Adventures of an Atherton: August 2011

Ofirmev

One of the things Columbia is big on teaching us is 'evidenced based practice' which basically means that when we do things (like give a medication) we should be able to back up our actions with high quality research as opposed to just doing something because "that is how it has always been done". To ensure that our practice is evidence based we need to be able to reference reliable research - we need to know the difference between a randomized control trial and someone saying "4 out of 5 doctors agree". In order to help us out with this we had a class last semester called 'Assessing Clinical Evidence' and one of the assignments for that class was to perform a systematic review. Performing a systematic review involves picking a question and then combing through ALL of the research out there to determine the answer, and then determining if that answer is reliable or if better research is needed. The real world application of this being that if we have a question during our career we will know the correct way to go about answering it using appropriate sources (not google). The question my group chose to pursue was: "What is the morphine sparing effect of intravenous acetaminophen in orthopedic surgery patients?" I know you are probably on the edge of your seat waiting to hear all about our results but the cliff notes version was that it works! We, as anesthesia providers, should use it to help decrease the amount of opioids we give for pain control! IV Acetaminophen (basically Tylenol) has just been approved for use in the US by the FDA under the brand name Ofirmev (hence the title of this post) so this is a very hot topic in the Anesthesia world right now. So hot that we submitted our results to the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists and they asked us to present them, in poster form, at our national convention! Here is a picture of me by our poster:

The convention was held in Boston last week and we were excused from clinicals if we attended. Don't worry, it wasn't all business attire and lectures but my camera was out of commission after being dropped at the Red Sox game so all I have are pics other people are posting on Facebook, here is one of me and some of my classmates enjoying some lobstah (said like a true Bostonian).

L to R: Eric, Paige, Billy, Emily

Sox

Chuck is a HUGE Red Sox fan. We're talking third generation here. So last week we had the opportunity to go to a Sox vs Yankees game in Boston at Fenway Park and he made it happen! Baseball is one professional sport that I enjoy watching because I played softball for so many years that I can understand the strategy behind the game. I know where the next play should be, I know what a good hit looks like and I know what it feels like to be at bat with a full count! We had a day full of beer, baseball, hotdogs and hamburgers in a town that Katherine once referred to as "the cradle of the nation" - just livin' the dream.

Taste Test

I am officially finished with four out of the seven semesters of this nurse anesthesia program - over half way! Since clinicals have started time is flying because we are so busy. We have class on Mondays and then we work Tuesday - Friday. Weekends are reserved for studying, doing laundry and catching up on sleep. Monday evenings after class have become a good catch-up day for me and my classmates since we are spread all over Manhattan during the week. A few weeks ago we decided to go to Emily's apartment after class and make dinner. We were at the grocery store when one of my classmates, Eric, said he wanted some chocolate chip cookies and as he was reaching for the Tollhouse brand dough I spotted some ShopRite dough and insisted that we get that instead (that is Chuck's brand, his company supplies one of our local groceries, Gristedes, with ShopRite products). Eric did not believe that ShopRite cookie dough could hold a flame to Tollhouse so we decided to get both brands and have a blind taste test! I would like to proudly report that every person at the meal picked the ShopRite cookies as being superior to the Tollhouse cookies :)