There’s a reason that the greatest speakers of truth in our society are still the comics and the poets.  As a member of the medical profession I would like to imagine that in our own way we aspire to offer truth to our patients. Sadly, we often fall short of this high aspiration.  For example, I will be discussing the practical implications of the IST3 trial in an upcoming post, but first I have to calm down.

To the IST3 collaborative I only want to say, I understand, sometimes being able to say what you really mean is hard, and when the emperor has no clothes it’s even harder.  So this EM Notecard is for you, I’ve tried to sum up the findings of your work as concisely as I can. You should know I have found the act of distilling several thousand words of important sounding medical speak into a few lines of verse profoundly cathartic.  I can only hope is has a similar therapeutic effect for you.

For everyone else, I have bundled up the latest postings on the subject. If you click on the card above it will link you to the EM Notecards in verse Pinterest board with a link to the IST3 study for your perusal. I also suggest the wonderful summary by Ryan Radecki of EMlitofNote, the post by Amit Maini over at EDTCC, and David Newman’s discussion on SMARTEM as well as his alway erudite blog post on the subject. Then come back here for a second helping of thoughtfulness on this amazing study.