#i planned to post it before florence's news... i hope her health is better. i wonder what happened :

[picspammer]

This is a gift, it comes with a price

[tiredbiostudent]

i love seeing your posts it's very motivating. if you dont mind me asking, do you have any advice for studying (or tricks you use for urself) ((it's v vague sorry))!!!

hi, thank you! honestly I am absolutely awful at studying but I will try to provide some helpful tips:

1. watching university vloggers always makes me feel more motivated to do work! my favourites atm are nayna florence, moya mawhinney, paigeyy (her old cambridge vlogs bc I think she’s graduated now), linh truong, and may gao 2. I have a really hard time getting started so sometimes you just need to be like alright I can at LEAST open up this pdf or assignment. and I can at LEAST create a new word document and write out what I have to do. and occasionally this tricks your brain into actually starting ;) 3. when you plan a study schedule, give yourself at least one free day where you have nothing planned bc at least for me I will absolutely need it. don’t cram your days full of unrealistic things to do! 4. take advantage of your productive moods, but also don’t be too hard on yourself when you’re feeling super tired or burnt out or unproductive. you can also try and flip your productivity switch on (tho this is hit or miss) by doing less taxing stuff like going on a walk, making your bed, watering your plants- any task that makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something 5. have a hobby and life outside of school. easier said than done, but this will really help alleviate the stress and anxiety you feel when something goes wrong academically and that’s the only “important” thing you feel like you have in life. take time for yourself to learn new things, relax, spend time with friends, be in nature, exercise. all about balance baby! 6. study based on what your exam will test you on. if it’s short answer, study the material but also practice writing out example answers. if it’s matching labels to diagrams, practice that! go beyond just writing out your notes, try and fit your studying method to the format of your test. it helps s o much. 7. similarly, ALWAYS DO THE REVIEW QUESTIONS. if you have no time to do anything else, DO THESE!!! I’ve been burned so many times because I feel obligated to retype out all my notes (bc I have to have everything altogether) and run out of time to do the practice questions my prof gives, and those are always the most relevant to what you’ll be tested on. hell, do these before anything else. cannot stress this enough lol!!!! 8. don’t do the readings unless you NEED to or it helps you learn. otherwise it’s a waste of time (and money for a textbook!) imo 9. switch up where you study. unfortunately this isn’t really feasible right now but I find I’m most productive at the library- at your university (if you go) try to find your favourite study spots, and have a few you can cycle through! for me it’s the lifesci commons, law library and the comp sci building because they’re chill, productive atmospheres (as opposed to the SUB or the health sci building, which are too loud and too intense respectively) 10. keep your phone out of sight lol. and get one of those browser locks like forest to dissuade you from getting distracted. for me it’s more of a split second compulsion to check and once there’s a barrier in my way I’m like oh. nvm. 11. my personal note-taking method is taking written notes in lecture of anything important that’s not on the slides. usually your prof will emphasize the important of a topic too! but if they don’t, pay attention to what they’re spending a lot of time going over. after class I’ll add my written notes to the lecture to supplement it and better explain everything we covered. (for virtual lectures, I basically have the slides open in one half of my screen and the lecture in the other and type notes onto the slides as it plays) 12. practice explaining concepts to yourself out loud- this is a great way to see if you’ve actually understood the material! if you can do this once solidly, you’re good to go and it’ll stick in your brain for a while. 13. also try and make connections between topics you’ve covered because often this is what profs like to ask about on exams (cough ~synthesis~). for instance, recognizing that keratin composes tissues in birds, mammals, reptiles, etc. 14. if you’ve been working hard or having a stressful time buy yourself a nice warm drink because you deserve it! :) 15. this one’s a little weird but if you need to remember something like what the foundational traits of vertebrates are, focus on memorizing how many you need to know! if I know there’s 6 of something I need to remember, it makes recalling them SO much easier 16. if you’ve been sitting down studying for a while take a break to just jump tf around your room. you could also go on a walk I guess but jumping is more fun. 17. it’s good to get a reminder of why you’re in school and what makes you passionate about what you’re studying to drive you to keep going. for me I love to watch nature documentaries or go on hikes or look through field guidebooks or read really neat academic papers :) 18. for the love of god please get enough sleep.

I also have a whole tag of #study tips that is 1000% more helpful than what I can provide so definitely take a look through there! good luck, you got this :) ps sorry this got so long winded lol I hope it helps!

[markantonys]

medici anon here to ask u to pretty please post more of ur sims shenanigans.... I love them sm

i haven’t played at all the past week or two so i don’t have any new shenanigans to share from my sims 4 game, so instead i will share the old tale of my kingdom of florence in the sims medieval which i don’t think i’ve ever posted about before! it was several months if not over a year ago, but it was epic. let us commence.

once upon a time there was a kingdom called florence, ruled by the benevolent king lorenzo the great whose only flaw was that he focused so much on the arts and knowledge of his kingdom that he neglected its health and protection. by his side was knight giuliano (they weren’t actually brothers tho bc sims medieval has extremely limited create-a-sim options and you can only make individual sims not families) and spy francesco.

spy francesco and king lorenzo were lovers until lorenzo started wooing healer clarice and eventually married her. heartbroken and furious, francesco swore revenge. he began wooing clarice himself until they eventually had a secret affair and when prince piero was born, GASP, he was actually francesco’s son! at this point francesco put the rest of his plan into action. he went on a rampage and killed giuliano (yes sims can kill other sims in the sims medieval, it’s such a power trip) and then killed lorenzo with the hopes of putting his secret son piero on the throne. but unfortunately i forgot that the game always knows who the biological parents are, so piero wasn’t registered as lorenzo’s son which meant he was unable to inherit the throne from him hjksf alas, francesco’s (my) dastardly plan was foiled and i gave up on the kingdom of florence. oh also there was a whole sidequest where francesco was helping jacoban priest sixtus rig some religious elections or something i forget the details (the religion system in the sims medieval is so fucking funny bc they worship “the watcher” who is the player, hell yeah little sims i am your god and you’d better build some cathedrals for me)

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/college-student-who-needs-surgery-will-get-files/

College student who needs surgery will get files

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A hospital bankruptcy blocked Caitlin Secrist from getting copies of her medical records for six months. Without them, she couldn’t undergo lifesaving surgery. After azcentral investigated, she received good news. Rebekah L. Sanders, The Republic | azcentral.com

PHOENIX – Caitlin Secrist, a 21-year-old college student blocked from lifesaving surgery because she can’t get copies of her medical records, will receive the file after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and a judge intervened Wednesday.

Secrist can’t eat, can’t work, delayed her college graduation and is in constant pain because of acute pancreatitis. She wears a feeding tube around the clock and depends on handfuls of medications. More than a dozen hospitalizations later, the next pancreatitic attack could kill her.

All conventional treatments have failed. Secrist hopes a drastic surgery to completely remove her pancreas, spleen and appendix could help.

But a top doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital refuses to perform the operation without a complete understanding of Secrist’s health history, including what her organs looked like when she was originally diagnosed, she said. Without the first scans taken in 2017, Secrist can’t move forward.

Caitlin Secrist, 21, and her parents Suzette and Bill are struggling to get Caitlin’s medical records from a bankrupt Arizona hospital. On Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019, a judge ruled that the way to get the records was to use the hospital’s remaining assets. (Photo11: Cheryl Evans/The Republic)

Secrist is among more than 300 patients who have tried and failed to get their medical records since Florence Hospital at Anthem and Gilbert Hospital went bankrupt and closed last summer, The Arizona Republicreported. Creditors have been bickering since then over who should cover the $92,000 needed to access the repossessed electronic-records system. 

Feb. 20: College student could die because she can’t get copies of her medical records

Feb. 11: Apple lets veterans track their health records on the iPhone

After reading the Republicstory, Ducey directed his staff to see whether they could help Secrist obtain her records. Their efforts are underway.

“We’ve spoken with the patient’s family and other outside organizations that could help with this to find any avenue possible to get these records to her,” said Patrick Ptak, a spokesman for the governor.

Pleading her case in court

Secrist and her parents drove an hour and a half from their Florence, Arizona, home to a court hearing on the impasse Wednesday, hoping to speak to the judge.

Secrist had penned a heart-wrenching letter to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Roger Brodman the day before. Her doctor also wrote the court, saying that Secrist was in “dire need” of the records.

Brodman considered competing proposals to resolve the situation: 

Make patients pay potentially thousands of dollars for their records.

Send the bill to former hospital executives.

Force the electronic-records company to shoulder the costs.

Dig into hospital assets that otherwise would go to the senior creditor, a New York investment firm, which opposed the plan.

“Everybody agrees this is a critical issue,” Brodman said. “The hospital has the duty to produce the records. The inherent problem here is there is no hospital. The hospital has gone kaput.”

Secrist didn’t get to speak during the court proceedings. But as it turned out, the judge didn’t need Secrist’s encouragement.

“Everybody agrees this is a critical issue. The hospital has the duty to produce the records. The inherent problem here is there is no hospital. The hospital has gone kaput.”

Judge Roger Brodman

Brodman ruled quickly that the most efficient, fastest and probably least expensive option was to use remaining hospital assets.

That plan will reactivate the electronic-records system for 90 days, launch a publicity blitz to alert patients and hire employees to collect the records and respond to requests.

Indigo-DLI Holdings, the New York lender that opposed the plan because it would eat into the money it would recoup from the hospitals, may appeal to stop the plan, attorney Kyle Hirsch said in court.

He was the only attorney in the lawsuit that has not expressed sympathy for patients.

“This is a very important issue,” Hirsch told the judge. “If the patients want their records they should pay a reasonable fee. … But imposing the entire expense on Indigo doesn’t seem fair.”

For now, the plan will move forward.

Next steps for patients

If all goes well, Secrist can expect to receive her file in two to three weeks, attorneys said. 

She could get the records even faster if Ducey’s office can locate her files through a third-party records vendor the state has a relationship with.

Any patients who need records from Florence and Gilbert hospitals — and have not already requested them — should do so as soon as possible. 

The window of opportunity to receive records is expected to be roughly March through May.

CLOSE

Caitlin Secrist is in constant pain from a severe illness, pancreatitis. And now she could die because she can’t get copies of her medical records. Arizona Republic

‘It’s a good feeling’

Secrist and her parents said the decision was a “big win” for her and hundreds of other patients.

“It’s a good feeling,” Secrist said outside the courthouse. “I can finally get those records and get on my way to getting better.”

An aspiring nurse, Secrist hopes to schedule her surgery soon so she can get back to school and a more normal life.

Jan. 17: Johnson & Johnson teams with Apple study to help reduce the risk of strokes

Nov. 11: A $35,000 kidney stone? Know the risks, limitations of short-term insurance plans

Her mother, Suzette Secrist, said she was grateful to the judge.

“He realized there’s a human part to all of this,” she said.

The Republic’s investigation probably helped motivate the parties to secure a solution, Suzette Secrist said.

“The first thing the attorneys asked us this morning was, ‘Have you read the story?'” she said. “We appreciate all the help we’ve gotten. It was way more than I expected.”

Solutions to broader problem

Secrist’s case poses the wider question of why Arizona patients were put at risk at all.

Disputes between health care facilities and software and server companies over billing, access and obligations to patients have cropped up as medical records across the country have been moved online. There are not always clear answers in current federal and state law.

For instance, attorneys for Medhost, the electronic record company used by Florence and Gilbert hospitals, argued that it is not a “health care provider” and thus was not subject to records-retention regulations that apply to hospitals and doctors.

And the Arizona Department of Health Services declined to intervene in the case despite requests from attorneys. It’s not clear why.

The Governor’s Office hopes to review state laws for possible loopholes that contributed to the quagmire, Ptak said.

“We are open to discussions about how to prevent something like this from happening in the future if a hospital were to close,” he said.

Follow Rebekah L. Sanders on Twitter: @RebekahLSanders 

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/02/21/medical-records-student-gets-access/2937102002/

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[alamante]

The month-old Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which emerged unexpectedly in a dangerous region and quickly soared to over 100 cases, now appears to be fading.

Only a handful of new cases appear each week, and the region’s two treatment centers, full until recently, now have fewer than 30 patients in their 78 beds.

More than 3,500 contacts of known cases are being followed, more than 4,000 doses of vaccine have been given and officials feel hopeful enough to allow schools in the area — North Kivu Province, on the eastern border with Uganda — to open as usual on Monday.

However, it is far too early to relax, health experts warned.

“We cannot say the outbreak is under control yet,” said Dr. Oly Ilunga, the country’s health minister, echoing a warning from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization.

“While the number of confirmed cases has slowed down lately, we must remain vigilant,” Dr. Ilunga said. “An Ebola outbreak works in waves, and the first wave hit us hard.”

That wave, he explained, comprised people infected before health workers arrived, and these patients may have infected a second wave of family members, neighbors and medical workers who are still in their incubation periods.

“Over the next few days,” he said on Friday, “many contacts will come out of their 21-day surveillance periods, and we’ll know to what extent we managed to break the transmission chain.”

As of Friday, there were 118 confirmed or probable cases and 77 deaths, and the threat of more is still so high that officials have not halted construction of a third treatment center.

If the outbreak does fade out, credit will again go to rapid action by the Congolese government and global health agencies, as well as to a new, highly protective Merck vaccine.

Although five experimental treatments for infected patients recently won approval for emergency use, so far too few patients have received them to draw conclusions about how well they may work.

One reason experts are reluctant to declare the outbreak contained is that some remote towns have not been visited because of armed groups roaming the area.

Thus far, fighting has not hampered the response, said Florence Marchal, spokeswoman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the region.

Congolese health workers escorted by peacekeepers were able to safely reach Oicha, the only town in a “red zone” with confirmed Ebola cases.

However, just two weeks ago, Ms. Marchal said, as many as 18 Congolese soldiers were killed in an attack in North Kivu, probably by the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan rebel group.

Ebola experts also said they would not let down their guard because they remembered a brief, deceptive lull in the early days of the 2014 West African outbreak before it reached three capital cities and exploded, killing more than 11,000 people.

But with each new outbreak, medical groups are bringing new technologies and tactics to bear on the disease.

A new vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV, proved itself in the recent outbreak in Congo’s central Équateur Province that began in April and was declared over on July 24.

Even though the virus had spread from a rural area to a thriving lakeside town and ultimately to a big city, Mbandaka, the outbreak was quickly stopped by inoculating health workers and the rings of contacts of each known case.

Techniques pioneered in that outbreak are playing even more prominent roles in this one.

For example, in Mangina and Beni, the towns at the epicenter, the Ministry of Public Health immediately sent about 150 hospital staff personnel into home quarantine and replaced them with others who had been trained in donning and safely removing protective gear.

To encourage patients to come in, the ministry also made all care at public hospitals free — for any illness.

Then, as soon as possible, health officials vaccinated all medical personnel. Those steps reduced a major risk factor — medical workers who catch the virus from one patient and unwittingly pass it to others before they themselves collapse. (In the early days of any outbreak, most people coming to hospitals do not have Ebola but malaria, bacterial infections or other crises, like difficult pregnancies.)

Soon afterward, Alima, the Alliance for International Medical Action, deployed its new Biosecure Emergency Care Units, which it calls “cubes,” in its treatment center in Beni.

The rooms, made of clear, flexible plastic with sleeves, gloves and bodysuits built into the walls, allow nurses to safely perform about 80 percent of the care an Ebola patient needs without having to put on hot, cumbersome gowns, hoods, rubber aprons, boots and goggles.

Wearing full gear, caregivers can look terrifying, especially to children.

“Now they can see us as human beings,” said Claude Mahoudeau, Alima’s emergency response coordinator.

Nurses can check vital signs, feed patients and change intravenous drip rates, said Augustin Augier, Alima’s secretary general, and may eventually start inserting intravenous needles from outside. Workers must still enter the cube to clean up diarrhea and vomit, unless patients are strong enough to do it themselves and then seal the soiled linens in bags and pass them out through a portal.

The chambers are air-conditioned for comfort. Also, patients’ relatives can safely sit outside and talk to them.

The cubes “sound like a very interesting idea” said Leah Feldman, medical coordinator for the Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Mangina, who said she plans to visit Alima’s center soon.

Her center keeps patients and relatives separated by two rows of waist-high fencing; those who are bedridden can talk on phones.

Families will only bring in their sick if they can see they are well cared for, she said. “It can’t be that they just go inside and come out later in a body bag.”

Medically, the most exciting prospect on the horizon is that, as of Aug. 22, Congo has approved the emergency use of five potential treatments: two antiviral drugs, remdesivir and favipiravir; and three cocktails of antibodies originally found in recovered patients, including ZMapp, mAb114 and Regn3450-3471-3479.

Previously, only about half of Ebola patients were saved if they got supportive treatment, including fluid replacement and fever control, in time.

Being consistently able to cure most patients would be a terrific advance, experts said, reducing the terrifying aura around the virus to one more like that surrounding cholera.

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In the 19th century, cholera swept away millions, and it can still can go on lethal rampages, as it recently has in Haiti, Somalia and Yemen. But cholera can also be controlled and its fatality rate cut to less than 1 percent if vaccines, antibiotics and fluid replacement are deployed quickly.

Few Ebola victims have received the experimental treatments, and the results have not been compiled.

As of Thursday, according to the W.H.O., 19 patients had been given remdesivir, ZMapp or mAb114. One died, two survived and 16 were still on treatment. (Remdesivir is given for 10 days.)

But “Ebola is tricky,” warned Ms. Feldman, a trauma nurse working on her fourth outbreak. “Patients can look like they’re doing better and then crash.”

Despite the lull, the International Medical Corps, a nonprofit group of volunteer doctors and nurses, is still working to complete a 50-bed unit in Makeke.

“The decrease is promising, but I don’t think we can relax,” said Ky Luu, the I.M.C.’s chief operating officer. “When we were tasked to do it, the other two centers were at capacity, and cases could still ramp up.”

Building in such a remote area is not easy. Besides isolation wards, toilets and showers for 50 patients, a center must have a laboratory with generators and freezers, gowning and decontamination areas, screening areas for new patients, bathrooms, kitchens and on-site housing for up to 200 staff.

Even before that, the ground had to be cleared and hundreds of yards of dirt road had to be graded. Because it is the rainy season, heavy equipment was bogged down.

“We’re hiring local people to do it with shovels,” Mr. Luu said.

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The post Ebola Attacked Congo Again. But Now Congo Seems to Be Winning appeared first on MySourceSpot.