew up” from a “grunt” blogger to one that takes positive insights to every bit of challenge hurled in front of me, medicine related or otherwise. This blog also “expanded”  its horizons from just relating personal experiences to some “serious” stuff about healthcare.

the current blog theme

Physicians still has the “authority” over medicine, but not without silent criticisms from “internet powered” patient. Patients gets medical information, validated or not, from the internet. That was years ago. The broad definition of internet sources it seems, is not limited to peer reviewed journals and strict professional medical organizations’ websites. Social media entered the picture and  is becoming a source of medical information. In fact social media, has been pushing boundaries and game changing healthcare as we knew. Healthcare couldn’t just shrug off social media nowadays.

Thus most of the time, physicians just parry questions left and right, answering “yes that’s right mister” or “No mam that study you read on the internet is not accurate!”. In fact, physicians sometimes get into embarrassing moments when patients volunteer information from the internet none of us came across that data (because maybe, we are busy with doctoring and everything else other than googling). (Here’s one good guide on how to deal with the patients who surf the net made by Dr. Iris Tan)

Healthcare it seems, is playing catch up on social media.

In this set up, I began to rethink about this blog evolving role in social-media-healthcare-catch-up sort of thing. Five years into blogging, there still not that many physicians grabbing the opportunity of using social media as a healthcare tool. In the business sense, a social media strategy to aid in his practice or just healthcare for that matter.

I thought of providing information about orthopedics or general medicine. But over the years providing such scientific informations per se are better done  by sites related to professional medical organizations and peer reviewed journals.

Which brings me to what I’m probably changing a bit about the tone of this blog.

I like writing on a more personal level, presenting an information and then nitpick an idea to go deeper into how I’d be able understand it. It’s more of summarizing, injecting personal thoughts and giving a whole lot of personal touch to understanding medical information. There’s more of trying to reconcile experiences with whats the journals says. Most of the time, it’s the “bone of contention” or the question/ dilemma that needs to be decided or answered  which keeps the information interesting and the interaction lively.

Thus, I’m gunning for a more personal, meaty content, on health care.

Note the blog theme is changing. Minimalist. More on content. And the title.,

My bone of contention…

POA 2011 Mid Year Convention Flyer

This year’s Phil. Orthopedic Association (POA) Mid Year Convention will be on May 5-8, 2011 at the KCC Convention Center General Santos City. POA-South Mindanao Chapter, the host for this event, chose the Tuna capital as its venue and has lined up interesting topics (Read this souvenir program) for the participating orthopods.

This year’s theme,”Habal-Habal sa Gensan”  focuses mostly on orthopedic trauma resulting from motorcycle injuries and its socio-economic impact on Filipinos. Habal- Habal is the local vernacular for a motorcycle used as a passenger transport vehicle common in the countryside. As everyone might have noticed, traumatic injuries from motorcycle accidents tops the list for causes of acute trauma injuries in the Philippines.

So lets relax a bit off our busy cutting lives and enjoy this year’s mid year convention!

See you all at the Gen Santos City!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Remo Aguilar

I’m amazed at how surgeons in provinces surpass the seemingly insurmountable odds besetting their practice. I’ve heard of horrifying stories regarding provincial practice during my training, that I sometimes wince at the thought that me too shall join their ranks soon when I get back to my hometown.  Then I got the first hand “feel” of what its to be like a surgeon from the provinces.

In my first year of practice I remember managing one patient who sustained multiple closed fractures of the ankle and that of the leg. On treatment appraisal I found out the guy can afford an operative procedure for the (bimalleolar) ankle fracture but not that of the leg fracture. I was in a dilemma at that time since current evidence only supports good overall functional results if both fractures will be treated operatively at the same time. Treating the two fractures differently or separately will result to a less than good outcome the review further noted. I racked my brains out for a middle ground solution. I can find none more than speculative statistics. I presented this dilemma to the patient and let him decide based on the ‘literature” and statistics I was explaining. I was dumbfounded with what he told me after my lengthy explanation. “Do what you think is best doc”.

Not only that.  I  told the patient that because we don’t have intra-op x-rays in that institution, it’s either we risk infection bringing out the patient to the x-ray room during operation to check for fracture reduction or just feel out reduction and accept whatever comes out after surgery. His only answer was “do what you think is best doc”.

Inside OR, there were so many other things that are less than ideal and often “damning’ to surgeons. I’m pushed to use a manual drill because we don’t have a sterilizer fit for my power drill. No pneumatic torniquets. No reduction clamps nor suitable retractors. And did I say before we don’t have a c-arm or an intra-operative xray machine? None of the nurse assists is comfortable with my orthopedic instruments. If this surgery turned horribly wrong, I wouldn’t be surprised. So I made sure the patient knew exactly what are our risk and he too wouldn’t be surprised if this surgery go bonkers.

I don’t know how the patient’s surgery went well despite these never ending list of “have nots. He went through the surgery knowing all of these and it went well, save for the surgeons’ anxiety and stress. I couldn’t sleep before and after the surgery knowing the odds we’re getting through. Frankly, I’m scared more than the patient but choice is something limited for us during those times. The need outweighs the risk.

Nowadays, I stil encounter a few of these have nots in most of my ORs, and I’m just as scared as before. I always talk these oddities to my patients and secure their approval before performing any surgery on them under these situations. This doesn’t lessen my anxiety and stress level though. It just pushes me beyond my comfort zone trying out new things “unorthodox”  that are anchored on a logical framework I’m taught during training. Ultimately, need is such an impetus for innovation.

So I wonder, does these insurmountable odds make us- the”provincial” cutters, less of a surgeon?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Remo Aguilar

While still undecided what article to post first for 2011 , I read my first ever post in this blog. I was nostalgic and a bit in awe. I never really thought I’d come this far with just writing and posting my health care ideas online. More so, raise some eyebrows and grab attention to my online discourses.

physician blogging

It was an unfamiliar  niche back then, with awfully fewer local  health care blog icons to emulate while I’m still familiarizing myself with blogging as a social media. I was dipping my toes on an uncharted system, a free for all, but  risky undertaking especially for physicians who are generally viewed as conservatives and slow (or even critical ) at adapting to any form of social media.

Friendster, Myspace and Multiply are booming back then, but these forms of social media target the personal “online space” market.  Facebook and Twitter is still in its infancy and internet penetration in the Philippines (roughly 3-5%) is almost the same as our health care budget  today. The health care niche is a new frontier with some risky uncertainties. You don’t know what type of readers you get when you write health care ideas online. We also don’t have a specific measure to know who’s reading what you rant about online and if your “message”  reaches your specific target audience.

Still, the potential remains. There’s not much holding someone full of ideas and a baggage of English grammar rehabilitation program.  There’s lot of free online space to practice. Just don’t press the “publish” button without  having the read your draft 5 times.

My strategy then was to use personal experiences and then sharing them online as a “jump off” point to get my messages message across a broad spectrum of readers. Knowing that the personal online space market is popular back then (it is up to now I suppose), it’s the best way I can capture or grab the attention of potential readers. It is a very risky strategy in fact, since much of health care issues are” grey zones” and the health care community is strongly comfortable with health care conservatism. Social media back then was the realm of the online geeks.

Again, I saw it as an opportunity  or rather, an alternative form of spreading some of my health concerns and advocacies. There’s no better alternative for me than the fast,  easy and lower cost of publishing  ideas, online. Blogging and the new social media also opened the gates for building communities of critical minds exchanging ideas and creating an even bigger community of health care online front liners.  Of course regulations regarding its use like HIPAA or a set of online health blogging ethics (HONE Code) has to be in place for this potential to be truly maximized. Nonetheless, blogging as an alternative social media has the potential to erase that obstacle in spreading health care issues and advocacies brought about by the costly  and slower traditional forms of media .

The question now is “can we sustain this form of social media? Is it here to stay or is it on its way down? Leave your answers in the comment section below!

After so many rounds of theme changing and theme hacking, I ended with this really  “simple” and “neat”   layout thanks to 3Roads Media. I’m immensely happy with it.  Don’t be fooled however. This  theme   is “superb” with the right enhancements. It’s clarity and simplicity is second to none.

Even with this simple layout, there’s a bit of how to just so you won’t get lost while navigating within my blog. It also eases out your way on getting what you need with a few clicks.

I’m pretty sure it’s just my juicy posts that you’re interested. And nothing else. (I offer no freebies for now..) So I made it simple for you.

First, subscribe to my blog and get every post I have here right in your inbox.  Enter your email  in the subscription box in the sidebar. Or if you use an RSS reader, click the upper right hand most menu that says “RSS” and you’ll be subscribed after a few more clicks. If your particularly interested in a topic, do a search in my top sidebar. Or scan through my archives, my categories or the tags all easily accessible in the sidebar.

If you find the post title you wanted, all you need to do is click on the large title font and presto you’ll on the article you wanted. If your fonts look weird, that is probably because you don’t have a flash player installed in your pc or browser. This theme implemented an SIFR font enhancer to highlight words and readability. SIFR needs a flash player . Go get it here and install it now, or you’re actually missing (99%) what’s the best of online contents.

Of course I would appreciate it  if you leave a comment in my articles. You don’t need to be logged in to do that but I prefer you do to avoid spamming and know you better. If you don’t have a gravatar, grab one. That will put a face to that mystery icon in the comments. Please be patient if your comment isn’t approved instantly, cause I may not be online to do that ASAP. But yes, I will attend to it a soon as I am online.

Again, I’m urging you, to subscribe to my blog, via emails, or through an RSS to get my post faster. You can also follow this blog on Facebook, on twitter and on so many other social networks you like. Just click the button and the rest is given to you.