I just found out

that my favourite doctor at the hospital is retiring in December. Retiring! He doesn't seem old enough to retire. But he'll stay active--apparently he's going to do more medical missions to Central/South America, so he'll be doing some very good work with children there. Good luck, Dr M!

Updating

Tuesday night I got stuck at the polls with friends for about two hours as one stood in line to vote. The doors actually closed about halfway, but the voting continued. I think the longer ballot and the new machines contributed to the wait. One woman took 20 minutes and kept stopping to play with a baby, much to the others' annoyance, leaving them down to one machine for awhile. Others came, saw the line, and went back to their cars, choosing to forego their right to choose their leaders. Unfortunately, I couldn't just leave my friends to fend for themselves down a busy road in the dark so I stayed, but with the addition of traffic I was nearly an hour and a half late for work. The manager who was filling in from another store was okay with it, but I don't know about my manager yet.

Last night I got to work (early, actually) and was told that they really didn't need me for the night (but it wasn't because of the night before, they just had two people scheduled already), so I went and worked on the notes, then came home with the intention of reading, but fell asleep in my recliner. I am doomed from the moment I sit down and turn that massaging cushion on, let me tell you.

Today has been hectic so far but at least I've had plenty of rest, had a decent breakfast, and have taken my medicine. Every morning I line the bottles up and they look like some sort of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and two Baby Bears in terms of size. Okay, maybe that is a little whacked in thinking, but hey, it's how I think.

That's all for now. Hope your day goes well.

Drama at a huge art sale

Picasso Withrawn from Christie's sale over concerns of Nazi-era seizure after a German man claimed his relative's family sold the painting under Nazi duress
Picasso Sale Can Go On after the case was dismissed, although the family turned around and filed again, causing Chritie's to withdraw the painting from the sale
Christie's Rides Art Broom, setting an art world record for its Impressionist auction, even without the Picasso that was withdrawn, a record $491 million. Included were several Klimt's including the one I blogged about a few months ago which was itself the subject of restitution litigation. The owner in that case, who won her suit, wanted it to be available to public on display rather than remain in private hands.

Myths and Truths about library services

MLANET: Vital Pathways for Hospital Librarians are tools to share with administration when you're feeling threatened with downsizing or elimination, although they would be ideally used to establish good communication with administration before it got to that point.

Did you know?

That Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most heritable of all psychiatric conditions? That's according to: Faraone, SV. The Genetics of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Current Status and Clinical Implications. Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health. 2006;11(2) (free with registration). I don't understand most of the article precisely (it has a lot of information on genetics and brain chemistry action), but I did get that tidbit, along with the fact that several genes seem to provide a predisposition to ADHD, across several chromosomes. There is hope that the genes that effect the brain chemistry can be traced and additionally those which could predispose certain favourable response to medication can be found and used to target pharmocological interventions.

That doesn't mean environmental factors aren't an issue. A related story in the same issue of Medscape Pediatrics says that 41% of children with fetal alcohol syndrome also have ADHD. It's just that genes could make one more susceptible to those environmental factors.

A wiki for book lists

Library Goddesses now have a wiki

I voted; have you???

This was only my second time using the new voting machines in Kentucky (we did so for the primary, but a lot of people don't vote in the primaries, so this will be many people's first time). I won't say it's easy to use (I think the old machines were better, where the ballot was laid out in front of you in big letters and you just pressed the button next to the candidate you wanted), and it takes a little longer, but it's not bad. The new ones have you scroll using a dial to select names on the screen, then press a button to make your selection. Another button is pressed to register votes. I'm not sure how well visually-impaired people can deal with the smaller type and scrolling. Another issue in this election is the v-e-r-y long ballot. We have umpteen judges running unopposed, so you have to scroll down and either choose to vote for them or not, with a major race (the Noble-Roach Supreme Court race) embedded in the middle. Also, the most important races for the county (mayoral, council, and whether to use eminent domain to wrest our water company back from big business--the latter of which I really debated but finally came down to as a 'yes') are all at the end, of course. There are so many non-partisan races that voting a straight ticket does no good at all, not that I do that as a rule.

I won't go into to how I voted per se. You all know I'm a bleeding-heart liberal and staunch Democrat (although I rather lean Green), so you could probably guess if you looked at the races. Our council-at-large was somewhat difficult, as there were four good candidates of the six, and you can only vote for three. The mayoral vote I think comes down to what you don't want rather than what you want. That was another one I debated, and I changed my vote from the primary, even.

That's all I have to say, except, no matter what side of the political spectrum you may be on, be sure to cast your own vote and participate in democracy by exercising your right as a US citizen. Remember there are people over the generations who have fought for those rights, and died for them. Don't give way to apathy.

Don't try this at home

AP Wire 11/06/2006 Ky. officer shoots himself while driving

And they worry about cell phone use and text messaging whilst driving? Try unloading a gun!

(Really, all three very bad...shame on you people.)

MEDLINE turns 35

MEDLINE is the database of health-related articles that your doctor and researches rely on to provide the best heath care possible. It started slowly, but now indexes nearly 5000 journals and millions of articles. Today the most popular interface for MEDLINE is PubMed, which is freely available online and is much simpler to search than the old interface was. I remember when they migrated from mainframes to a web-based application for Y2K compliance. I'm afraid I don't remember MEDLINE's origins, as I was only 4. :)

HAPPY 35TH BIRTHDAY, MEDLINE!
How their computers changed over time
The differences between MEDLINE and PubMed
PubMed's history
A chronology of milestones at the National Library of Medicine

Where do you draw the line, though?

Debating withdrawal of care or even euthanasia for severely disabled infants

In Britain, a woman who finds out her unborn child is severely disabled can abort the foetus at 28 weeks. A woman whose child is born prematurely at 22 weeks has no such option. An ethics committee in Britain is planning to debate various measures to prevent long-life cost and poor quality of life for such infants. Disability activists say doctors shouldn't be making those sorts of decisions, especially if the driving factor is cost to the system. The only place so far in which newborns may have treatment withdrawn or in some cases be euthanised is in the Netherlands. It's very unlikely any recommendations of the committee would lead to any legal changes in the system in Britain, but they wanted to debate the ethics of the situation anyway.