19 August 2020 (Wednesday) - ASH Update

The American Society of Hematology sent their update today. All rather clinical (rather than technical), and with a serious focus on the money, but something for nothing is always good. 

 

	FDA Approves Oliceridine for Management of Acute Pain The intravenous opioid is approved for use in hospitals and other controlled clinical settings, not for at-home treatment, at a maximum recommended daily dose of 27 mg.
	New Cancer Diagnoses Dropped by Nearly Half During Pandemic A recent study reported a 46.4% average decline in new cancer diagnoses for six common cancer types between March and April 2020, including a 51.8% drop in new breast cancer cases.
	Poll Finds 35% of Americans Would Decline COVID-19 Vaccine A new Gallup poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans would agree to receive an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine at no cost, with slight disparities according to age, race, and location.

 

14 August 2020 (Friday) - Oncology Central

 Sigh….

The nice people at oncology central sent their update today. There was a link to what looked to be a rather interesting article about investigating weight loss as a preliminary step in the early diagnosis of a number of cancers… but the link didn’t work.

At first sight I thought (“censored swear words”) but it is worth mentioning here in that CPD isn’t just about improving myself… it is also about *trying” to improve and to accept that not everything I try to do is going to work. I suppose only about one In five of the CPD activities I try get mentioned here. “The Scientist”, “Laboratory News”, and quite a few other things I regularly get have also turned out to be far less usefu to me than I had hoped.

Is that ungrateful of me?

13 August 2020 (Thursday) - BTLP-TACT Excercise

 

 

 

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise: the software presented me with one case:

 

70509: A sixty-three year-old woman who was “tired all the time” requiring group and save.

She grouped as B Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen

 

I got the green light….​

 

 

11 August 2020 (Tuesday) - IBMS Newsletter

 

 

 

The IBMS sent their newsletter today… there is a new committee, there is a list of “inspirational individuals who make The Pathologist's Power List”, there’s a call for volunteers for a mentoring program (I could do that… maybe!)

There was precious little science in the thing. When I was a lad the IBMS had very active local branches and was more a social club than it was a professional institute. The IBMS went through a few (many) years of not really being relevant, tried to re-invent itself as a regulatory body (but seems to have given up with that idea), and now seems to be becoming a social club again.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. The IBMS is like a dustbin – I will only get out of it that which I put into it. Having said that, I put in one hundred and seventy-nine quid a year..

Am I wrong for wanting more? And if I want more, specifically what more do I want?

11 August 2020 (Tuesday) - E.S.M.O.

 

 

 

I’ve signed up with the European Society for Medical Oncology. Will ESMO be a valid source of CPD material, or will it be a load of old tripe?

Time will tell…. It always does.