The Digital Pathology Blog (”a weblog for the digital pathology community and laboratory professionals”) hosts today’s edition of the Medicine 2.0 blog carnival, which derives its name from the “Web 2.0″ reference to current trends in Internet design and technologies. Not surprisingly, the carnival focuses on Internet-based technologies applied in the health care industry. On The Wards makes a brief appearance with our February report on the collaboration between Google Health and the Cleveland Clinic.

The venerable MedBlogs Grand Rounds circulates every Tuesday, which coincidentally falls on April Fools Day this year. Today’s edition (4.28) is primarily hosted by GruntDoc. As an added twist to commemorate this foolhardy occasion, GruntDoc conspired with a few other medical bloggers to scatter the featured articles among multiple sites. The purposeful chaos is reminiscent of a carnival-like atmosphere where the multitude of loud, flashy booths are scattered throughout the carnival grounds (how appropriate for a blog carnival).

Our article for this week’s Grand Rounds discusses low colonoscopy screening rates and can be found at Musings of a Distractible Mind. The distractible Dr. Rob hosts part 6 of “Mutant Grand Rounds”, where he includes pictures of oversized or overcolored mutants. He jokingly posits “the dangers these mutants pose are beyond description”. He follows …

The same can be said for insufficient screening for colon cancer. This is raised in the blog On the Wards. Who is to blame for such poor screening in our society? Katie Couric? Alan Thicke? Nick Genes? No, it is the physician who need to be identifying those at risk and encouraging colonoscopy.

This is quite an amusing yet discombobulating Grand Rounds, quite appropriate for April Fools Day. If you have no idea what I just presented above, don’t worry. I’m still left dazed and confused myself.

On The Wards participates in this week’s Grand Rounds with our report on the weight loss management (WLM) clinical trial. Version 4.26 of Grand Rounds is hosted at Polite Dissent, and comes packaged with a theme of the Wild Wild West. The blog’s author is a family physician from Southwestern Illinois whose love for comics is also apparent in his other writings. Many previous posts provide excerpts of medical themes found in traditional comic book genres. This is indeed a unique and interesting feature of his blog.

On The Wards would like to announce its first article entry (Industry Giants Vie for Your Online Health Records) in the Medicine 2.0 blog carnival. This biweekly collection of blog posts focuses on the application of Internet and related web technologies in health care. The article has been included in the 18th edition.

Shiny Happy Person (SHP), pseudodynm for a “stroppy junior psychiatrist working in the crumbling institution that is the NHS”, presents this week’s grand rounds. On The Wards makes an appearance with a summary of a randomized controlled study evaluating the use of antibiotics and steroids in sinus infections. SHP formats the entries in unique haiku format:

Sinus infections:
Often the drugs are useless.
Docs might get snotty

There is apparently no dearth of creativity among the medical bloggers. I often look forward to the upcoming week’s themes, as I do the articles themselves.

You may have noticed a minor addition to the right sidebar: a logo of the Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics. The Code of Ethics was established for the medical blogosphere with two objectives in mind:

1. To give the readers of a medical blogger a clear idea of the standards by which the blog is maintained.
2. To give bloggers (especially anonymous ones) a clear set of guidelines they can show employers, patients, or other concerned parties as to the nature of the blogging.

I believe in maintaining the highest degree of integrity in both personal and professional life. As a blog, On The Wards also strives to achieve identical goals. While no logo or promise can guarantee perfect compliance, I applied for permission to use the logo to at least communicate the basic standards of this blog. On The Wards is solely maintained by myself, but rest assured that any future co-authors will similarly subscribe to the same principles outlined in the Code of Ethics.

Kerri Morrone, author of the diabetes blog Six Until Me, has written an entertaining and educational piece for this week’s grand rounds. The articles are presented in the theme of a visit to the grocery store “Stop & Blog”. The tour begins at the produce section where one can find a great selection of fish, pomegranate, and organic lettuce. Here is where Kerri includes the most recent article from On The Wards:

Brrr. It’s always freezing in the produce section. There should be a mandatory uniform for this arctic section, much like the new UK policy guidelines for healthcare uniforms, says On The Wards.

It is always refreshing to see how medical bloggers apply their creativity to the weekly grand rounds. There is more to us than just books and stethoscopes. Kudos to Kerri for a job well done!

The Efficient MD hosts this week’s Grand Rounds with an interesting theme: innovations and new technologies in health care. The submission from On The Wards was the most recent article about mobile phone use in hospitals. The topic is not entirely new, but it presents a few findings that increase our understanding of the possible risks of Internet-capable smartphones around medical equipment.