Hello, summer!

Sorry for the brief break there -- I took a few days off to finish up the semester, tackle a massive to-do list and get the plague (which I'm still recovering from).

Before anything else, congratulations to all the new grads out there! How was commencement? Do you have a, gulp, P-L-A-N?

My finals week, surprisingly, came and went without too much excitement. I had a couple of things due, including a big (fake) grant proposal, and only one exam -- biostatistics -- that I took while on a mega-dose of cold medicine (I walked in glossy eyed and slurring my speech, according to my friends) and thought was super easy. That was not, however, the consensus, which led me to a good few days of worrying. But I picked up my exam this week, and apparently either a) it was easy after all, or b) I am a biostats genius. I think I have a good idea of which is true and which is not...

We celebrated the completion of our first year of grad school with some not-so-healthy festivities...

...and then I went to bed for a few days while the festivities, dinners, galas, ceremonies raged on.

But I did get out of bed for a Minneapolis visit by the fabulous almost-Dr. Lyndsey who wanted a tour of the city.

And for my pride and joy's first birthday.

And, yesterday, for a trip to the doctor for some codeine cough syrup and antibiotics.

May term classes start on Tuesday, so my fulltime job until then is getting healthy!

Electronic medical...everything?

I don't think the average person gave the idea of electronic medical records much thought in the pre-Obama age. But we've heard a lot about digitizing the results of our pap smears lately, thanks to the big chunk of stimulus-money change (like $17-19 billion big) the president set aside for such a transition.

Now I'm not getting into the debate about whether electronic medical records on a hospital/clinic - or national - level are good, bad, or, as far as I'm concerned, a combination of both.

But while this stuff's on people's minds, we've watched personal systems for managing medical information electronically pop up everywhere - like the biggie, Google Health.

I'm all for taking control of one's health, and I think with the current state of the healthcare system, it's a necessity. So naturally, I was intrigued by the prospect of airing all of my medical laundry on Google (well, for a doctor who may need it someday).

But when I started poking around, I saw some pretty fatal (for me) flaws. It's a lot of work to get everything in there! Some info gets pulled in automatically but can, apparently, be wrong. Very wrong. And, most importantly, most hospitals and clinics don't even use electronic medical records - only 9 percent - so the daydreaming of seamlessly sharing information with my doctor was more or less shattered.

I do see the potential for this, though. I just think we have a long way to go before I'll be entering the results of my annual TB skin tests into Google.

Has anyone out there tried Google Health or other online health information management services? What do you think?

Let’s talk about swine flu.

Oh wait, H1N1. We can’t offend the pigs.

Either way, it’s a big deal. We’re not supposed to panic, but sit down to watch the TV news and you’ll get the giant OUTBREAK banner and dramatic music that tells you otherwise.

But we’re supposed to take it seriously, even though there aren’t a ton of cases in the U.S. and most seem to be recovering well, quickly, at home.

There could be one wave, or there could be more.

We could get a vaccine rolling fast enough. Or we could be too slow. Or we could not need it at all.

It could be safe to travel on planes and across borders, but it might not be the best idea.

Basically, we don’t know.

The World Health Organization upped us to a level five (out of six) pandemic this week, which sounds scary – but it really just means that H1N1 has spread around a few countries and had the potential to keep going. The good news is that the declaration lets countries use more resources to fight it more effectively.

Point is, we don’t know what’s going on, other than we have presidential orders to wash our hands (and should sing Happy Birthday twice while doing so) – something we should be doing anyway. Same goes for not coughing on each other and staying home when we are sick. It’s one of those calm before the potential storm moments where everyone is on high alert but we’re not exactly sure if we should be.

Much to my boyfriend’s usual disgust, I am a major silver-liner-looker. Like, extreme. So of course I’ve got a whole list of why H1N1 is the greatest thing ever. OK, not quite, but I think some good could come of it, especially now, when the virus itself is relatively quiet.

It’s a teaching moment. For me personally, absolutely. I’m a student in one of the best public health programs in the country in a state with one of the best health departments, so talk about a learning experience. I’m also a health reporter (for a few more weeks anyway) at a large, daily newspaper in a state with a case or two of the flu. Needless to say, it’s been exciting.

But I think it’s a good wake-up call to the public. Emergency preparedness is a hard thing to pitch. There’s nothing to look at, no consequences right in your face. It’s tough to get money for something that’s not even happening – and probably won’t – and that money is easy to cut. Sometimes it takes a scare like this to make people think about the importance of having those what-if plans in place.

It’s true: H1N1 – at least in its current form – doesn’t seem to be as infectious and deadly as we feared it might be. But I give a good chunk of credit to those behind-the-scenes folks who work, unglamorously, to make sure if something like this happens we have the structures in place to handle it.

A quicker H1N1 test is in the works. So is a vaccine. There's no mass panic. It could -- and probably will -- get worse, but we have those people to thank for keeping everything as under control as possible.

Cartoon from msnbc.com