Software: MediBabble (website)
Manufacturer: NiteFloat Inc. (Twitter @MediBabble)
Cost: FREE         Availability: iTunes Store
Connectivity: no subscription/Internet required once installed; need Internet to download different language modules
Best for: Residents, Med Students, World Travellers
Languages: English, Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, Russian, Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Mandarin)

MediBabble is a clinical tool; it has basic clinical questions and tailored body-systems questions in written and spoken form. It is designed to help you take a medical history from someone who does not speak English. Right now, there is support for 7 languages and the breadth of the content is impressive. Anything you’d really need to ask is in there. It covers basic introductions to the software as a tool, greeting the patient, getting an idea about their Chief Complaint, asking questions for the History of Present Illness (as organized by system, then common symptoms) and fleshing out the rest of the medical/family/social history. There is also a Review of Systems (ROS) section which covers many of the HPI questions via a slightly different approach.

Okay basically this is supercalafragicalistically awesome for what it is. It is hard to describe the comprehensiveness of this software – but perhaps the screenshots below will give an idea. Better still, download it (it is free) and see for yourself.

Will I actually use it in a clinical setting? I don’t know. The main language of my current patient population is Inuktitut, followed by English, then French. Since French is one of MediBabbles options, I suppose if I have a French patient that I’m struggling to communicate with, I will give this a whirl. While it is a great tool, it is my own knowledge of French that makes me hesitate. The program automatically dictates each phrase the user selects. This is difficult for me as someone who knows enough French but might want to look for a few medical terms or phrases here and there. I’d rather read it in my own voice. Perhaps there’ll be a setting one day to turn off the automatic dictation? I’m sure I would care less about this if interacting with patients in Mandarin where I have no foundation whatsoever. It really is designed more for those who have very limited ability in the target language.

For a free App, who can complain? I will say that there is room for improvement should the developers want to add some polish. Some of the phrases are quite formal and long which may not be practical for clinical encounters; for example, in the French module, asking someone’s name is: “Pourriez-vous me donner votre nom et pr’énom, s’il vous plaît?” as opposed to the slightly more colloquial although respectful (and quicker) “Comment vous appelez-vous?” It might feel a little clunky to someone who knows the second language, but if you have no knowledge of, say, French, this probably won’ bother you.

The communication is inherently one-way. It will not fix your inability to understand the patient. However, MediBabble tries to work around this by having only yes/no, device-input (eg. scroll wheels for date), or pointing to body parts as possible responses. If your patient is patient and cooperates, you should be able to have a clear understanding of what their problem is. And that is really all the functionality one needs.

It’s well worth the two seconds it takes to download – try it out!

Vanessa has been a friend of mine since we started playing undergraduate hockey together at UBC. We have a lot in common; she’s into hockey of course, studies and works within the health sciences, enjoys Star Wars to the nerdy depths that I do, has some classic and eclectic taste in music, finds a way to travel regularly, and is generally of an adventurous breed. We’ve kept in touch sporadically, mostly by facebook, since university. I watched Vanessa’s posts and photos over the last year or two, and many of them talked about Red Socks on Fridays or showed her in Red Socks in big places.

Kindly, Vanessa nominated me to win 12 pairs of Red Socks – and as it happens they’ll be waiting for me – and some worthy friends – when I return to Rankin. Why would anyone want red socks? On a Friday? Nothing to do with baseball. Yeah, red is my favourite colour but there’s a little more to this flaming foot- frippery focused frenzy:

I wear red socks on Fridays (Red Sock Friday) (@redsockfriday) is a movement dedicated to making a difference, being passionate, inspiring others and being inspired, staying positive, remembering friends and expressing yourself! It is a journey, a sentiment, a cause, a statement and a tribute – and it all began with two friends and an incredible story… [the story]

I’ll admit, I have had a hard time finding one passion. I’ve fundraised or volunteered for all kinds of charities (those related to children, health, art, sport, marginalized populations, foreign development, elders), dabbled in many sports, tried a few languages, am half-bad at most artistic media, pitifully attempted a few different instruments, but I’ve never found one cause singing out to me. All things are worthy and I just am not able to put all eggs in one basket. There’s too much to try! I know that if there was one thing that somehow captured me more than the others, my passion and fury would be put to good use. I still believe that something desperate and perfectly aligned with me might tap me on the shoulder and need my brand of effort, but I haven’t figured out what it is just yet.

I’ve always fancied myself a Renaissance woman, a jack-of-all-trades who was good at a lot of things but not great at any one thing. That’s probably why family medicine became the right career; we use our brains and our hands and our hearts and have to know a little bit about everything but not a tonne about just one thing.

The only thing I do with my whole heart is say “yes” to opportunity. It usually turns out well and if I’d said “no” more of the time, I can’t imagine I’d have arrived at as great a place in life as I am at right now. It might mean not knowing where ‘home’ is or not knowing where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in a year. It can result in some unexpected difficulties – like walking to the arena in a blizzard or receiving a 6 page love letter from Paolo (who I went sight-seeing with for one day) under my door at the hostel in Berlin. Or maybe showing up at the airline counter during a revolution in Nepal rained-on, sweaty, teary-eyed from the experience of having guns trained on my head, and dripping blood from a gash on my arm. Or being 12 years old and crying as I skied when I accidentally found myself as a beginner in the ‘expert’ group who were cross-country skiing *surprise* up a mountain.

Saying ‘yes’ or ‘why not?!’ has let me enjoy weeks of eating with my hands twice a day in Nepal, allowed the wonder of unexpectedly spelunking in Cambodia, and put me in an open-cockpit acrobatic airplane after jump-starting it with my car. It let me share with my best friend the laughter of painfully sunburnt sleep on a beach in Mexico where thunderstorms raged every night, and it sunk the cardboard boat that 24 science-camp kids asked me to paddle in the university pool. I’ve met some incredible friends along the way of this “sure, why not?” journey.

It turns out that I’ve always been a red-socker. After I was born, I was kept for a week in hospital. I was brought home on Christmas eve in a big red stocking, made by the Ladies Auxiliary. Still have it to this day and will hang it out for Santa tomorrow. It’s gigantic really, for a Christmas stocking, and always appeared to give me advantage over my big brother who didn’t have anything but regular socks to offer – but Santa was a fair fellow, distributing goodies equitably. Anyway, I guess those Auxiliary ladies had no idea what kind of life they were setting me up for…

The Red Sock movement seems to me a simple one – and that’s why it is so easy to get behind it. Regardless of what you do or who you are, continue to embrace life and remember and acknowledge the people around you who also have adventuresome spirits. You can grumble about challenges if you regroup and tackle them head on. You can sit on the couch if you’ve just done a 9 hour hike up a volcano. Follow that ‘what if.’ Oh, and keep your feet warm.

Although I was glad to have a day not on-call, I was actually reluctant to head to the game. It had been 2 weeks since I’d been on the ice, and the last game I played didn’t go that well. I haven’t done other exercise here in the meantime, either.  Usually I workout in my living room but had abandoned it temporarily when I felt sick. Would my team even want me there? I know I struggle to match their caliber of play, and it seemed like forever since I’d skated.

I managed to suck it up, and got myself dressed for going outside. It was kind of windy out. Wait, kind of blizzardy. Oh, the blizzard they’d promised yesterday had finally arrived. Through the window, I saw the lights of a truck on the road, obscured by the hazy snow. The bit of me that wondered ‘hmm, will anyone show up to play in a blizzard?’ was quashed. Of course they’ll show up! It’s not THAT bad out, and they all have trucks or SUVs or at least ATVs. And everyone in Rankin is used to wind like this. No?

The view from my apartment living room window in late November. No blizzard.

The same view from my window; medium strength blizzard (visibility not at its worst, winds 80km/h). It's hard to capture the real sense of a blizzard with a still shot. These are daytime shots, it's much crazier at night when there is little ambient light to guide the way. There is not that much snow on the ground - it's just piled in new places now.

So, I pulled on my shoes, my neckwarmer, toque and mitts. I zipped the parka up to my face and carried my gear down the stairs and out the door. Whoa! It was hard to close the door behind me as it was whipped open by the wind. I began walking with my gear slung on my back. It was very quiet save the howling wind. Snow drifts waited on the ‘short cut’ path I took. I was able to stomp through them, but emerging in a gap between two buildings, I was confronted by a wind funneled directly at me. Trudging on, it was hard to see my feet. There wasn’t deep snow, just a kind of mist that flew across the ground. It looked like the ground was flowing in front of me. The scene was like a time-lapse shot in some National Geographic special on the Arctic, meant to illustrate the erosive forces of wind and snow.

I finally arrived at the arena. I was sweating under all the layers – the ambient temperature wasn’t much less than -15C – but my face, and particularly eyes, were frozen. Hmm, only one or two trucks in front. The lights were dim. I walked up the metal steps and the door was locked. Lights were off inside. I pawed at the door again.

“Oh.” I laughed out loud, turned around, and steadied myself for the way home.

The wind seemed to be against me again. Gusts were head-on no matter which direction one was walking. I made it back to my place thinking that at least I was a good sport for trying to get to hockey, even though I was reluctant and even though the blizzard was beginning. I guess I should have called someone to see ahead of time if the game was still on. Finally up the stairs I entered my apartment, put down my hockey bag and stick, and went to undo my shoes, which are kind of more like ankle boots. I lifted my pants and a few chunks of snow fell out of the cuffs and onto the mat.

The next day, I was disheartened to find out that the arena was closed until further notice. One of the pumps is broken either on the Zamboni or on some ice-making equipment (the rumor varies). I don’t know if the game would have still been on in that weather – maybe. The winds and blowing snow settled, until about 4PM the following day when an honest-to-goodness stay-in-your-house, the-Health-Centre is shut-down, it-is-snowing-in-your-apartment, all-flights-everywhere-are-cancelled, and you-can’t-see-more-than-1-foot-in-front-of-you blizzard hit. I’m working on some video for that, but it may have to wait until I’m in the land of better Internet.

I learned a few things:
1) Do not declare yourself as a ‘trooper’ until you have all the facts.
2) The goggles you brought up to Nunavut ‘just in case’? Use them. They make walking less stingy. Goggles.
3) If you hear a blizzard is coming, it will. If not tomorrow, then soon. Do forgo lunch in favour of buying milk and other essentials.
4) If you think it is a blizzard outside, wait. It will be even more of a blizzard the next day, and you’ll feel silly being in awe of what was hardly a storm by local standards.

I’m on M&T, a team in the Rankin Inlet Senior Men’s League. I got a contact number from a patient, called the guy running the league, walked to his house and froze my ass off, paid my fee, and here I am. First game, 9 players showed up. I was nervous as hell that the Inuk guys wouldn’t want me, but they were gracious. Back home, I don’t mind changing with the guys but I know it is weird for them. I imagine that they feel they can’t burp and drink beer and swear and say vulgar things in a woman’s presence. I knew that being a woman and not being Inuit already made me an outsider, so it was a nice surprise to find that the rink rats let me use their admin room to change in.

I was worried I wouldn’t be fast enough – but I was able to keep up with my skating. They had me play right-wing, unfamiliar territory, and I’ll admit with these guys, some likely probably Junior-A candidates 10 years ago, I felt a little slow on the play-making.  I was not living up to the Jordan Tootoo level of play. But it was fun and the guys, although serious about the game, are a great bunch and don’t seem to find my presence inhibiting. The ‘water boy’ insisting on a high-five after the game, or the little girls who as “are you a girl?!,” “were you out there, on the ice, with those guys?!” are a perk and made me smile immensely.

I haven't been rendered Shining-level psychotic, but it does make life a little less balanced.

Work here is pretty busy. I missed a game because I was on call and busy. I made the next, and it wasn’t quite as good as the first. I didn’t get to play much as they put our stronger players out to kill the umpteen penalties, and I didn’t get a chance to get into my groove. Actually, it was a bad game for me and I was eager to do better the next time. The next game, I was on call. Decided to try going anyway. I got dressed and was ready to step on the ice. I called the nurse-on-call to tell her I was at the arena, just in case. While talking to her, another call came in. They were calling me to come in as there was a compound fracture to deal with. Oops! I took all my gear off, zipped home, then ran down to the clinic.

After that, I was more nervous about chancing it on-call. I did seem to find myself treating people in the Health Centre when I was scheduled to be on the ice; whoever made the schedule for clinic seemed to know when I’d have a game, and so all of my call shifts in the last week and a half prevented me from getting on the ice. One doctor did not show up this week, so there were only two of us and the schedule had to be rejigged. This has meant being on call 4 times in 6 days (3 of those being ‘double call’ meaning I was consulting and triaging for the whole region as well as being on for local emergencies). Being under the weather, I just didn’t have the energy to try and play knowing that I might have to run when my phone rang.

I was delighted tonight that my team had a game and I was only on “backup” call. This is akin to a day off, unless there is major trauma, too many cases, or a doc needs to ride along on the MedEvac. I planned to keep my cell on the bench, as before, and could play without much fear of having to scramble out of the arena.

But it didn’t exactly go as planned. (See Part 3)

I learned to skate on the back pond at age 2, and joined the little boys (and me and sometimes one other girl) hockey league at 4 1/2 years old. I’ve played with men and women of all ages, in leagues and during pick-up ice, regular and 4 on 4 leagues, and even down to 3 on 3 sudden death overtime at a tournament in Nipigon, Ontario.

Growing up, my family spent a lot of the time out on the pond or at the community rink. Birthday parties were always skating parties, at my request. I love my skates but I’ve also played on rollerblades and in running shoes, in tournaments across Northwestern Ontario, in Winnipeg, on Vancouver Island and with 26+ teams of British Columbian doctors (and just 5 female players in the mix) in Vernon, BC, twice – so far. It seems odd that hockey is so prominent in the lives of Canadian doctors, but it was a great way to stay sane in medical school. It is also an easy topic for conversation, making it possible to relate to people I might have a hard time chatting with otherwise, like some of my rough-and-tumble male patients or (predominantly male) surgical colleagues.

I found myself incredibly happy skating the Rideau Canal after a medical residency (CaRMS) interview in Ottawa, just as equally at home as when I’d sit alone in the stands watching my brother’s hockey team practice My dad was on the ice or behind the bench as assistant coach for my brothers team, and I think he always wondered how I could possibly remained entertained by watching a bunch of Peewee boys practice. When I’m on the ice, there isn’t anything else. Just being near an ice surface, smelling that strange arena smell and hearing the blades cut across the ice, clears my mind.

One year, when I was 10 or 12, my parents asked me to pay my own way for hockey. They had always paid my registration fee and bought the equipment I needed, or handed me my big brother’s leftovers. They stood by as I hocked chocolates outside the grocery store as part of a team fundraiser, drove me to each game and cheered us on, and waited patiently while my brother and I lingered in the hockey section of Canadian Tire. I think they wanted to make sure I wasn’t just playing hockey for the sake of it, or maybe they wanted to be sure they weren’t pushing me into it. Of course I paid!

I took a year off once, in high school, as I was starting an intense academic program, and I regretted it. Since then, I’ve appreciated hockey as a fixture in my life.

So now, I’m playing hockey in the Arctic. Or, trying to. [See Part 2 for what I got myself into.]

Title: The Color Atlas of Family Medicine
Authors: Richard Usatine, Mindy Ann Smith, Jr., E.J. Mayeaux,, Heidi Chumley, James Tysinger
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional
Available From: $77.89 USD at Amazon.com or $91.87 CAD at Amazon.ca or $101.95 CAD in the McGraw-Hill eStore
Best for: Primary Care Clinicians, Nurse Practitioners, Medical Students

Once upon a time, there was no Internet and paper textbooks filled the shelves in the doctor’s office. With the advent of online physician references, fewer books stayed on the shelves. In any clinic I’ve worked in, Fitzpatrick’s Atlas of Dermatology was the only textbook that anyone in practice absolutely needed, and it is one I regularly crack open – sometimes even in front of patients. Some docs keep an anatomy book, while others can’t let go of a tomb of pediatrics. Most textbooks these days get rifled through in medical school and then sit on the shelf and collect dust forever after, as clinicians click to UptoDate.com or flick through ePocrates on their iPhone for all the answers.

With over 1100 pages and 1500 bright pictures, The Color Atlas of Family Medicine is more than just an impressive volume to have on the shelf. There are photos covering the majority of conditions that find their way into a Family Physician’s practice; but it isn’t just a bunch of photos. While it is vividly illustrated, it offers concise – yet somehow thorough – evidence-based summaries for each entry. There are also multiple indexes – Regional, Morphology, and Subject – making it easy to find what you seek. This is a book to be used. It’s a good starting place when you are lost, or it can offer the “ah, yes, that’s what I thought” kind of reassurance we all sometimes need.

A quick review reference, this Atlas might not replace your Fitzpatrick’s, but it stretches beyond dermatology; it will come in handy for determining the significance of an abnormal fundoscopy, reviewing a questionable x-ray, or assessing sexual assault, for example.

This encyclopedic text includes diagnostic pearls and management plans. Gosh I was really missing it this week – it is kind of heavy, so I didn’t bring it up to Nunavut with me. We have had a rash of rashes in just a few days; one looked like chicken pox, the next scarlet fever, the next parvo B-19, and the next chicken pox, and so on. Also had an iritis with an unusual fluorescin uptake and it would have been nice to look at pictures and review the summaries for some diagnostic reassurance. It’s also the kind of book that you might open up to a patient to show them, to help illustrate a point like, “no, you don’t have melanoma, if you did, it might look more like this”, and we could go over the ABCDEs together. Or “Did the ‘tick’ that got you look like this?” [flip the pages to Figure 211-2] to determine whether it was a tick bite or something entirely different.

There is an iPhone/iPad app available in the iTunes store, but as much as I love to be mobile and don’t like hauling book across the Arctic, it’s really hard to replace the feel of a big book in the hands, the ease of finding the topic you seek, and the experience of seeing the pictures in glossy printed colour.

Downsides for me? It’s heavy and big, so not easily transported! Some might not find it comprehensive enough. I don’t think you can expect any book to do your work for you; this tackles a broad scope but you’ll have to look elsewhere for in-depth treatment guidelines or diagnostic criteria as well as less-common conditions that are absent altogether from its pages.

Still not sure? Check out the Google Preview on McGraw Hill’s site.

I’ve written before about how doctors make bad patients. I’m guilty of this today.

My older and wiser colleague knocked on my door and asked: “Do you think maybe it’s time for a little amoxicillin?” She must have heard my coughing fit. I had to have a chuckle. I’ve been with a cold for almost two weeks now. Undoubtedly viral, really minor in the first few days but developed into an uncomfortable and productive cough. It’s really not the worst as far as colds go, but the violent coughing has been frustrating. It provides a good abdominal workout (ha!) but I’m of course worried about spreading my germs. At least I can control that and wash my hands like a fiend. I said “no, thanks” to the antibiotics, but the offer started me thinking.

The cough can come at the most inopportune times, like when delivering serious news or doing a delicate procedure, but fortunately it is on its way out. Should I have stayed home? I don’t want to get patients and colleagues sick, but one feels a bit silly missing work for ‘just a cold.’ More importantly, when you are one of two or three doctors in town, there is a certain duty that you feel you have to fulfill.

I’m not writing this post to complain – I’m really not that sick. It’s more of a reminder to you and to me to take care of ourselves. Last week was a difficult one for a number of reasons. Personal, physical, environmental. The days are getting quickly shorter, which is at first miraculous, but when the sun sets 5 minutes and 15 seconds faster each day it means going to work and coming home in the cold and dark. A blizzard came, with the excitement of a polar bear near the health centre, but also with the stress of not knowing if/when we could MedEvac sick patients or how long it would be until new staff could get in and current ones could get out. Fortunately everything worked out on the MedEvac front and all patients in the region got where they needed to, when they needed to. The nurses in the outlaying stations held tight and worked with great creativity and patience.

This cough came for me and was not made better by the limited sleep caused by its nagging at night and the occasional call at 2AM. I felt rotten and embarrassed while learning my lesson around an interpersonal issue, despite being met with care and understanding by colleagues. I was stressed about hockey, not being able to go because I was always on-call and I worried desperately about keeping up with the guys when I did attend. The whole health centre was buzzing with the roll-out of our new EHR; we doctors had it the easiest of all, but many of the staff worked overtime to make the transition possible. Although there are still struggles, it went smoother than expected and patients have been very forgiving with us as we learn the way.

Through this, I didn’t take the time to say “wow, I’m kinda stressed!” Work in Rankin has usually been at gentle pace with the occasional high-acuity case or hectic day to keep one on their toes. I don’t think I was attentive to new forces at work. Another lesson learned? Early to bed, apple a day, don’t forget to floss, and don’t leave home without wearing pants that stop the wind! Or something like that.

not my home… just a really cozy looking one!

I’m “home”on Vancouver Island, Birtish Columbia (BC) briefly in order to do a Pediatrics course and to celebrate Halloween with friends. Shortly after, I’ll be back in Rankin Inlet for 6 weeks.

The day I left Nunavut this go, it was about -18C with 2 inches of snow on the ground, a big bright sun in the sky, and little of the crisp wind that I’ll come to know and maybe despise. Whenever I see snow at the beginning of the winter, I get a strange calm, nostalgic sort of feeling. I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where snow was plentiful and usually covered the ground from November to April. A lot of winter experiences bring me back to being a kid with no worries besides which mitts to wear since my best ones were still wet from the day before or whether the ice on the pond was going to be level enough to go for a skate.

I think winter is in my blood. Happiness is remembering a late December night spent staring out the window at the moonlit snow, feeling the hot air from the woodstove gently swirling around me. I don’t mind shoveling snow, have thrown quite a few snowballs in my time, and love winter sports. Ice hockey and downhill skiing I do with some regularity. Snowshoeing, cross country [skate] skiing, tobogganing, and snowboarding also tend to make it into my life when possible. I’ve tried curling but didn’t find it exhilarating. I expect this winter I’ll be ski-dooing and maybe try dog-sledding, if either of those are considered sports more than modes of transport, I’m not sure. I don’t LOVE being cold but in most places if you are dressed well you can enjoy being outdoors even on a -40C day.

When working in Rankin, staff and patients alike often ask me where I’m from. Usually I’ll say “BC” but sometimes I tell them, “I don’t know.” I’ve lived in a few different places, but having rented an apartment somewhere in BC over the last 9 years, I guess this is technically my home. I still feel like there’s a lot of “Thunder Bay” in me, as I lived there until I zipped off to university in Vancouver at age 17. But I also am not sure what “home” is. When I’m in Rankin, it’s the assigned apartment with lots of space, a comfy couch, a broken microwave, and the “closet of mystery” (a closet full of stuff left by doctors on rotations before me). I have an apartment in Nanaimo but I am there less and less, and many of my Nanaimo friends have recently moved away.

Over those last 9 years I’ve spent more than a month in any one of Victoria, Vancouver, Campbell River, and Rossland (BC) as well as Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, northern India, and Rankin Inlet. I felt so at ease in Berlin, like I was surrounded by people who think like I do, and I dreamed that a year in Edinborough might be just perfect. Medicine isn’t a career that forces transientness on anyone, but certainly one of the reasons I got into it was because I could make travel a huge part of my professional and personal life. And I haven’t been disappointed.

I really don’t know where home is or what it will look like in 5 years. I sometimes enjoy not knowing, and it makes it near impossible to feel homesick when in a new place. Is home where I hang my hat? Where loved ones are (all over the world but particularly scattered in Canada)? It’s really just wherever I am at the time and I always try to make the most of whatever that place has to offer. For example, signing up for hockey in Rankin Inlet is certainly going to make me feel anchored for a bit.

With the exception of a magical two spring months in the little ski town of Rossland, BC, I’ve not had any real winter times since Thunder Bay. I’m going to regret saying this later maybe, but I’m delighted that I’ll make my home mostly in the arctic this winter. There will be some snow, and most certainly cold.

Title: Healing Blade: Infectious Disease Card Battle
Authors: Drs Francis Kong and Arun Mathews, Nerdcore Learning
Available From: TheHealingBlade.com or Amazon.com
Best for: Infectious Disease Nerds, Medical Students, Microbiologists, Gamers

The Idea:
Drs Arun Mathews and Francis Kong created a card game to help medical students learn about infectious diseases (bacteria) and how to treat them (with antibiotics). You chose – will you be a Lord of Pestilence, controlling the vicious ailments – or will you be defender of the light, the Apothecary Healer? Two players battle it out in a turn-based game similar to Magic: The Gathering meets Pokemon. Even if you know nothing about role-playing games or card games, it isn’t hard to get going with this learning experience. Some beginnings of knowledge of ‘bugs and drugs’ will help you play the game, and the most benefit will go to those who’ve just begun studying microbiology.

What’s in the Box:
There’s no question these cards are beautifully designed. An un-boxing video shows you what awaits. A set of cards for the Apothecary Healer, a set for the Lord of Pestilence, and some ATP (energy) counters, along with a mat which serves as the game board are included. This is all you need to begin.

The Rules:

In summary, the rules are cumbersome, but adaptable. One who has gamed before (or any doctor or med student or nerdy friend of same) possesses the mathematical skill required to, uh, cheat to make the game work.

I don’t want to get into the exact details as the rules are changing, and the details are best appreciated when you crack open the box and lay it all out yourself.

Basically, turns are taken to play opposing cards. ATP is required in order to play cards; the more powerful a card, the more it costs to play. Opportunities are given for attack and defense. The right antibiotics are required to kill the bacteria. There are special cards – Spells and Items – that can be used to modify gameplay. Each player starts with 20 life points and the game ends when a player reaches zero life points.

There were some challenges interpreting the rules. I was most fuzzy about Life Points, thinking first they were synonymous with ATP, and concluding that each Round of Play has one victor (and whoever lost that round loses one of their 20 life points, until all are gone). I haven’t figured out yet how one is meant to mark life points, other than using a piece of paper ancillary to the game. That was our adaptation and it worked really well. There have been other difficulties, but the game’s creators are so involved that there are many solutions to be found. At the bottom of this entry, you’ll find the new Healing Blade House Rules, which help smooth gameplay, should you happen to play the game.

There is an active and eager community when it comes to support. On the Healing Blade Facebook page, user-generated rules are among the content.

But does it work?

The game design certainly facilitates a fun, engaging experience while learning all about antibiotics and the bacteria they kill. Is this going to help you ace your microbiology exam? Maybe! When you attach learning to games, knowledge retention is improved; one will not forget the face of Strep. pyogenes – and consequently, I think you’ll remember that it causes necrotizing fasciitis and penicillins and cephalosporins may wipe its ugly face off the earth. That said, there are some generalizations and liberties taken in order to standardize the gameplay. In real life, one would treat H. pylori with multiple antibiotics and an acid supressing drug, but these details are omitted from the card, I expect for ease of use in the game. If you find yourself pointing out these intricacies, clearly you are becoming quite knowledgeable about bacteria and their medical treatment.

The future:

Dr. Arun Mathews, one of the creators of the game, recently gave a Prezi talk about the game as part of the Games for Health 2011 forum. It alludes to what I (dare I say) is an online and mobile version of the game. Hurrah! I think this will allow for more iterative rule and gameplay updates, and should still be able to impart ID knowledge into your brain while keeping it interesting.

More help:

View the tutorial video, put together by keen pre-meds at Berkeley:

–

(new rules below)

***

Direct from Dr Mathews:

It’s a bit of a long read – probably best suited for those in the middle of medical school or in early residency.

If you look in the Author’s “About” section, you’ll see that she isn’t perfect, she is confused, and she has some goals and maybe wants to help people along the way. I think many of us were once in that boat; it was because I sympathize with those sentiments that I made the time for the interview. Hopefully some aspects of it will serve to remind any readers that humans with all sorts of traits and opinions can find their place within medicine.

How the interview could have gone