This week's Grand Rounds wrap-up of the best of the medical blog-o-sphere is up at the Medical Humanities Blog.

-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.

Meanwhile, back in the AstraZeneca marketing department:

"Hey, Joe, I got an AWESOME idea! We've got a few hundred thousand extra bucks lying around, right? Let's get some trucks! I mean, we could drive 'em around and burn some diesel, and pull right up to hospitals all over the frickin' country, man!"

"Dude, why didn't I think of that? Like, that's so frickin' coooool!"

For electrophysiologists, the drug combinations of amiodarone (marketed as Cordarone® or Pacerone®) and simvastatin (marketed as Zocor®) is a common drug combination. The FDA issued an alert that these two drugs, when taken together, might result in an increased incidence of rhabdomyolysis (injury to muscle cells characterized by muscle aches, weakness and dark urine).

When a patient complains of "left shoulder pain which began 30 minutes ago, is pulsitile and sharp, comes and goes, and is associated with a left abdominal pulsation which began yesterday:"

... heart rate sensing computer mouse...

-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.

It seems Sanofi-Aventis's amiodarone analog drug, dronedarone (marketed as Multaq&reg), was granted a stay of execution by the FDA:

Multaq appeared at one stage to have little future, after an early clinical trial showed excess mortality and the drug was rebuffed by regulators.

As we recall:

Dronedarone is structurally similar to amiodarone but lacking the iodine moiety — a feature

One of our EP nurses shared this photo of her pet with me this morning:

Got to admire its choice of uniform, but given the weight of this bunny, it probably should have opted for a Bud Lite.

Dr. Cory Franklin issues a grave warning in the editorial pages of today's Chicago Tribune:

A political issue that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain has addressed is an emerging development in health care, obvious in retrospect, but with tremendous implications for virtually every patient in America.

This week's edition of Change of Shift, the nursing blog carnival, is up.

-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.