This is my final post of 2012. Random thoughts about things that I’ve seen, heard and/or read over the past twelve months.
Twenty-twelve was an interesting year for the Fahrni clan, and not in a good way. We lost one of our own and had some bad things happen. We also had some good times, but it won’t be a year that I’ll miss all that much.
We all survived the Mayan Apocalypse
We experienced the last repeating date of the century: 12-12-12
A colleague wished me a happy two year anniversary the other day. Apparently LinkedIn tracks that kind of stuff. I knew it had been about two years since leaving pharmacy practice and becoming a product manager, but I hadn’t really given it a whole lot of thought until now.
So, two years. What’s that mean? Not much really, especially if you buy into the theory outlined by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. According to Gladwell it takes about 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to truly master a skill, any skill. Given that I’ve been a product manager for two years, and assuming that an average year is about 2,000 hours of work, which we know is laughable, then I’ve barely scratched the surface.
I’ve just returned from a week in Las Vegas, NV at ASHP Midyear 2012. The ASHP Midyear conference is the pinnacle of clinical meetings each year for most acute care pharmacists. For me it’s not that interesting anymore as I don’t attend as a pharmacist. It just more work days for me; long work days. I didn’t attend a single “sessionâ€, but did manage to find some time to walk through the exhibit hall once and catch up with some old friends.
Enough of that, on with the thoughts:
I spent a few hours on a plane today. I do all kinds of things when I’m stuck on a plane. I used to work, but that got old after a while. Now I play games, read for pleasure, listen to music, or simply think. Today was a thinking day. I tried playing a game, but my mind was fixated on other things. It’s quite irritating when that happens as I’d rather play games. Anyway, today my mind was focused on pharmacy, which is nothing unusual. I think about pharmacy a lot. Here are some of the things that are floating around my mind:
According to good ol’ Merriam-Webster irony is defined as “the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaningâ€. That’s the first thing that popped into my mind when I read the article referred to in the Tweet below from @ClinicalInnTech. R.I. hospital’s new NICU allows for infant … Read more
I enjoy my gadgets. I enjoy them a lot. I take them everywhere I go. I’m not obsessed with them, but I find that they help me pass the time when I’m by myself or during quite periods when my crew is still sleeping. Everyone in my family has an “electronics bag†that they carry … Read more
I’ve read quite a bit lately about all the changes to Twitter. The incessant complaining, the non-stop blood-clot cryin’, the “Twitter has gone too far†rhetoric, and so on. Whatever Twitter has done has irritated a lot of people, but doesn’t seem to have hurt them much, if at all. I don’t really care one … Read more
Delivering drugs into the brain is notoriously difficult. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have published a report in the August 29 issue of Science Translational Medicine that they have designed nanoparticles that can safely and predictably infiltrate deep into the brain. Pretty cool. A Dense Poly(Ethylene Glycol) Coating Improves Penetration of Large Polymeric Nanoparticles Within Brain … Read more
All the companies that have spent millions developing a “better way†to dispense medications (tablets) should watch the video below. The company that makes Tic Tacs has you all beat. And just a guess here, but I bet that little plastic Tic Tac dispenser doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars. Someone needs to develop … Read more
I literally chuckled out loud when I read this abstract from the most recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). Yes, chuckled. It wasn’t a full laugh because it was just so pathetic. I struggled trying to decide what blog category to place this article in. It’s not really mobile, but then again I suppose you can read your email from any smartphone. No, that would be giving the article more credit than it deserves. I suppose it could be lumped in with Technology. No, this is 2012. How about Therapeutics. No, not really. Huh, I’m stumped. None of the above it is.