I am mulling over the idea of making this available in audio. I have seen other blogs where the authors have done this.
I have a PC, a microphone and a copy of Audacity (which is moderately up to date). How hard can it be?
However, I am evaluating videos with the occasional critical air about people’s voices. I can hardly compare myself to Morgan Freeman. Hence, I could be opening myself up to a set of (justified) criticism.
Whilst I consider that as a future option, let’s take a look at today’s video.
We return to Moran CORE which has been a favourite of ours on more than one occasion.
Today’s video is this one:
Basic B scan Examination Techniques 1
And for once I am content that I have not reviewed this video previously.
As always, in our peruse of this channel, we find a professionally produced video. When we find a professionally produced video, it usually includes notes:
Reasonably succinct notes in this case which, of course, leaves us thirsty for more understanding. (Oh, just me then).
It is just over six and a half minutes and so positively a glimmer in comparison to some we have reviewed.
Comments are not permitted. (usually a great idea) however the upshot of which is that we have no clue as to whether other ASMR fans have found this one. (In all likelihood they have).
Definition:
A “B scan” turns out to be ultrasound.
The video’s introduction is without music (wahey). But also, without any details of the participants (boo). The medical professional has an excellent voice and there is little obtrusive background noise. (Heaven be praised). Even the habitual air-conditioning noise seems to have been given instructions to “keep it down a bit”.
The exam proceeds at a measured pace and there is no hint of elevated voices, such as when talking to a classroom. This is quite a surprising combination and one which marks this video as suitable for the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Given the video is at this standard, it seems sensible to locate other videos with the same participants. However, given we do not know for certain who they are, there is the need to identify another technique.
In this case, I searched the channel for “B Scan” and there are a number of such videos. I then filtered visually to include only those with visually the same participants. This gives us:
Basic B Scan Examination Techniques 2
As for the previous video, so for this one. Perhaps the volume is a little increased. Possibly the air conditioning has decided to up its participation a little. But otherwise, much the same. Even down to the lack of start-up music. The notes are similar and I think, therefore, no longer worthy of reviewing.
The video is another short one at a bit over five and a half minutes. The participants are the same but, again, they are unidentified. There are no comments permitted.
The medical professional still has a calm voice but is now a bit more “projecting to a room”, which is sad given the standard of the previous video.
I still think it is worthy of inclusion in the Procrastination Pen playlist. However, as regular readers will know, it may still get despatched to the archive list if after a while it turns out to be more irritating than I first thought. (Some videos do not stand up well to repeated listening).
Basic B Scan Examination Techniques 3
The more alert amongst you will have noticed a theme to the titles so far. This does not persist, so don’t take it for granted. A little less than three and a half minutes. It isn’t around for long. I’m not a fan of artificially combining videos. However, in this case, I think I would make an exception. If I had some dispensation, I would combine videos 1, 2 and 3 into one video as it would be more helpful for people drifting off, and to delay the inevitable YouTube advert interference for as long as it is feasible to do so.
This one is more like the last video than the first one. It is a little louder than the first video and the air conditioning is certainly more noticeable. However, I still think it makes it into the Procrastination Pen playlist. Let me know if you disagree.
Immersion Techniques
The titles no longer follow a theme and neither does the length of the videos which seemed to be reducing. Now we have a video at just less than four and a quarter minutes in length. The same participants, the same noise levels, the same absence of music of any variety.
I think that the medical professional has decided that the virtual audience isn’t quite paying the level of attention that she would like and so, on occasion, raises her voice quite a bit. However, the examination is still nicely paced. I am still of a mind to put this in the Procrastination Pen playlist, but I keep the entire list under review.
Biometry
The starting image is startling (even alarming) as if the patient has recently been liberated from the Borg ship and needs eye implants removing. The video is brief at less than 3 minutes and shares the characteristics of videos that have gone before. So, if you can get past that first image, there is nothing scary in it.
That’s it for this week. Hopefully you found at least one video here that you enjoyed.
The Moran Core playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
If you find yourself tired in front of the TV, but by the time you’ve got into bed somehow circumstances have conspired to leave you wide awake, it can mean that you lie there looking at the ceiling and feeling a sense of frustration and panic as the minutes and hours pass and still you are not getting the rest you hoped for.
In these circumstances I find it useful to distract myself with some other activity and of late, the restful video has proven to be relatively useful. Not a panacea, but one tool in the toolbox to help get off to sleep.
Today’s video comes from a channel we have explored before of which more in a minute.
The video is this one:
Respiratory Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
and at nine and a half minutes definitely not the longest such video we have reviewed.
As a professionally produced video it has notes (oh, what a lot of notes)
This video provides a guide to respiratory examination, including real-time auscultation sounds of common pathology such as:
– Coarse crackles
– Fine crackles
– Wheeze
– Stridor
The ability to carry out a thorough respiratory examination is something every medic needs to master. This video aims to give you an idea of what’s required in the OSCE and you can then customise the examination to suit your own personal style.
Always adhere to your medical school/local hospital guidelines when performing examinations or clinical procedures. DO NOT perform any examination or procedure on patients based purely upon the content of these videos. Geeky Medics accepts no liability for loss of any kind incurred as a result of reliance upon the information provided in this video.
Some people have found this video useful for ASMR purposes.”
In fact, I edited the notes down a bit or they would comprise a fair amount of the entire blog article.
Interesting that a channel dedicated to medical examination tuition should mention ASMR in that way and quite unusual. The comments indicate that ASMR fans are just lapping this up, so it all bodes well.
Fortunately, the start-up music is very muted. The participants are Andrew, a final year medical student and James Alexander D.o.B. 13/12/1989 (that’s December if you use a dating system other than that used in the UK).
Straight away, Andrew has a very good voice and has a relaxing style of presentation. The pace is measured (unlike the frenetic approach of some nursing student videos). Sadly, this means that YouTube gets the opportunity to slot in a few of its noisier and more obtrusive adverts which hopefully will not be happening to you as you’re watching/listening to this.
There are some rather unpleasant lung-related sounds which are unwelcome for our purposes, but may well be useful in the educational context which, let’s face it, is what this video is intended for.
This has two hundred and eighteen videos as at the date I am checking it and I will not be reviewing all of those anytime soon. It appears that the Andrew and James combination appear in a fair subset of them as well.
In this case, I decided to explore the channel using the term “respiratory” to determine what else we could find. We start out with some YouTube shorts, which by their nature don’t run for long, and so I am a little averse to them for the purpose which we are attempting to put them to. It won’t stop me using a really good one though.
Respiratory Exam OSCE Tips
This sounds a bit like Sammy in “Over the Hedge”, it is at two hundred miles per hour. I’m sure it is designed to get a ton of information into a tiny amount of time but heck it is as restful as Piccadilly Circus. It’s a shame too, because the participant would appear to have a good voice.
Respiratory Exam OSCE Tips
The same participant, the same format and the same comments as for the previous video.
Respiratory Examination Signs in COPD – OSCE Guide
Oh no background music, in fact entirely background music. The comments are presented on the screen rather than spoken. This makes this video not desperately useful for our purposes.
Lung sounds (respiratory auscultation sounds)
At under one and one quarter minutes this is not hanging about and it contains some very unpleasant sounds as well. Not one I’m going to use in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Respiratory History Taking – OSCE Guide
This time a bit over eighteen minutes so a more substantial video. No obvious ASMR related comments (which might be bad news). Very brief startup music (thankfully). It is narrated by Dr Chris Jefferies who has a good voice.
Sadly, it does not include a medical examination as such and so it is a bit marginal for our purposes.
It is a bit of a presentation-format and as such not that fascinating I suspect for anyone not directly studying this subject area.
It is probably tolerable for the Procrastination Pen playlist but may suffer a future weeding activity.
Lung sounds made easy
Back to another YouTube short which includes some rather unpleasant sounds on it. I don’t think this one is much use to us.
Percussion & Auscultation of the Lungs – OSCE Guide | Clip
This one is four minutes long, so not huge by any means. It has the brief startup music still and has the slow measured approach of the first video we considered in this blog article. However, it also includes all the unpleasant lung-related noises so I am going to discount this from the Procrastination Pen playlist.
This is just under eight and a half minutes. Posted nine years ago at the time I am looking at it. Andrew Pugh features again. There is startup music which is way too funky. The “patient” this time is Dan Page (I believe.) I’m sure I get the names wrong a good deal of the time when relying upon listening alone). His D.o.B is 01/01/1995 (which is January whichever dating system you’re currently using).
Andrew continues to have a good voice although this has a distinct echoey sound as if they have not yet ironed out the microphone approach for the recording.
Dan looks like he needed much more sleep recently than he apparently got but as he does not get to say much those people listening are unlikely to notice. The ward area where the recording is taking place is utterly deserted. How they managed to achieve this I do not know. Perhaps the clue is in Dan’s tiredness, 4am on a Sunday recording possibly.
This one is a little less than ten minutes. More of the funky music to start. I’m not sure why people consider this a great idea. Andrew Pugh returns. Alan Johnson is the “patient”. Twelve years ago (when the video was posted) Alan was apparently thirty seven although he looks about nineteen.
Andrew remains on form voice wise. In fact, where the video lacks intrusive noises, they have all been good where they feature Andrew (rather like videos featuring Dr James Gill).
Andrew has on a badge which seems to indicate that this is at Newcastle University.
He appears to have studied here 2007-2012 and then again 2014-2015.
Newcastle as expected has its own YouTube channel. The crest associated with that channel looks very like the one on Andrew’s badge which I think confirms this.
Interestingly the closing credits state that Colin Brewster is the patient so Alan Johnson may well not exist.
The Geeky Medics playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The overall playlist of videos covered so far on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The videos weeded out because over time they are just not as good as the others is in this archive list:
I keep this in case subscribers to the Procrastination Pen have personal favourites that they want to hear.
The playlist of videos requiring age verification is here:
I can’t be bothered to stop my listening to log on, this interrupts the experience. You may not mind this in which case this list is for you.
I hope that you find the playlists restful and I hope you get plenty of sleep.
If you liked this blog article, why not follow this blog.
Every once in a while I like to remind readers why we are here, what this series of blog articles on the Procrastination Pen is designed to achieve, and why you might want to read, especially if you suffer for sleep.
If you are privileged enough to get ASMR symptoms then you will already be familiar with the fact that certain sounds can have a profound effect. For some people, there are physical sensations (often referred to as tingles). For many, there is a sense of wellbeing or relaxation when a certain sound is playing.
The effect is now well documented and so recognised that even mainstream newspapers have articles on it (and not all of them are critical!)
For those not so gifted it is often the case that quiet and calming sounds can be more effective at promoting relaxation than absolute silence (if there is anywhere in your current environment where you can achieve true silence, then you are truly privileged in any case).
For this reason, websites now carry not just articles about ASMR but videos purported to cause such relaxation or full ASMR effects. Sadly, claims for ASMR are a bit of a stretch as it seems that the sounds that cause ASMR are as individual as the person who is listening to them.
A number of people seem to find slurping noises relaxing, some prefer scratching or the sound of running water. For others, some of these sounds are positively off-putting. One person’s ASMR sound is another person’s grating, irritating noise.
I try, therefore, to mute any claims about ASMR for this blog as I can only comment about sounds that work for me. I like quiet voices, gentle and calm behaviour. I think there is a large subset of ASMR fans who like the same thing.
There is no shortage of videos on the popular YouTube site and many of them claim to be great for ASMR. I have listened to many. I found some were interesting, very few effective, most to be irrelevant to me.
I believe that this affects many people. How to arrive at a situation where you only get to listen to those videos which are genuinely relaxing? I considered that the only method was to listen to many – many videos and to keep a record of the ones that are genuinely relaxing for me.
There are probably several people who do the same thing. We are duplicating the effort in order to arrive at playlists of relaxing videos.
I use relaxing videos to get to sleep, I am old, I do not sleep well. There are many people who are either old or who do not sleep well and some of whom who are both old and who do not sleep well.
I have found that having a playlist of relaxing videos playing actually helps. (It would help even more if YouTube would quit playing loud and intrusive adverts during the night time hours – by which I mean any time between 21:00 and 07:00 – when I assume the majority of people have some kind of sleep window. However, I do not control YouTube or have the power even to make suggestions, so I work with what I have.)
I assume that many people would profit from having a playlist like this available to them. This blog is old and hence the name the Procrastination Pen precedes this idea by many years (Perhaps now I would call it ASMR Sleeping or something – however I assume there are many similar sites out there.)
Hence the Procrastination Pen is this blog, the Procrastination Pen is my YouTube channel which contains the playlists, the Procrastination Pen is the Facebook page which links to them, the Instagram page, the Twitter account and so on and so forth…
All of which is designed to inform people that there is a consistent effort going on attempting to identify suitable videos, to create a playlist of such videos and to share the playlist so that they do not have to do the same thing.
With the many ASMR channels on YouTube, I realised that there is little margin in reviewing those (unless there is demand), so I focus instead on videos which were created for another purpose i.e. whose relaxation effects are an unintended side effect rather than the main aim.
For a while now, the focus has been any variant of a medical examination video as these seem a rich source of material. I make occasional forays into other areas.
The blog allows comments, via which you can make suggestions (sensible ones I may even consider for the playlist).
The playlist is also used by me, regularly. One upshot of which is that if I find any of the included videos are not as relaxing as at first thought they get removed.
This should ensure that the playlist remains true to its original intent which is to help people get to sleep and to drift off again if you, as many of us do, wake several times during the night.
If you are still reading this far, well done, you’ve proven that you have a great span of attention and your reward can be today’s video. Which is this one:
Abdominal Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
At a bit less than eight and a half minutes this is not a huge video it is a professionally produced video and so has notes, and what notes, possibly the most extensive notes I have read thus far on any of the videos so far reviewed. For this reason I am only including the edited highlights in this article:
The ability to carry out a thorough and slick abdominal examination is something every medic needs to master. This video aims to give you an idea of what’s required in the OSCE and you can then customise the examination to suit your own personal style.
Check out our other awesome clinical skills resources including:
So unusually for inadvertent ASMR videos this one pins its colours to the mast up front. It’s a medical video but the notes directly state “Some people have found this video useful for ASMR purposes”.
Comments are permitted and as expected some of these comments do not appear to be from medical students. I think we can conclude that ASMR fans are all over this. I rarely find a video where this is not the case. If there is a relaxing video a few hundred or more likely thousand ASMR fans will already have seen it and often have left some very esoteric comments. I guess it is a community thing which I do not fully comprehend.
The video is calm, quiet, methodical and is more or less perfect from our perspective.
The medical professional is “Andrew” and is a final-year medical student. It isn’t clear which course, or where, Andrew is studying.
The patient is “James Alexander” D.o.B 13/12/1989 (that’s December in case you use a different method of describing dates to the UK one). It might be that we select other videos with James in for review in this article.
There are no objectionable background noises and the introductory music is thankfully very brief. However, the abdominal sounds might prove a bit off-putting for some. It might fall victim to a future weeding process but I intend to include it in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
The channel is not an obvious one for relaxing videos (at least by inference from the name) it is: Geeky Medics and it has 1 million subscribers. This has to be something of a record for a channel reviewed on this blog. I was expecting tens of thousands of videos therefore but in fact two hundred and sixteen videos as at today’s date.
Given “James” does not appear in the comments to the video it is probable that a simple search of the channel isn’t going to pull up videos where he is the patient.
Instead, I’ll go the old-fashioned route and scroll through the two hundred and sixteen videos in the hope of spotting him from the image placeholder for the video.
There are some video shorts that feature James, however the first has funky background music and so is not suitable for what we are looking for:
The latter one features some disturbing breathing sounds and so I think we can discount that one as well:
The next video of any length to feature James Alexander is this one:
Cardiovascular Examination – OSCE Guide
The medical professional is again Andrew.
This is consistent with the last one in terms of approach, volume, startup music. The notes are almost the same as before (I’ll cease to feature the notes now as they are much the same between videos.)
This is just over eight minutes and as before is marvellously calm. However, there are some loud heart sounds which might be off-putting.
The next video is this one:
How to record an ECG – OSCE Guide
At just less than 4 minutes it isn’t huge. The startup music remains muted here. The medical professional is “David,” his voice is not as relaxing as Andrew, but it is still pretty good.
The video is predominantly quiet with limited input from participants. It is methodical and thank goodness, because the procedure looks to be a complex one. Thankfully this time there are no noises from internal organs.
The next one is this one:
How to take an arterial blood gas (ABG) – OSCE guide
This is just less than three and a half minutes and we are back to Andrew as the medical professional – welcome back Andrew.
James is a trooper. He gets asked the same questions at the start of each of these and repeats the answers without blinking.
Those averse to needles I suggest that you just do not watch but lay back and listen, it will be certain to put you off if you actually watch this.
Here we get a concluding screen that tells us the medical student was Dr Andrew Pugh.
And the patient was James Lower
Intravenous (IV) cannulation – OSCE Guide
Seriously if you do not like blood do not watch this. Andrew returns and this video might need to be archived from the Procrastination Pen playlist at some stage as I am sure I am not alone in finding blood related videos distinctly uncomfortable to watch. (It may encourage you to listen rather than watch however).
I decided to look for where Graham Bone was senior clinical lecturer and discovered that he is at South Tees NHS Foundation Trust. These support the following universities University of Hull, University of York, Newcastle University, University of Sunderland.
Therefore, it is likely it was filmed in one of those locations.
Modified Allen’s Test
This is a short extract from one of the videos we have already seen. (It’s possible many of the other shorter videos on this channel have been sourced in the same way).
Respiratory Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
I do get the feeling that these videos re-use material from other videos, possibly this is why James is able to blithely respond to those early questions in exactly the same way. Here we have a video just over nine and a half minutes and unsurprisingly it is very similar to those already reviewed.
This one has some quite loud (and possibly off-putting breathing related noises).
So where is Dr Gareth Hynes Respiratory Registrar and does this give us any more information about where this was filmed?
It looks like Gareth is at Oxford University Hospitals so that muddies the waters if anything.
Spine Examination – OSCE Guide
Back with Andrew and a video just less than five and a half minutes in length.
So where is Mr Tejas Yarashi Orthopaedic Registrar (ST7)?
Tejas is currently at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust but it looks like the last time he had (ST7) as a qualifier was at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
Lung sounds (respiratory auscultation sounds)
This is just less than one and a quarter minutes and mostly off-putting breathing related noises, I suspect we can discount this one.
So was Dr Gareth Hynes ever at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust? It appears not.
Heart murmur sounds (cardiac auscultation sounds)
Another short one at just over two minutes and is mainly heart related noises, again I think we can discount this one
So where is Dr Matthew Jackson Cardiology Registrar (ST6)? Well it turns out that I can’t locate him so I’m not too certain.
Shoulder Examination – OSCE Guide (Latest)
just less than six and a quarter minutes and as for the previous videos so for this one. Andrew and James again and at this rate the blog post will be encyclopaedic, I think I will split this post into many and cover all the other videos in a subsequent blog post.
An absence of strange noises on this one though makes it a great deal more appealing.
The Procrastination Pen 