This is why this forum is so good!

[camkiss]

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Members do not see this ad.

So I'm on call last night. It's quiet in the OR, but L&D is pretty busy. Up and down all night doing labor epidurals. Everything routine, blah, blah. Ay 0520 I get called for another one.

25-yo primip with a history of stroke (resolved, etiology unclear) several years ago. She states thats her only medical history. I ask her if she has any chronic back or neck problems and she says, "oh yeah, I have a syrinx in my spine. I think in my upper back. My OB knows about it and said no problem with epidural." She denies any hx of Chiari malformation.

Well crap. I look at his notes and it says syrinx lower back. So I get the nurses calling medical records at the hospital where the MRI was done and I sit down at the computer. My mind is debating, do I do this or not. I search +"labor epidural" +syrinx. And I'll be damned if a two page hotly debated post from a few years ago pops up first. MMD and Plank are at each other. JPP even pops his head in. Sources are thrown out there with links. Good stuff.

By the time I read the whole thing and chase down some of the links and articles, the MRI report is in my hand stating possible syrinx T6/T7. So armed with the knowledge gained from this forum, and the MRI report, I felt much more comfortable placing her epidural, and she did fine.

All this to say, this forum may have its share of craziness and off topic posts, but when I needed info in the last hours of a long call, I got my info here. Thanks to all the regulars who make it great!

 

[militarymd]

a "random google search" saved the day

 

[Planktonmd]

I remember that thread, this was the thread where I taught Che Guevara (AKA MMD) about Chiari malformation and Syringomyelia.

 

[lfesiam]

I remember that thread, this was the thread where I taught Che Guevara (AKA MMD) about Chiari malformation and Syringomyelia.

👍👍👍👍

 

[dhb]

I remember that thread, this was the thread where I taught Che Guevara (AKA MMD) about Chiari malformation and Syringomyelia.

Here we go

I agree though this forum is great!

 

[Planktonmd]

Here we go

I agree though this forum is great!

I second that, this forum is amazing.
But Che is a very irritating character although I have to admit that his irritating presence had triggered some of the most interesting threads in the history of SDN.

 

[pgg]

I'm assuming this was the thread in question.

 

[dhb]

I'm assuming this was the thread in question.

Best of that thread from who else but Zippy:

I told him it would be a lot of work and nobody's goin' to pay ya for it. Just chalk it up as another day in the trenches. Run silent...run deep---

 

[Planktonmd]

What happened to Zippy?
Where are you man?

 

[Bertelman]

Massively Collaborative Mathematics

In January, Timothy Gowers, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge and a holder of the Fields Medal, math's highest honor, decided to see if the comment section of his blog could prove a theorem he could not.
In two blog posts — one titled "Is Massively Collaborative Mathematics Possible?" — he proposed an attack on a stubborn math problem called the Density Hales-Jewett Theorem. He encouraged the thousands of readers of his blog to jump in and start proving. Mathematics is a process of generating vast quantities of ideas and rejecting the majority that don't work; maybe, Gowers reasoned, the participation of so many people would speed the sifting.
The resulting comment thread spanned hundreds of thousands of words and drew in dozens of contributors, including Terry Tao, a fellow Fields Medalist, and Jason Dyer, a high-school teacher.

It makes fascinating, if forbiddingly technical, reading. Gowers's goals for the so-called Polymath Project were modest. "I will regard the experiment as a success," he wrote, "if it leads to anything that could count as genuine progress toward an understanding of the problem." Six weeks later, the theorem was proved. The plan is to submit the resulting paper to a top journal, attributed to one D.H.J. Polymath.
By now we're used to the idea that gigantic aggregates of human brains — especially when allowed to communicate nearly instantaneously via the Internet — can carry out fantastically difficult cognitive tasks, like writing an encyclopedia or mapping a social network. But some problems we still jealously guard as the province of individual beautiful minds: writing a novel, choosing a spouse, creating a new mathematical theorem. The Polymath experiment suggests this prejudice may need to be rethought. In the near future, we might talk not only about the wisdom of crowds but also of their genius. JORDAN ELLENBERG

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/magazine/ideas/2009/?th&emc=th#m

We're not exactly in Will Hunting territory on SDN, but this is why I like it. In a good thread, I can tackle a unique or common problem by reading the opinions of a dozen other people, considering ideas I would have otherwise never imagined. For better or worse, I often consider my SDN browsing as independent study time.

 

[foxtrot]

I miss Zippy's words of wisdom. 😉

 

[coprolalia]

What happened to Zippy?
Where are you man?

Ummm... this guy isn't now, nor was he ever, one of your "bro's". If he was, you'd know what happened to him.

Pathetic.

-copro

 

[Planktonmd]

My Bro's?
That type of language is too masculine for you Nancy.
What Bro's are you talking about anyway? You mean MMD's little boys like you?

Ummm... this guy isn't now, nor was he ever, one of your "bro's". If he was, you'd know what happened to him.

Pathetic.

-copro

 

[Apollyon]

a "random google search" saved the day

Hey, maybe he used "Bing"!

 

[coprolalia]

My Bro's?
That type of language is too masculine for you Nancy.
What Bro's are you talking about anyway? You mean MMD's little boys like you?

No, no. I got it right the first time. This is what you said...

What happened to Zippy?
Where are you man?

Which is exactly something this guy, which might actually be you, would say:

-copro

 

[Planktonmd]

Did you get your boyfriend's permission before you posted his picture?


QUOTE=coprolalia;8994479]No, no. I got it right the first time. This is what you said...



Which is exactly something this guy, which might actually be you, would say:

-copro[/QUOTE]

 

[coprolalia]

Did you get your boyfriend's permission before you posted his picture?

Funny you'd assume and refer to this picture as "your boyfriend". Then again, I'm not the gay guy wishing posters on this forum were women named "Nancy".

And, dammit, what did I tell you?!??!! If you're going to post something, at least try to be funny, clever, or entertaining.

Fail, fail, and - ummm - fail.

-copro

 

[Planktonmd]

Ok, Nancy
You are more annoying than usual today, is it that time of the month?

Funny you'd assume and refer to this picture as "your boyfriend". Then again, I'm not the gay guy wishing posters on this forum were women named "Nancy".

And, dammit, what did I tell you?!??!! If you're going to post something, at least try to be funny, clever, or entertaining.

Fail, fail, and - ummm - fail.

-copro

 

[camkiss]

Yep...this is how the conversation went last time on the original post!
👍