Short video I did for the #NephMadness Pain Region.
Robot price war hits the Fluid and Electrolyte Companion
I remember this story entertaining story from 2011 (or maybe it was is a more recent version of the same events, it’s hard for me to believe I remember anything from 2011):
(CNN) -- Lots of normal people would pay $23 for a book.
But $23.7 million (plus $3.99 shipping) for a scientific book about flies!?
This unthinkable sticker price for "The Making of a Fly" on Amazon.com was spotted on April 18 by Michael Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and blogger.
The market-blind book listing was not the result of uncontrollable demand for Peter Lawrence's "classic work in developmental biology," Eisen writes.
Instead, it appears it was sparked by a robot price war.
Well, take a look at the listing of The Fluid and Electrolyte Companion at Amazon.com today:
Come and step right up and purchase your very own copy of the Fluid and Electrolyte Companion! A bargain at $1,227.31. Don’t cheap out and but a used copy at only $834.75, go all the way and get a new one. Don’t delay there is only one left!
Or you could just download the PDF for free. Your choice.
This means we’re going to need to do another printing. Doesn’t it?
Lecture on hyperosmolar hypotonic hyponatremia
This is a formal lecture on the Tweetorial I posted about a patient with beer drinkers potomania but presented with increased serum osmolality due to ethanol intoxication.
Keynote • PowerPoint • PDF
Note: The presentations are designed to be displayed in KeyNote, the powerpoint version may be weird, especially the animations, and some of the icons maybe jaggy.
Following the lecture Scott and I recorded an episode of the EMCrit podcast, episode number 242! Scott Weingart is a medical education revolutionary. If you are interested in learning about him check out this episode of Explore the Space.
My work is done here…
A couple of new Tweetorials
The first was in response to Robert Centor’s excellent description of how he uses reciprocal creatinine. Honestly I had not thought about reciprocal creatinine in a long time. It was fun diving into some of the literature around it. Here is the tweetorial:
Today I did a second tweetorial on hyperosmotic hyponatremia
Here I had some technical problems. I wrote the entire tweetorial using chained tweets in Safari on MacOS. When I went to upload all tweets, Twitter hung and failed to upload more than the first 8. I had to then go through and re-post the remainder of the tweetorial. I was frustrated and failed to attach two of the animated gifs I made. I added them as additional tweets but they break the flow. Tweetorials are like writing email newsletters, once you publish the tweets (or hit send on the newsletter) there is no opportunity for editing.
Hyperkalemia with The Curbsiders
I had the honor of being invited back to the Curbsiders to discuss hyperkalemia. I am not all the way through the episode yet, but so far I have not heard any embarrassing mistakes. But I’ll be sure to post any retractions and corrections here when I come across one.
Good bye Bill.
Bill Peckam has passed. Bill was a long time dialysis patient (29 years) who was a public patient.He wrote the incredibly popular Sharp End of the Needle blog (when I did a review of nephrology blogs in 2013, I declared Sharp End to be the third nephrology related blog ever). It looks like he stopped posting to the blog this past June and his last Tweet was in November.
My favorite memory of Bill was reading his blog about rafting down the Snake River doing NX Stage at night. People talk about how home hemo allows you to really live your life. Bill was the embodiment of this. He also was a tremendous advocate for dialysis patients.
The NSMC internship, in the medical literature
In 2014, I feeling drained from getting NephJC off the ground, working on NephMadness, and setting up DreamRCT. I thought, what I really need is an intern to help me get my work done. That was the inspiration for the NSMC social media internship. That December we opened applications for the first class of interns.
Every year since then the class has grown and the curriculum has gotten more sophisticated.
The irony is that I was looking for help with my projects and instead built a monstrosity. I have built a monster project. I think what I need now is an intern to help with the internship.
Kidding aside, The NSMC internship has been an amazing journey and it has been uniquely rewarding to see our graduates take leadership positions in nephrology.
Silvi, NSMC class of 2016, and I recently published a summary of the NSMC Social Media Internship in CJASN.
The article is open access, so take a look. Additionally feel free to check out the NSMC class of 2019 that was just announced moments ago.
The NSMC internship is back
The Nephrology Social Media Collective Internship (NSMCi) is looking for interns. The NSMCi is a year long social media training program. It is not an introduction to social media, we expect some basic knowledge of how to use a computer, engage in social media, and how to write. What the internship does is provide recurrent opportunities to be public physicians.
You will learn how to creatively and effectively use Twitter to communicate. You will learn how to create visual abstracts. You will get involved in the inner workings of NephMadness. You will become familiar with every aspect of NephJC and produce summaries of articles, curated summaries of chats and even run the @NephJC account for a chat.
But listing the opportunities the the NSMC internship provides, misses the most important part of the internship. Joining the NSMC means joining a community of people that care about the field. You will get to work and learn from a motivated, international cohort of people who want to make nephrology and medicine better by sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm. This cohort is not just the faculty but also the interns themselves provide a lot of the insight, education and inspiration during the year.
Applications are due by the end of the year. The application is just a couple of questions and a CV. Be thoughtful with your answers. We read every one of them. Don’t think that because you are friends with Edgar Lerma you’ve got an inside line. (One of the first lessons of the internship is that everyone is friends with Edgar.)
We have been doing this for four years and we think the internship works best for nephrology attending and fellows, but we have had success with residents, nurses, PhD candidates, and medical students, but it is harder for them. We all speak fluent potassium. Be prepared.
If you have questions Tweet me up. I’m looking forward to a great year. We have done some rethinking of the curriculum and it is going to be great.
ASN Kidney Week Podcast
During Kidney Week, the ASN sets up a daily podcast. This year, for the first time I was invited to participate on day three. I think it turned out pretty good. Give it a listen.
