On The Wards has moved to a new server. Please update your bookmarks to http://onthewards.com. Besides all the posts contained herein, the new location also provides newer articles.
I am very grateful to Blogsome for having hosted On The Wards. They made my transition into blogging fairly pleasant. I must, however, leave to be able to grow the blog beyond what Blogsome has to offer.
Happy 2007! First of all, I wish everyone an enjoyable and rewarding new year. Although the transition from one year to another is essentially an artificial designation, it is accompanied by near-mystical fanfare. Celebrations include fireworks, music, and champagne galore. The new year also compels the general human psyche to reflect on the past and make resolutions for the future.
For many of my colleagues, work continues without skipping a beat. EMS still drives in the gunshot victim at 11:59 PM on New Year’s Eve. Two minutes later, a patient complains of sharp substernal chest pain that radiates to the shoulder. For admitted patients, hospital day 2 becomes hospital day 3.
As for myself, I was lucky to have gotten the day off. This gave me time to reflect on a myriad of thoughts, including the future of OnTheWards. The project is nearing its one-year anniversary, yet the amount of content here is only worthy for a month-old blog. I have not become the prolific blogger as I had originally hoped. Given my myriad of professional and personal responsibilities, I have also had to reassess whether this would be a worthwhile project to continue. And the verdict is … yes.
OnTheWards started as an experiment of sorts. It was my first entry into the blogging world. With some reflection on the past and inspiration from the future, I feel that it will continue to be a fun and educational endeavor for a long, long time. I look forward to sharing useful and interesting tidbits, while working to enrich this blog. Happy New Year!
A group at the University of Wurzburg, Germany, and their European colleagues have recently demonstrated moderate reversal of some brain changes due to chronic alcohol abuse. The test subjects included 15 detoxified alcoholics who had been sober for at least 6 weeks. The researchers measured changes in brain volume, neurotransmitter metabolism, and performance on neuropsychological tests. The subjects showed improvement in all three parameters between the time of enrollment in the study and at follow-up. Improvement has been noted to predominantly affect certain regions of the brain. A control group of 10 healthy volunteers did not demonstrate a similar change.
It is worthwhile to note that the test subjects were chosen from an original cohort of 24 alcohol-dependent patients. Some exclusion criteria included concomitant nicotine abuse, alcohol withdrawal, Wernicke-Korsakoff encephalopathy, hepatic disease, or other related disorders. While the data are reassuring for short-term neurologic recovery from alcoholism, we cannot disregard the irreversible effects of chronic alcohol abuse. We do not know whether abuse of additional substances may synergistically cause irreparable damage to the brain. The potential permanency of alcohol-induced Korsakoff’s syndrome has yet to be disproven. Moreover, non-neurologic organ damage (e.g., the liver) may show little to no improvement with abstinence after enough damage has occurred. In any case, the study reaffirms the regenerative capabilities of the brain. These findings prompt further research into brain recovery with hopes for future therapies benefiting patients with brain tumors, head trauma, and chemical toxicity.
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I have finally succumbed to the blogging epidemic (bloggeritis, if you will). While initially resisting the proverbial bandwagon, I later concluded that I had much to gain from this experience. My foray into blogging primarily stems from two interests: an academic one, related to medicine and medical education; and a personal one, related to writing and literature.
I have no elaborate mission statements or defined [learning] objectives for this forum–at least, not yet. I nonetheless hope to use this blog as a medium for educational enrichment, as I feature clinical tidbits, study results, HIPAA-compliant anecdotes, and pertinent commentaries. And as a standard disclaimer to satisfy the legal folks … I reserve the right to post unrelated material whenever I need a mental escape from the often hectic and demanding life on the wards.
Enjoy.
