I think I am going to start a class on respecting others; or possibly I’ll title it “The Predominance of Rectal Orifices masquerading as People”

A company not to be named decided to throw a party at Jacksons Bistro, right across the bridge from the hotel I am in.  Thats cool.  They hired a band.  Also cool.  The band had the bass cranked to well over 140db.  Not Cool.  They played until 2:30 Sunday morning.  So loud the windows on the 8th floor vibrated.  NOT COOL.  So I am working off 3.5 hours sleep and feeling very cranky.

Made it to the Biomedical Society Roundtable and it was very interesting.  Over 55 people attended (way more then planned for) and Societies from coast to coast and North to South.  Most of the discussion dealt with setting up a society and making it work.  The one item stressed the most was keeping your web page up to date.  Finances, membership, and other stuff I zoned on

Next was the luncheon and award ceremony.  Since none of the people getting awards was me; I ate lunch.  Since the guys at the table behind me thought their discussion was way more important then the guest speaker I left early.  I asked myself if I was going to have a Crucial Conversation with them, but decided not to since I was crabby and my part of the conversation would consist of calling them inconsiderate and thoughtless body parts.

I did make it to the Joint Commission session and as always Mr George Mills was excellant.  I will be incorporating his talk into the next class on The JC.  I think the constant theme of this AAMI conference is they  consistently under estimated the number of attendees.  They had to move the session to another room with triple the seating and it was nearly filled.

I decided to skip the second session since it was going to be totally Q&A.  Instead I went to the career center and talked with each of the recruiters there about the students from DCTC and how fabulous they are  ;-]   Tip of the hat to Kirk Davis who walked in while I was there.  He was attending the CBET classes.  Unfortunately he was with the infamous MC from the BMET Listserv; so Kirk is probably totally corrupted by now.  He was such a nice young man.

Final stop for the day was the Educators Roundtable.  Again, attendance was much more then planned for.  Next year they may have it as a half day session instead of 1.5 hours.  Some good BS but the only thing of note is the possibility of setting up a working committee to determine what the core curriculum for biomed programs should be and should effectiveness of a program be determined by content or outcome. 

Thats enough for me.  No Boom Boom Boom outside so I may actually sleep tonight.

Tomorrow morning is the Symposium by Masimo on monitoring and then The Technical Iconoclast which I am curious about.

What a wonderful plan for the first day.  So many educational sessions to attend.  Timetable well laid out and routes planned to a T to ensure timely arrival.

Yeah, right.  One of the key features of being a Biomed is adaptability.  DeVry decided to hold an “Advisory Committe” meeting at 7:30 so the plan to attend the Clinical Engineering symposium went out the window.  Since DeVry is a competitor, sorta, I decided to attend that meeting.   One of the most interesting bits was when I was asked to start off the meeting with the question; What 3 things do you consider to be the most important for Biomeds to learn today.   I answered with; Communications, oral and written.  That was it; never did get to the other 2 because that pushed a major button for everyone else and we discussed that for over 45 minutes.  I also found it interesting that DeVry is also considering adding a course in Operational Security to their networking.

I made it to the Key Note address.  I highly reccommend you read; Why Hospitals Should Fly by John J. Nance.  If I can get permission I will post the audio.  In a nut shell his talk addressed the need for Hospitals to restructure their culture to reduce the occurence of medical mistakes.  What an excellant speaker and very timely subject material.

I also made it to Medical Devices and Connectivity: Strategic Perspectives.  Dr. Julian Goldman gave the presentation.  He is an anesthesiologist and the Director Biomedical Engineering for Massachusetts General Hospital.  The connectivity issue I found most compelling is how time stamps can differ amongst many instruments tied into the EMRS and therefore it is almost impossible to say with any accuracy when something actually occurred.  The other was that patient deaths are happening because instruments ARE NOT talking to each other yet.  The example given was turning off an anesthesia/ventilator machine when the Bypass unit is turned on.  When Bypass is complete the anesthesia/ventilator should be turned back on.  While rare, sometimes it is missed and there is no alarm to warn the anesthesiologist or OR team.  More on this when I get back.

So off to the next great session.  NOT - It seems there was a breakdown in communications and the table for FMESA was nowhere to be found.  So I spent the next 1.45 hours trying to track down the person who could authorize a table <sigh>

Got that done and yippie! the exhibit doors opened.  Got some leads on companies that might be hiring, new equipment on the horizon and FREE stuff.

More tomorrow.  We shall see how long that plan lasts 

I will be leaving for the AAMI 2010 Conference and Expo on the 25th.  I am really looking forward to the educational sessions this year.  I hope to attend the following:

• Medical Device Connectivity is mandated for 2013
• Changing world of cyber threats
• Integrating Medical Device Systems into the Hospital system
• Biomedical Society Roundtable
• Distributed Antenna Systems
• Understanding HL7
• Joint Commission update
• Educators Roundtable
• Advances in Continuous and Noninvasive monitoring
• The Technical Iconoclast (Mostly going because I don’t know what the heck that means)

Each evening I hope to update this post with information from each session.  Look for the next update on Saturday.

 This schedule starts July 7

 •MONDAY         Not here

•TUESDAY        9am – 9pm or when nobody is left

•WEDNESDAY 9am – 9pm or when nobody is left

•THURSDAY    Not here

•FRIDAY  Still not here

I WILL BE GONE JUNE 25^TH thru JULY 4^TH.   WHEN I RETURN I WILL DETERMINE NEW OFFICE HOURS.  IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE EMAIL ME .

steve.bezanson@dctc.edu

Here we go again. Perhaps to improve clarity or visibility or because of sheer boredom the look of the blog site was changed.

For some reason when that happens it affects the HTML code of previous posts. Don’t ask me why. Not only do I not know, I don’t care. Like a lot of people I want my technology to think for me.

On the up side I get to be all cranky and ask people why they are messing with something I thought I had just figured out. A couple of those posts I had spent forever (I would try to use my daughters pronunciation but I can’t figure out how to get the R’s and the accent on the V right. Plus there is that simultaneous thing with the eyes, mouth and hand on hip.) trying to get right and now it’s all goofed up again.

Cranky will only take you so far and then you have to start watching yourself in case your Google searches start with “How to make things go boom”.

So this is a test of the new look. When I look at my old posts in the edit function they look fine, but when I look at the public view some of the formatting is changed. Which is why I am using BOLD or underling some words. Some words or paragraphs became very light and hard to read. I have no clue on how that happened.

Here is a picture

duh

And lets try a graph of pointy things

And finally me trying not to kill myself on a Ducati. Very fast bike and very slow old guy - not a pretty picture

Dukati

I attended the first meeting of FMESA in Nashville, TN this past weekend. The stated purpose of the organization is;

We, the Associations that represent the medical equipment Service and Support Professionals (SSP) recognize the need to amplify a clear and unified voice. We hereby organize in fellowship to promote our profession though the advancement of standards, benchmarks, best practices and by fostering harmonious communications between the biomedical organizations and the greater medical community. Our purpose is to promote quality patient care, safety, and efficient management of medical equipment. We dedicate ourselves to work as agents of change to elevate and promote a positive image of the medical equipment service and support community.

If you speak with any technician who has been in this field for a number of years you may be greeted with a bit of skepticism or even a blurted, “Not again!”

This is not the first time it has been proposed to create a National voice. Each time those efforts have died away. I confess to being leery this time myself….yet…..

I can’t help but hope that this time the right formula has been created; this time attitudes have changed enough; this time we will coalesce as a group.

So I volunteered to be on the Board for FMESA to try and help establish a National Voice for Bmet’s. Here, in no particular order, are some of the reasons I feel it is important to do this.

• If Bmet’s don’t speak up for their profession someone else will, whether they are qualified to or not
• It is past time for our profession to stop being “The guy’s in the basement” (apologies to our women techs)
• Certification – it is not a matter of “If”, rather it is “When”. Do you want someone with no knowledge of our profession writing that law?
• There really isn’t a single voice that speaks for Bmet’s and only Bmet’s at a National level
• I heard this at the conference, “It is time for us to move from Blue collar to White collar.”
• There is a profound lack of consensus as to what Bmet’s actually do. The job description depends on where you work and what the Bmet before you did.
• Education – most curriculums are dependent on what the Instructor deems important rather then a national standard. I think everyone covers the basics, however, it would make for a more consistent outcome if everyone could agree on the core needs.

BMET’s are a major part of the health care team. A graphic I use in school to help show the relationship of Biomed to the other health care team’s looks like this -

Click on the picture for a larger view

I explain that the circle linking all of the departments together is the Biomedical Equipment Technician. Each of the departments is critical to a patients care and the Biomed is critical to the functioning of those departments.

All of those departments have people who are highly trained, certified and recognized on a national level as health care professionals, except for Bmet’s.

I think it is overdue for Bmet’s to take their rightful place on the healthcare stage and be recognized for the critical role they have in providing safe, reliable and cost effective management of patient care equipment.

I will do my best to help that happen. I hope you will to.

So it has been one of those weeks.

Conflict in the news, in school and in the family. It happens; even when we try our best to avoid it.

So what follows is my personal opinion. It does not necessarily reflect current wisdom, thoughts of trained professionals, pundits, political correctness, employers, the wife and the cat’s connection to reality. I am solely responsible for these thoughts. Ummmmm, maybe I should also blame Dad and Mom, my brothers, those ratfinks in Junior High and High school. While I am at it I should include that sociopath I reported to in the Navy and some of those ethically challenged organizations I worked for… and… and… and…

Maybe we aren’t simply one thing. Maybe we bring with us all of our experiences, good – bad – traumatic – life changing, that have occurred over our entire lives. These experiences color our expectations and perceptions. I don’t believe that process is a conscious decision. Our life experiences create the ocean in which our thoughts and feelings exist. [Maybe not the best metaphore but go with the flow.] This ocean is so present in our life that we may not even recognize or acknowledge it’s existence. Yet it effects how we react to situations in our life and sometimes those reactions are not conducive to resolving conflict.

I read in the news about a woman who was fired for an email she sent. My expectation was that it was a rant or sexually explicit, perhaps a diatribe against the organization. On reading the article I found that she was fired for using CAPITALS and the color red. It was a memo to personnel in the company reminding them of an action that needed to be completed. Her manager felt she was yelling at people and making them feel bad therefore creating a hostile environment so he fired her.

In school conflict can arise between students, faculty, and administration; you pick the combinations and permutations.

In our personal life just include everyone you know, might know, or will know in the future. Because to deny that conflict is possible will create in unrealistic expectation that will make the inevitable worse.

Why is there conflict? Why can’t everybody just get along? (Thanks Rodney, I’ve often had the same thought) I think one possiblity for conflict, simply stated, is a failure in expectation. Think about how often you might use that word. I expect you to listen; I expect you to follow my rules; I expect you to read the directions; I expect you to be on time; I expected you to understand; I expected you to read my mind and understand my needs you inconsiderit, thoughtless (&*^%&!!. Ooops, sorry – that was a memory from my past.

Another possibility is an unresolved fear which is triggered either consciously or unconciously by the other person. In fact, whenever we overreact, we can be almost certain that we are projecting or displacing an unresolved fear from the past onto a present situation. If a fear is an ongoing anxiety that has no apparent cause, realize that it is most likely a symptom of some hidden fear. If so, it may be wise to see a trained counselor to help you find and resolve the cause. Until we face and understand what is hidden inside us we cannot comprehend our reactions.

My father was unable to understand my older brothers behavior. My brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but I believe it was more a case of arrested emotional development. My brothers response to situations mirror those of a 6 to 8 year old. By the time my brother was 15-16 years old my father could not tolerate his behavior. What really drove my dad nuts was the fact that my brother was extremely intelligent. I believe that in my fathers mind if a person was intelligent then inappropriate behavior was done on purpose. Consequently my brother was given frequent beatings. A memory I recovered was of me laying in bed at night holding my younger brother while listening to my older brother scream. Around the age of 16 my brother disappeared. We weren’t allowed to mention his name or ask where he was. He reappeared briefly at the age of 18, joined the service and was discharged a few months later as mentally unsuited, returned home and then was committed to a mental hospital. He ran away and disappeared again. During this time my brother was never mentioned or discussed at home.

Unresolved fear – I grew up believing, NO, knowing at a fundamental level that any conflict or disagreement would end with my losing everything. At home I could not argue with my father, because I believed implicitly, at in unconcious level, that it would result in a beating and then disappearing like my brother. When I grew older and left home I was encapable of participating in any discussion that I percieved would lead to conflict. I could not speak before groups about anything that I felt strongly about with out my throat literally closing off. After I married and we had discussions at home I would withdraw and could not respond. My wife would be terribly hurt thinking it meant I didn’t care. What was worse, I could not explain why because I didn’t know myself. I had buried those fears so deep I had no memories of the events that had caused them.

REACTIVE – When dealing with conflict it is very important to understand the meaning of this word as it relates to human interaction.

Main Entry: re·ac·tive Pronunciation: \rē-ˈak-tiv\Function: adjective

1 a: of, relating to, or marked by reaction <reactive symptoms> <a reactive process> b: capable of reacting chemically <highly reactive materials>2 a: readily responsive to a stimulus <the skin of the geriatric is less reactive than that of younger persons — Louis Tuft> b: occurring as a result of stress or emotional upset especially from factors outside the organism <reactive depression>

I cut this from an article by Copethorn McDonald I found on the web. For the complete article on the description of the brain structure visit: http://www.wisdompage.com/FlawsinMentality.html

Reactive Emotions — Reactive emotions and emotion-driven actions helped early humans to survive and reproduce in primitive circumstances. Today, however, strong human emotions distort a person’s sense of relative importance and often lead to inappropriate behavior. It works like this: The thalamus acts as a relay station for raw sensory input data. It sends this data both to the neo­cortex for detailed (but relatively slow) processing and directly to the amygdala, where it is evaluated in a crude but more immediate way. The amygdala monitors all the sensory data passing through the thalamus for threats to the person. If its hardwired programming detects a danger of some sort, it puts the brain in crisis mode.

Some of these crisis messages cause physical things to happen, such as the release of fight-or-flight hormones, the tightening of muscles, and the release of brain chemicals that heighten alertness. At the same time, a feeling is presented to consciousness — say, of fear, anger, hatred, greed, or jealousy — as determined by the amygdala’s rough-and-ready analysis of the sensory data. Sometimes, a powerful emotion leads to immedi­ate action. The person acts before the more comprehensive and sophisticated, but slower, cortical evaluation process has been com­pleted. At times, this kind of immediate, reactive behavior might save an endangered life; at other times, it results in great harm and pro­found regret. A mark of emotional intelligence, development, and maturity is the ability to delay acting until the cooled–out second opinion from the frontal lobes of the cortex has reached consciousness. Unfortunately, some people treat emotions as action imperatives and react on impulse in situation after situation. They have not learned that emotional feelings are simply messages from the limbic brain to the conscious mind, to be ignored or acted upon as other brain processes (intellect and intuition) dictate.

Me again:

When a person is trapped in a reactive state you cannot, CANNOT, reason with them. Signs of being reactive can include, but are not limited to:

• Raised voice and inability to calm down
• Screaming
• Repetitive statements
• Disconnect from reality
• Apocalyptic words: Always, Never, Hate you forever
• The calmer you try to be the more emotional their reaction
• Withdrawing, possibly to the point of stupor
• Playing the victim
• Quick to lose their temper
• Significant mood swings
• Prone to anxiety attacks
• Often overcome with sudden tearfulness
• Become flooded with unwanted feelings
• Say or do things they’re embarrassed about later

Are you aware of your emotional triggers leading to reactivity?

On the first day of school are you going to feel like you stick out like a sore thumb or perhaps you feel all alone.

NO WORRIES! There are hundreds and hundreds of people all around you

that feel exactly the same way. I can’t promise you a wacky Iris with a magic stick and weird assistants to help you understand the world. I can promise that you will have a group of talented and knowledgeable instructors who will do their best to help you get acclimated to life as a student over the next two semesters. Unlike Proffessor Iris we won’t talk to you like a pre-schooler, unless you’re weird and want us too.

Here is a really scary thought. We will treat you like an adult, whether you are coming back for a new career, tweaking an old one or coming straight from High School. Please remember that when I say “Treat you like an Adult” I am not saying, “You are on your own.” At DCTC every member of the Staff and Faculty is here to help you succeed.

Like Iris-the-Professor we are here to help you learn. Unlike the poor kitty in the field you are not alone. Use the resources available; ask your Instructor, Advisor or Student Services for help if you need it. Don’t assume nothing can be done.

We are glad you are here and we want you to succeed.

My original page, the first entry I ever made has disappeared. Is it possible some thief has stolen it away. What could it possibly have said that caused its utter disintegration? Perhaps the powers that be have decoded the hidden messages with which I communicate with my masters from Arcturus. In any case nothing will stop the imminent invasion of the Bimbos from Outer Space AHHHHH HA HA HA HA HAAA

While waiting for the invasion here is a fun little time waster

MAKE A SNOWFLAKE!

How many times have you looked at the symbol for the medical profession and wondered where it came from. If you have a classical education perhaps you wonder why we use the symbol for the God of Thieves and Prostitutes; is it perhaps a subtle political statement on the medical profession?

Caduceus or Asclepius? Here is a link which has a very good explanation and here is the legal stuff; reproduced from/according to/cited from/courtesy of/with permission from: drblayney.com

I really like borrowing from people who have lots of time to do cool stuff