What happens to medical residents when a hospital closes?

Photo of sign on St. Vincent’s by 1987porsche944 via flickr http://bit.ly/waNls2

When New York City’s St. Vincent’s Hospital closed on April 30, 2010, ending what the New York Times called a “long struggle to stay afloat despite millions of dollars of debt,” it left a swath of Manhattan without a hospital.

The first priority, of course, was to figure out how the community served by the hospital would meet its health care needs. But at least as important, argue the authors of a new paper in the American Journal of Medicine, is to

consider the people who once served the hospital. When a hospital shuts down, what happens to one of its largest work forces, its house staff? For these young doctors who have not yet completed their medical education but are in the last chapter of their training, what lies ahead?

Would you take cancer screening advice from Ozzy Osbourne?

photo by Daniel Focka http://www.focka.com.br via Flickr

From a contest being sponsored by CBS:

This is an actual sweepstakes inspired by rock legend Ozzy Osbourne’s secret fantasy. If you are the grand prize winner, we will fly you and a companion to New York for three nights in a suite at a luxury hotel with a view of Central Park. And then the main event – you will be driven to the Center for Advanced Digestive Care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center for a free colonoscopy!

The promotion doesn’t exactly say what Osbourne’s “secret fantasy” is, and I’m not sure I want to know, but it does make it clear why he’s interested in the issue:

Transsexual woman castrates herself: What one person did when insurance wouldn’t pay

Warning: This will likely be a painful read. Unlike many of the posts elsewhere on this blog, there are no jokes in it, because poking fun at this kind of pathos is really in poor taste. At least as importantly, ridicule would obscure the fact that there’s a real and desperate human being in this story who made a choice that actually seemed like the best one at the time, given her options.

In a report in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, Michael Irwig and colleagues from the George Washington University describe a transsexual woman in her 40s who decided that she should castrate herself rather than than have the procedure done by surgeons:

Look, I’ve started yet another blog: Introducing The Oransky Journal

Well, I’ve gone and done it.

I’ve been playing around on Tumblr, and there’s a lot to like on the platform, but I decided I was really writing blog posts rather than Tumblrs. (If that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry.) I’ll keep “Oransky’s Thoughts That Won’t Go Elsewhere,” and start posting more Tumblr-like items, but I’ve migrated all of my previous posts here.

So, welcome to my new blog, The Oransky Journal. Here, you’ll find stuff I come across and think is interesting for one reason or another, but doesn’t fit on Embargo Watch or Retraction Watch.

The Oransky Journal isn’t a Watch; if there’s ever an Oransky Watch I suspect it’ll be someone other than me who starts it. (And Denise Graveline has already suggested it.)

I have a post marinating for tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you can catch up on the sorts of items you’ll find here: