Continuing the mission to identify videos with possible ASMR effects (or at the very least ones that can lull you off to sleep) I have come across today’s video.
This one is acronym city – I doubt you’ll need to understand much of them to enjoy the video. However, if, like me, you find it annoying that you do not understand what things mean, here are a few of those that came up:
OSPE – office of standardised patient education
UAB the University of Alabama at Birmingham
HEENT Head Eyes Ears Nose and Throat
(Knees and toes, knees and toes)
Ahem, so with the preliminaries out of the way, let’s progress to the video and what it does for ASMR.
This is todays’ video:
The HEENT Physical Examination
Mark has an excellent voice, if a little nervous in this one. In fact, at intervals, he seems to be looking to the student for reassurance.
The channel (unsurprisingly) is Mark Pepin, MD, PhD (The photo on the channel indicates that this video was recorded some time ago – he’s older on the photo than he is in the video). In fact, the video was posted in February 2018.
The channel has fifteen videos in total and only some of these are to do with medical exams. This is probably a number of videos that might prove tedious to read about in a single blog post (attention spans being what they are at the current time).
There are seven playlists and to be honest, different ones appear appealing from our perspective. (This is another channel to return to I suspect). However, the playlist Clinical Physical Examinations
includes the one selected. There are ten videos in this playlist which does not seem excessive to cover here. (If you’re bored already scroll to the end of this blog post where you will find the relevant playlists).
The Cardiovascular Examination
Mark with Erin again, this time Erin is a clinical skills trainer. Mark is still good in this video, whilst Erin again doesn’t get to say anything.
It is going in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The Pulmonary Physical Examination
I notice that Erin has an escalating involvement in these films – now she is helping with filming and editing. Heather Hallman PA and Shawn Galin MD are presenting in this one.
If anything, Heather Hallman has a better voice than Mark Pepin. Slightly energetic in places perhaps (for the purpose of getting off to sleep) but excellent for relaxation. There appears to be a background click playing in the video which is initially a bit distracting but is significantly better than some of the air conditioning noises we’ve had previously. Shawn’s voice is not the greatest fit for ASMR but he doesn’t get to say a lot here (thankfully for us).
This one is going in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The HEENT Physical Examination
This is where we came in of course. Made at the University of Alabama at Birmingham they have a channel with a very large number of videos, thirty-three playlists – at least one of which is seventy-four videos long. This may be worthy of exploration in a future article.
At intervals the video is really deeply restful. As before it is Procrastination Pen playlist bound.
The Neurologic Physical Examination
Dr. Victor Sung and Erin returns. Sadly, Dr Sung is not so great in ASMR terms. I’m sure it’s a very instructive video but that isn’t why we are here.
It is also the longest one we have encountered so far, in excess of fifty-nine minutes.
If you persist with it, Dr Sung has a much gentler voice at intervals. So, the default voice must be Dr Sung in instruction mode. I’m not sure how I would subdivide the video to isolate only those moments. What we’re looking for is an exam video for Dr Sung which would also be a lot shorter.
This video is not going to make the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The GI/Abdominal Physical Examination
Erin again but with M. Tosi Gilford this time.
M. Tosi Gilford is not as good as Heather Hallman in terms of voice. However, the video isn’t loud or shouty. It is definitely an instruction video rather than a true examination and that is probably why the tone is different.
Once the actual examination proper commences it is a lot better. On balance I’ll include this in the Procrastination Pen playlist – although it might suffer archiving in a future weeding process.
Gastrointestinal H&P (Part 1/3): Taking the History
This feels a bit odd here and in fact is from another playlist in the Mark Pepin Channel i.e. this one:
This is Mark Pepin with Corey Duke. It’s got some kind of overlay happening in that the side of Mark Pepin is cut off entirely by the scenery in places. However, hopefully you will have your head on the pillow and you will not notice this.
It is remarkably calm given the subject matter (Corey in particular has a very good voice). Unfortunately, Corey does not seem to have his own YouTube channel because that would be one worthy of further exploration.
It’s shorter than the ones so far at seven minutes fourteen seconds.
The concluding sounds though are not at all restful.
Gastrointestinal H&P (Part 2/3) – Physical Examination
Introductory noises are rather familiar from other medical videos we have so far seen. But thankfully that is soon over. Then it gets very gentle, which is pretty well ideal for us. At four minutes thirty-three seconds it is regrettably brief (not that atypical) but is a very good Procrastination Pen playlist candidate.
Again, it concludes with a loud noise which it would be great to do without.
Gastrointestinal H&P (Part 3/3) – Presenting the Patient
This is more of a presentation. It is not loud though and there are no objectional background noises.
Until the end – when it gets all funky. I’ll put it in the Procrastination Pen playlist for now, but it might become a fatality at a future playlist review.
The Musculoskeletal Physical Examination: Part 1 – Upper Extremity
Mark returns with Erin Dorman again. We are back on form as for the first video of this article.
It is eighteen minutes thirty-four seconds long and so it is a more thorough exam. The background noise (air conditioning again) is none too intrusive.
This is very calm; not loud, and seems a good fit for the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The Musculoskeletal MSK Physical Examination: Part 2 Lower Extremity
This is a follow on from the previous video but this time with Mark and Erin standing.
As in the previous video the tone is great in this one.
There’s rather a lot of information in these. Usually when I am awake enough to take in the video content I learn something. In this case I felt a bit swamped. If you’re like me and the purpose is to use it to get to sleep, the approach seems to let all the technical terms wash over you. However, perhaps after a number of plays you may even learn something.
At just over nine minutes police sirens start, that is a shame but I still think I’ll keep this in the Procrastination Pen playlist – at least for now.
I notice that the list is flagged as last being updated four years ago, this seems a shame for our purposes as more contributions from Mark would definitely be appreciated. The Mark Pepin Playlist is here:
The playlist of all videos reviewed on the blog so far is here:
The archive playlist (of videos previously in the above list but which eventually were found to be less great than hoped – retained in case you still find them useful) – is here:
I hope that you find the videos restful.
If you liked this blog article why not subscribe to this blog.
The Procrastination Pen 
2 thoughts on “Sleeping With ASMR”