Notices by Jennifer Hamilton, MD PhD (jeneralist@med-mastodon.com)

I don't wear a mask at home or when I'm outdoors, but I do mask up at work. Yesterday a patient I hadn't seen in years sighed "Covid, AGAIN?" I answered that I never stopped masking.

Now that we know how much masks (esp KN94/N95) reduce respiratory illness, why wouldn't you want your doc to wear a mask to see you? Odds are, I saw someone with a sore throat sometime in the last day or two. I don't want covid, or the flu, or a cold -- and I don't want to give any of those illnesses to you.

My work #EMR at now has integrated #AI that summarizes a patient's chart whether I want it to or not. This week it told me the wrong reason for admission, the wrong hospital course, and the wrong medications as compared against the human-written discharge summary. To review it and find the error took 3 minutes; to document the error and report it took another 10.

Anchoring bias exists. What we read stays with us, truth or lie, influencing decisions.

And I can't turn it off.

#LawsuitBait

The Northeast Public Health Collaborative is filling in: Maryland and Delaware are on board, as is Vermont. That gives an almost solid block from Maine to Maryland, with only New Hampshire not joining in.

The Collaborative joins the AAP, AAFP, and ACOG (pediatricians, family docs, and OB/Gyns) in recommending covid #vaccines during pregnancy and in early childhood.

Sources:
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2025/09/18/health-officials-from-10-northeast-states-officially-band-together-new-hampshire-remains-out/

https://marylandmatters.org/2025/09/18/maryland-joins-multistate-coalition-to-buck-trump-administration-vaccine-policies/

I haven't seen this on a Mastodon server yet, so forgive me for linking to a different social media site: As of 3:45 Eastern on Aug 28, #CDC employees stage mass #walkout to cheer on those in their leadership who were fired or who quit in the last 24 hours:

https://bsky.app/profile/newseye.bsky.social/post/3lxicgmgb3k2a

For those not familiar with the area, folks are lined up along Clifton Rd. One of the red awnings seen in the video there is likely the building from which nearly 200 shots were fired, killing a police officer.

@Impossible_PhD And if you don't have any of those extra risks but you have a decent relationship with your clinician and want the vaccine, ask if you can get it prescribed "off-label". There are a whole bunch of meds that get prescribed for things other than what the FDA approved them for (some blood pressure medicines prevent migraines, for example). I'm trying to get word out to my colleagues so they remember they can do it for vaccines, too.

Glad to hear that the #AAFP is getting ahead of this one: several leading medical groups released a statement urging HHS to leave USPSTF as it is.

https://www.aafp.org/news/media-center/statements/statement-from-leading-physician-groups-on-uspstf-change.html

@jaz Listen to the song "Wet Dream" by Kip Addotta for inspiration for fishy puns. "I catch him with a left hook... It was a fluke, but there he was, lying on the deck, flat as a mackerel. Kelpless. "

@Infoseepage I was in Dublin last year, and I didn't try to visit Trinity because I knew the books were gone. It's not the same without the books.

When #Hahnemann #Hospital went bankrupt, there was no longer the need for a medical #library in the building next door. The stacks are now completely empty.

A library without patrons is sad. A library-shaped space without books or patrons feels dystopian.

I try to keep my posts here focused on vaccines and similar public health measures, and to let other folks post about other health topics. But this is too egregious not to shout about: a bill introduced in the Texas legislature that would criminalize any provision of hormonal treatment except those that a 6th grade biology text would say goes with gender assigned at birth. At any age.

Dropping the pretense that this is about protecting children.

https://social.edist.ro/@CosmickTrigger/114078401848080372

@Infoseepage
I'm glad that this group of presenters found a way to still present, while calling attention to the problem, rather than just dropping the session.

At #IMSH2025, at a session on using simulation to improve the care of LGBT2QAI+ patients: some of the people who would be giving this presentation had enough concern for their safety in Florida that they sent others in their stead.

It's already happening, dear ones: voices are being silenced, lives are being limited, people are quite literally being made to stay "in their place."

Discuss: what are safe places for conferences? And if a conference is held in an UNsafe place -- then what?

Quoting @zlevymd.bsky.social:

"United Healthcare just denied a claim on one of my patients in the ICU with:

-- a brain hemorrhage
-- in a coma
-- on a ventilator
-- in heart failure

...because I haven't proven to them that caring for her in the hospital was "medically necessary".

Tear it all down."

https://bsky.app/profile/zlevymd.bsky.social/post/3lem5xtijek2c

Childhood mortality -- death before age 15 or so -- used to run at about 50%.

Every second child born, died before becoming an adult, all over the world, for as far back as we've been able to track.

We didn't turn the corner until about 1900, when science got us the germ theory. That sparked sanitation and vaccination.

A cabinet nominee (RFK Jr) who questions vaccines is frightening. A nominee who brags about not washing his hands (Hegseth) is terrifying.