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I’m a Lieutenant in the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service. There is something called the CCRF which used to be a volunteer thing for officers to go assist with disaster relief. Recently it was mandated that all officers are required to meet deployment readiness standards. I just completed mine today (the physical fitness part has been holding me up for months.)
USPHS officers have been helping out in the recent hurricanes, but all of them had signed up to go. Well, for what looks like it could be the biggest natural disaster in recent history, the USPHS has put all officers on alert that they could be deployed for Katrina. The personnel list doesn’t include optometry (yes, we do have our own deployment category), so I’m not sure how likely it is I’ll have to go. However, optometry is my primary deployment role. I could potentially be called up for some other secondary role.
I’ll let you all know. If called up, I promise to blog about it provided an internet connection and a moment of free time are available.

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Okay, I thought Similasan was a little borderline marketing their drop for pink-eye, but now I think they’ve totally gone overboard. Introducing the first drop for cataracts: Similasan Cataract Care. Just to clarify, they market it as relieving the symptoms of cataracts. (However, the active ingredient Cineraria is “indicated for cataract and cloudy vision.” What? Explain that to me!)

I first saw this advertised to ECPs in the August 2005 issue of Optometric Management (pt 34). Similasan, instead of an ad similar to what you would use to market your product to patients, I’d like something tailored to us scientifically-oriented eye doctors. When they link to information for healtcare professionals, they only give me the party line, provide a link to information on homeopathy, and don’t site any studies. One could slap a label on a bottle, but it doesn’t mean that is what it actually does. I would like to have available some of the studies you conducted and reviewed to determine that the active ingredients in your product actually help with cataracts, or the symptoms thereof.

There’s a whole field of homeopathic medicines of which my education did not train me to understand. Apparently Cineraria has been around for a while from other eye drop makers (some even marketed to pet owners). I don’t know what to tell people. I could say,” sure try it out,” but if they spend the money and it doesn’t work, they could have just as well burned their hard-earned dollars or have given their cash to me!

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This is a good example of why I visit web forums. It helps to talk with other professionals about stuff. You learn something new (or relearn something old). By the way, this optical-centric forum has an RSS feed.

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Have you heard the Book Never Written jokes? Like, Under the Grandstands, by I.C. Butts.
Well, I was thinking of eye doctor practice trade names never written:

• The Evil Eye Center
  Dr. Lucy Fuhr
• Ojo Loco
  Dr. Nicolas Riviera
• Center for Blindness
  Dr. Woopy A. Daisy
• Spit in your Eye
  Dr. Toba Koe
• Lazy Eye Clinic
  Dr. Couch
• Potato Eye Clinic
  Drs. Ida Ho and “Spud” French
• Crossed Eye Center
  Dr. Strawberry Mousse
• Pink Eye World
  Dr. Moe Pink

Any others?

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The IHS optometry bulletin board is new and improved.

Some of the information presented in the former string entitled “Information for New Users” is obsolete since the IHS IT people upgraded the software that runs the forum in early August 2005. There are many new and improved features. Gone is the old user interface (although you can still see it by selecting “tree view”). You can now add a small picture to your profile that displays beside each of your posts. The best new feature is the addition of the site feed (the little orange XML icon). Feeds are available for the whole board, each conference (aka forum), and each topic (aka thread).

Below is a copy of an e-mail I sent the IHS optometrists.

The IHS IT people have upgraded the antiquated user interface of our IHS optometry webboard. To access the new and improved IHS Optometry forum, you will need to use the following url:
http://www.forum.ihs.gov/WB/default.asp?boardid=optometry&action=0

Please update your bookmarks.

The WebBoard 8 application that our new forum uses has brought several improvements, among them is a site feed (aka site syndication, XML, RSS, Atom). A site feed allows you to reed the content from a website without actually having to visit the site. For example, let’s say you like to keep updated on information from several (or hundreds of) different websites. In the old days you would have to click through each site (either entering the web address or clicking on your bookmarks and then browse the whole site to see what’s new). With XML or RSS feeds, you only have to use a feed aggregator, subscribe to a site feed (our optometry forum site feed url is http://www.forum.ihs.gov/WB/rss/?a=61&b=0 ) then anytime there are updates, you are notified and can read them right from the aggregator instead of clicking through. Aggregators (or feed readers) come in all types. One can use a stand alone program on your own computer like the one at feedreader.com. Most e-mail clients like Thunderbird and web browsers like Firefox and IE7 also employ this functionality. I find it convenient to use a web-based aggregator like www.bloglines.com or , http://www.newsgator.com/ , or even my.yahoo.com so that I can view my content from any computer (except IHS computers which usually block websites related to blogs and site syndication).

For more information on how site feeds work, I suggest the following (note many of these resources are blocked by IHS content filtering, so you may need to forward this e-mail to your home computer):

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_news_aggregators
• www.bloglines.com
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Syndication
• http://www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml

Or just do a web search on key terms like RSS, Atom, XML, RDF, site feed, and aggregator.

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The Iowa attorney general is suing the company that produces the “See Clearly Method.” It’s about time somebody did. In oppie school I was going to a function with some non-oppie friends. The driver stated his nearsighted glasses prescription says “1,” but with the See Clearly Method he sees good without glasses.
I silently offered a prayer for our safety.

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Okay the headline was a little sensational. I work in the Blackfeet Nation. I had just finished explaining that we were putting in a numbing drop, yada yada. After the drop of Flurox, the patient’s friend asked me, “What’s in the drop?”
I answered, “Benoxinate.”
“What?” said the friend.
“Benoxinate,” I repeated.
“That sounds very close to a dirty word in Blackfeet,” stated the patient.

So, if you’re ever around anyone from any of the Northern Piegan tribes, then try saying “oxybuprocaine” instead of benoxinate.

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