I notice that media outlets are now declaring that six hours of sleep is just not going to be enough. Which is all very well, but if you are above the age of fifty and have a reasonably busy life, I can more or less bet that many of your nights will have less sleep in them than that. The reflection that as you get older, waking up in the middle of sleeping gets a more pronounced experience does not help if it is three AM and the one thing you don’t want to do is to wake the person who you’re sharing a bed/bedroom with.
At such times, perhaps the Procrastination Pen playlist and a decent set of headphones might be the saviour of the night. (YouTube adverts excepting).
Of late, I have told you when I come across a meditation on Calm that I liked and regular readers will note that I have developed a taste for the daily meditations featuring Jeff Warren. This includes this one https://www.calm.com/app/player/5iglULfMFq “Patiently In A Rush”. I am finding the dailies on Calm to be much more useable than the tracks dedicated to sleep and so again here too. Sadly, Calm is not free and I am not trying to persuade you to pay for it.
A habit I have established is the review of a professional ASMR artist in each of these blog articles. If only in contrast to the inadvertent ASMR that I have been reviewing for greater than a year now.
Today’s video is this one:
ASMR Appointment with Your Doctor
It starts with the medical professional typing into a computer and ignoring anyone else. This has the benefit of being accurate to real-world experience but is not a noise I would want to start an ASMR video with. Perhaps we should be thankful there is no peppy music or thanks given to some sponsor or other.
This video is a little over twenty-one minutes and so is not a huge length for one of these videos. The notes are largely dedicated to advertising, so I won’t bother with them. A quick scan of the comments indicates that they are largely positive. The channel is VisualSounds1 ASMR with 326K subscribers and 1.1K videos. Wow that is a lot of videos. There are twenty-six playlists, none of which obviously focus on medical themes.
Unsurprisingly VisualSounds1 ASMR is also on the ASMR Index.
There is a quite loud background noise, either air conditioning or a sound mimicking air conditioning and I do wonder (again) why ASMR artists include this. I am constantly looking for inadvertent ASMR videos that do not have this type of background noise.
The style is of a person responding to an individual (unheard/unseen) which I believe is probably to make the whole video feel more personal. It can also be a tad on the confusing side until you latch on to what is going on.
The tone, is of course, excellent but tends to delve into the whispery. This seems to be the volume that most professional ASMR artists use. It has the benefit of being ASMR-y but the disadvantage of being much less believable as a rendition of a real medical exam. I cannot remember one occasion in which a GP has ever whispered at me. Perhaps I am missing out…
Hopefully, that was a bit of fun and now back to the day job. Today’s inadvertent ASMR video is this one:
Macleod’s examination of speech
It is, of course, from a channel that we must by now have done to death. Farsight Channel has 102K subscribers and fifty-nine videos which seems a very high subscriber to video ratio to me.
The notes will be familiar to regular Procrastination Pen readers: “84,162 views 6 Jul 2013
This video demonstrates clinical examination techniques as described in Macleod’s Clinical Examination. The textbook with access to the full set of videos is available at www.elsevierhealth.co.uk/macleod”
We are now used to the slightly stilted and artificial sounding sound track from this channel and this particular video is no different. There is no startup music, no background noise and no strange narrator with a less desirable voice. In fact, in terms of the videos I commonly review this is pretty good. However, it is less than three minutes in length which gives YouTube plenty of opportunity to slide in loud and distracting adverts prior to the next video in the playlist.
The problem with reviewing this site a great deal before, of course is the likelihood that I repeat previously-covered videos. To obviate this possibility, I decided to narrow my search to speech and speech related videos on this channel. This only produced one further video which is this one:
Macleod’s examination of the facial (VII) nerve
The notes don’t really need to be repeated… There are only four comments, but even in that small number they are somewhat variable. It is less than a minute in length and this time there is a narrator. As usual, with the use of narrators, the voice of the narrator is louder and less inclined towards ASMRishness. In other respects, it is similar. The voices of the participants sound odd as if they do not belong to the people participating in the video, just as before.
The Farsight 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.
Today, I started the day with “Bask on the Beach” from Calm. The description is:
“Relax yourself from head to toe, as you visualize a beautiful, tropical cove. Created in partnership with Discover Puerto Rico, this body scan practice will help you embrace the essence of vacation.” The narrator is Diana Holguin.
I found this a lot more relaxing than some of the sleep dedicated tracks on the same site. I like Diana’s voice and there are no intrusive sounds. Of course, because the site is paid for, there is no offensive (read loud) advertising either. However, I hate to recommend something that you have to pay for, so let’s move on.
I have been looking at contributions from professional ASMR artists and actually finding it surprisingly challenging. A number of such videos dedicate a great deal of time to the sponsor du-jour. Often, they include a surprisingly large number of distracting noises. Sometimes, I just do not like the presentation. However, today, I have this one:
ASMR Emergency Room | You’re in Critical Condition | Full Body Exam
Firstly, it might be as well to understand that this is a huge-long video only slightly under two hours in length. It comes from the channel The Cozy Hospital ASMR.
This has 226K subscribers and four hundred and twenty three videos. So, yet another very hard-working ASMR artist. Not unexpectedly, given the title of the channel there is a great resource of medical-a-like videos on this channel and so if you have been following this blog you may well be interested in this artist.
Not unexpectedly the Cozy Hospital appears on the ASMR Index.
The video starts with no startup music but is obviously firmly aiming for “genuine” presentation of a medical exam. As such it includes a number of noises that I would not have included. There’s the squeaking trolley wheel and a background air conditioning noise, which quite quickly settles down. The voice is then, as expected, delightful. There are occasional background noises (Tannoy noises at intervals for example). I would not have bothered with the glove noises or the handling of equipment noises either. There are noises from application of micropore surgical tape and a background monitoring beep. There’s the clicking of a tube cap and the rustle of packaging/clothing but I am certain that some of these are included because someone out there finds them a useful trigger.
I would say that this voice is excellent. At intervals it is too whispery to be believable and a bit breathy as well, but I am picking holes because the presentation is very good.
However, I could spend all day reviewing YouTube channels that were created to make money out of ASMR. The target up to this stage has been to find an ordinary YouTube video but which, nonetheless, some people might find relaxing. So far, by far, the majority of those reviewed have been on a medical theme.
Today’s video suffers from the fact that it does not run for very long at all, a little less than four minutes in fact:
Peripheral vascular
It is drawn from that rich vein of videos that have been mined so often on this blog, the student assessment video. Indeed, we have visited this channel before. It is on the channel Leah Barlow which has ninety subscribers and fifteen videos none of which seems to be going for record breaking in terms of length. It looks like the last time I decided to review only those videos where Leah appeared with the same patient and, if I pursue the same methodology, it looks like today’s “patient” appears in three of these videos.
The video starts with a bit of a loud clonk and the voices are a little loud, probably because they need to talk over voices that can be heard from an adjacent room. This is a shame because the approach seems to be quite methodical and the voices reasonably restful. There is, of course, a constant accompaniment of air conditioning which we are well used to by now.
There are occasional loud equipment noises as parts of the examination table are slid in and out.
The next video apparently featuring the same two participants is this one:
Abdominal
This is just over three minutes long. Again, there is a loudish knock at the beginning. The patient here announces her name but at a pace that makes it tough to work out. I would say Ella Kelly, possibly, but that is in all probability, incorrect. There is a very slight echo which I assume is down to the design of the room. Again, there are loud equipment noises and mutterings from next door. The presentation is very level, almost quiet, and if it were not for extraneous noises would be excellent. For a start, there is no music on this video which a number of professional videos could learn a lot from…
Part way through there is a loud knock and the session is interrupted. However, the video is brought to a close swiftly after that.
The last one from the same medical professional-“patient” combo is this one:
Skin, hair, and nails
This pretty much follows the theme of the previous two. Knock at commencement, background air conditioning, overheard conversations from adjacent rooms. The presentation continues level and methodical. During the actual exam the noise level goes down. There is an absence of equipment noises this time, which makes this one the most restful of the set.
The video is a little over three and a half minutes so they are all much of a muchness in terms of length (no huge long monologues here).
The Leah Barlow 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.
In a previous blog post I pointed out that there was a whole page of videos on the Internet that had no affiliation (that I could determine) to YouTube, and that therefore I was unable to embed in a WordPress page for viewing.
In addition, I felt that the videos could be better shown to you if I took them and uploaded them to YouTube on my channel. However, I am not a copyright expert, and in my amateur way rather thought some very well-paid people in threatening clothing might send me a formally-written letter if I tried it.
So I looked out for a contact email and found that the owner Dr Michael Koller had died. This is not only very sad but very regrettable in that I could not ask him if I could upload these videos to my channel on YouTube. I have approached Stritch via email, but each time I look at the website there seems to be another email to try and so to date I have not received permission (or a flat refusal) to use them.
The upshot is that the blog posts on this page tend to be a little dry as they are not dotted with friendly-looking embedded videos. However, given I habitually recommend that you go to YouTube to play the videos in my usual posts, and in this case, you simply have to go to the page to play the videos, there isn’t a great deal of difference.
I would feel that I wasn’t doing my part in telling you about the material that is out there if I simply limited myself to YouTube.
However, I don’t want to dwell too long on material that cannot be actively linked to (other than via URL) so although it will make this blog post a long one, I intend to cover off the remaining videos on that page in this blog post.
As part of this process, we satisfied ourselves that where there were complete and part videos under the same title. That the part videos were simply parts of that complete one. That is, you could get the material from all the part videos simply by watching the complete one. This will save time here; I can link the part videos for interest but cover only the complete videos. In addition, the included text files seem to only be of academic interest to those on the course for whom it was intended, so we have no need to review those.
15 Minute Screening Neuro Exam; Dr Michael Merchut
This starts quietly and thankfully devoid of startup music. The video is just over twelve minutes in length. Dr Merchut turns out to have a great ASMR voice, and had this been available on YouTube it would have been in the Procrastination Pen playlist. This is a loss to the list and to the ASMR community.
I’ll ignore the part videos as they have nothing extra to contribute. The complete video starts with startup music, which fortunately is neither too long nor too loud. Dr Merchut returns and gives a reasonably lengthy introductory speech. The entire video is a little over forty seven and a half minutes.
His voice is not quite so excellent in this one, but this is in comparison with the last one which was actually rather good.
Nancy again the “patient”. She featured in our previous blog post.
Again, I think if this video had been on YouTube, then it would have already been in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Again, I’ll focus on the complete video only. In this case it features Dr Koller. We know that we are on safe ground with Dr Koller, in fact we have already added one of his videos to the Procrastination Pen playlist from YouTube.
This also begins with startup music but this time it is really going for it. The video quality is also on the abysmal side of poor. The sound has the normal background we would expect by now (air conditioning again).
The video is a little less than twenty-three and a half minutes. The initial presentation style is a little halting and, although this is the point of the video, it proves to be distracting.
Dr Koller is doing the narration which is great but somewhat intermittent (more narration by Dr Koller would be welcome as he has a good voice).
The music then kicks in again at breaks in the video. The sound has a metallic edge to it.
Although Dr Koller is as good as we are used to, the way the video is structured makes it more stimulating than anyone really needs when they are trying to get to sleep. Even if it were possible, I do not think that this one would be finding its way into the Procrastination Pen playlist.
This time just one video available, again with Dr Koller. This is just less than twenty-five and a quarter minutes and thank goodness there is no startup music. There is an ever-present air conditioning background drone though.
Dr Koller still has a good voice for our purposes. In this case though, I’m not certain the subject matter is that fascinating to anyone who isn’t in the medical profession. However fascinating is not that useful in getting off to sleep so this video might be a great fit.
Part way through we have loud clunks due to equipment noises (metal drawers being pushed in and out), just the kind of noise to stir someone from sleep as they were dozing off.
A great deal of thought has gone into the positioning of gowns and drapes in this video and apart from equipment noises, it is a good video for us. It’s a shame about the equipment as otherwise it would have been a great Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (well had it been on YouTube in any case).
Full Body Skin Exam; Estelle Kahn MS4 and Dr Anthony Peterson
In this case there is no “complete” video, so no choice other than to review each in turn.
Unfortunately, there is start up music and it is really dynamic stuff too. Estelle initially does not have a true ASMR voice, sometimes this happens when the person is presenting rather than examining someone however.
This introduction is a little over four minutes in length. If you are watching it is slightly distracting that Estelle seems to be reading a script which is slightly off camera.
I’m pretty sure that even had I the opportunity, this one would not be in the Procrastination Pen playlist.
It starts with door opening noises which are a little distracting. We see this in student assessment videos of course, soft-close not being a thing in medical establishments.
Dr Peterson has an excellent voice. He might be worth checking for elsewhere in case there is other material available. As expected, Estelle’s voice is much more muted during the examination. The examination is gentle and methodical and the whole video lasts only a little under nine and a quarter minutes. There are occasional equipment noises, equipment not having been designed to slide quietly in use apparently. All-in-all it is quite a good video. If it had been on YouTube this would be a strong Procrastination Pen playlist candidate.
Dr Peterson presenting and this is great as he has by far the better voice for us. There is no startup music – yay. There are occasional loud moments; watch the volume. Dr Peterson appears to be consulting notes at intervals, although if you’re just listening you will not notice that. The whole video is somewhat under three and a half minutes. This would’ve been a good Procrastination Pen playlist candidate (had it been on YouTube).
Reviewing the complete video again, the entire video is thirty-seven and a quarter minutes. It starts with some positively starship enterprise style music; very grand; very distracting. Straight away we seem to be in the soundscape of a public area, there is some kind of hubbub in play. Dr De Stefani is narrating this one. He does not have as good a voice as Dr Peterson sadly. There are telephone noises which Dr De Stefani has to talk over.
When the examination of the baby commences it quietens down a great deal. Of course with examination of a baby, the baby starts to complain about it. Not substantially so though. In fact, this was a good baby to choose as she appears to be so chilled under examination. After a while she does lose patience and lets us have it crying wise.
Background medical establishment noises continue; a repeating electronic beep sound at one stage, sounds of other babies at some distance who are a bit less chilled, muted conversations from adjacent rooms, distant equipment noises, an occasional telephone and of course the continuous accompaniment of air conditioning noises.
Although this is in part a great video, I think these distracting noises would discount it from the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Definition:
Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: effects that occur as a result of a mother drinking (alcohol) while pregnant.
Just the one video to look at a little over twelve minutes and it starts with startup music and there is a constant background hiss happening as if the entire thing was recorded on an LP and then poorly stored.
For some reason after a minute that hiss disappears entirely. Dr Sterling does not have a natural ASMR voice but by no means the worst that we have heard.
The delivery is measured and even and accompanied only by the hmm of air conditioning.
It’s sad about the start as otherwise this could have been a good video for us.
Looking at the complete video then, it is just under twenty five and three quarter minutes. Dr Lento has an impressive voice, impressive in its volume I mean. After the start-up music it is quite surprising to find the voice of the presenter louder than the music.
The “patient” is Sal – or that is what it sounds like. The volume also exposes the metallic sound to the audio track which we encountered with a previous video in this blog article.
This video really isn’t a suitable one for our purposes.
Only one video to review, eleven and three quarter minutes and again with the startup music. The videos are now starting to fall into a theme. Dr Bill Hopkinson who immediately has a better voice for us. He is quieter, more measured in expressing himself but he does attempt to compensate for that with the loudest washing of his hands I have encountered thus far.
We encounter Sal again as the “patient” – they obviously had him around and so were going to make good use of him. This one seems to have less background noise, certainly less hiss than encountered in previously videos in this article.
The actual video quality is no better though, not that I suspect you would be watching in any case.
PCM2 Musculoskeletal Provocative Exam; Dr Neeru Jayanthi
In this case there is no “complete” video so there is no choice other than to review each video in turn.
Less than three quarters of a minute so do not blink. Dr Neeru Jayanthi who on the basis of this amazingly brief video has a good voice for our purposes. Eric is the “patient” here. There was still time to sneak in introductory music (boo), although the background noise for some reason is a great deal more muted in this one, probably not enough here for me to consider it for the procrastination pen playlist.
Just a bit more than three and a quarter minutes – none of these are winning any length contests. This would be a good candidate for the Procrastination Pen playlist if it ever appeared on YouTube (hint Stritch hint).
Just less than one- and three-quarter minutes probably not long enough for any playlist, in fact the way these are going it would be better to combine them into one long playlist – which I sense is probably how it was filmed in the first place and then they were divided up for (presumably) educational purposes.
Just over one- and three-quarter minutes, again no extraneous noises and a good presentation. A good combination of these videos would make one good one for the Procrastination Pen playlist – assuming anyone uploaded it to YouTube.
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.
After quite a few blog posts and a rather large number of draft blog items which never saw the light of day, I still remain interested in ASMR videos. I still listen to the Procrastination Pen playlist most days. I rely on it to drop off to sleep, commonly if I wake up stark awake in the early hours of the morning. For this reason I have high hopes that if you are reading this in the hope of getting some insomnia relief, especially if you know that you are susceptible to ASMR symptoms, that at least one of the videos I have found so far will become one of your favourites.
As is now typical the full Procrastination Pen playlist is referenced at the end of this blog item. If you are short of time scroll all the way down to it – hop over to YouTube – hit the shuffle function and get some restful moments.
If instead you’re keen to find out what new video I have happened across in my searches, it is this one:
Skin: Demo Exam
Back to the funky music which we know and are not at all fond of. It starts off a little energetically but it soon settles down.
It’s a professional video and, as we have seen before, it comes with a reasonable set of notes “17 Feb 2016
In today’s medical practice, knowing how to spot physical signs of nutritional imbalances during a routine physical examination is an essential diagnostic tool. This nutrition-focused skin exam is conducted by Elizabeth Boham, MD, MS, RD. https://www.drboham.com/
N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine.”
Comments are denied (probably wise) so I cannot tell if other ASMR fans are here before me, but with a video like this, the odds are that they have been.
It is just over three minutes so a short one for us but it is calm and measured. Dr Boham has a good voice for us I think and is worthy of checking further – in case she features in other, similar videos.
It has 2710 subscribers and is therefore popular and with twenty videos on the day I’m looking at it that is quite some achievement. (Some sites we have seen have many more videos than that).
There are four playlists and the great thing is that there is one playlist dedicated to Dr Boham – this makes life a great deal easier. The play list Skin Exam
has four videos of which the above one is video two in the set.
At first sight the others look less promising. They appear to be more presenting than medical examination as such. However, it is worth giving them a proper review.
Sadly, there is no relief from the funky start up music, people love their brand even if it keeps other people awake!
This starts out as a presentation by Dr Boham which is not reassuring. However Dr Boham does have a good voice for us. The downside is that at every interval (within what is a very short video at only four and three quarter minutes) the funky music plays again. This gets rather tiresome.
The notes are as follows:
“14,451 views 17 Feb 2016
In today’s medical practice, knowing how to spot physical signs of nutritional imbalances during a routine physical examination is an essential diagnostic tool. This nutrition-focused skin exam introduction is conducted by Elizabeth Boham, MD, MS, RD.
N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine.”
However, I have come over all charitable (Dr Boham does have a rather good voice) so I am going to include this in the Procrastination Pen playlist for now (it may be a victim of subsequent weeding).
Skin: Teaching Exam
Notes again: “17 Feb 2016
In today’s medical practice, knowing how to spot physical signs of nutritional imbalances during a routine physical examination is an essential diagnostic tool. This nutrition-focused skin exam is conducted by Elizabeth Boham, MD, MS, RD.
N Sight is presented by the Institute for Functional Medicine.”
This is actually video three in the set, video two being the one that we first came in with. Yet again the funky music. Dr Boham starts off a bit energetic in presentation. This is sad given the standard set by the video we started with.
However, I still like Dr Boham’s voice and I’m rather fond of the way in which she pronounces “Capillaries” so I am (at the moment) prepared to let it into the playlist. In any case at just shy of four and a half minutes it is really short. It is a shame I can’t delete the music and make it a decently quiet video.
And so to the final video:
(in this playlist anyway)
Skin: Conclusion
Annoying music – tick, really short video (this one just over one and a half minutes) – tick, duplicated notes from the other videos in this playlist – tick.
In an ideal world the video would have no music at all.
The N Sight 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 are 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 part way through a playlist in order to log on, this interrupts the flow/sleep dependent upon how long you’ve been listening. 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.
I’ve mainly been editing older material of late because I had (have) developed quite a backlog of articles on an ASMR theme. It is therefore good to be writing something new for a change.
Welcome to the Procrastination Pen, which for several months now has been the home to a blog about ASMR, ASMR videos and ASMR playlists. However, I appreciate that only some people have any ASMR feelings at all. For this reason, from the outset, my emphasis has been on calming videos that anyone could use to relax and perhaps to drift off to sleep.
I have focused on ASMR videos that were designed to do something entirely different, rather than the ASMR videos produced professionally by ASMR artists. That is not to say that I may not write the odd article about such videos but I have limited experience of them as it stands (and there seem to be a vast great number to choose from).
The outcome of this endeavour has been a large playlist consisting of the videos I have reviewed so far that were worth listening to. There is also a set of playlists relating to each channel I have reviewed (if you like a particular channel).
I always include the details of the latest playlists at the end of each blog article, so if you’re not keen to read about the review process, you can scroll straight to the end and pick them up there.
The theme has tended to be about medical videos mainly because medical professionals seem to take a calm approach to their work and often therefore speak slowly and quietly, which is I believe fundamental to a good voice for ASMR.
This week an institution which we have featured before, and I have no doubt will be featuring again.
At that time, I picked up a video directly from the Stanford Medicine Channel on YouTube. This time I have come across the page in which they embed all of their videos, which is this one:
As we can see there is a range of videos separated logically into subject areas and all referencing a location on YouTube. However, for our purposes logical is all very well but are they any good ASMR-wise.
Choosing at random we can see that Dermatology Exam is a subject area that has just four videos, which seems a nice small number to review in a concise Blog post, so let’s see what they have to offer.
The first video is this one:
Approach to the Dermatology Exam (Stanford Medicine 25)
which is just shy of eight minutes in length.
In common with a number of professional videos this one has notes, a précis of which is:
“22 Jan 2016
From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe and diagnose any skin lesion.
The Stanford Medicine 25 program for bedside medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine aims to promote the culture of bedside medicine to make current and future clinicians and other healthcare provides better at the art of physical diagnosis and more confident at the bedside of their patients.”
From memory of the last article the notes tend to get a bit repetitive, so I will only feature elements which might be of interest.
Bravely they are permitting comments and as expected not all of the comments are positive. There are no obvious comments from ASMR fans which given how effective ASMR fans are at finding videos is possibly not a good sign.
The video starts with the bugbear of any ASMR video devotee, the peppy start up music, applied I’m sure more through branding or marketing considerations than anything to do with quiet relaxation.
The medical professional is Dr Justin Ko, (which the automatic subtitles render as “Justin Cohen”!). Straight away we realise we are not dealing with any Dr James Gill in terms of voice but the introductory piece is relatively muted. However it gets louder, I mean a whole lot louder. In addition the background music continues and persists throughout the rest of the video. In addition the subject matter is a bit distracting.
I think this prohibits this one from becoming a member of the Procrastination Pen playlist.
Approach to Multiple Rashes (Stanford Medicine 25)
The relevant part of the notes are: “22 Jan 2016
From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.”
This is very short at a bit over four and a half minutes. Again, with the music, sigh. This time Bernice Kwong who is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology.
The video starts quietly and Bernice seems to have quite a good voice, relatively quiet and calm. However, again, the music persists throughout the video – why, why, why? This video is also not useful for us.
Approach to Nevi (Moles) – Stanford Medicine 25
At four and three quarter minutes it still isn’t a long video. The relevant notes are “22 Jan 2016
From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately describe complex and multiple skin lesions.”
Again, the comments are not at all helpful. So far, so YouTube. The start-up music remains. This time Jennifer Chen is the medical Professional; a Clinical Assistant Professor.
The start is promising, a quiet beginning but again continuous background music – how frustrating. This video is just not for us.
Diagnosing Acne vs. Rosacea (Stanford Medicine 25)
Just over three minutes so the shortest so far and featuring Jennifer Chen as in the previous video. The relevant part of the notes is: “22 Jan 2016
From our dermatology series, this video covers all the basics you need to accurately differentiate between regular acne and acne rosacea.”
The comments are nearly totally irrelevant or unhelpful but there are clues that some of the listeners are ASMR fans. mostly, it turns out, frustrated ASMR fans due to the background music.
So we know what is coming sadly. Unfortunately, Dermatology is a strike-out ASMR wise despite some great presenters. The decision to have music throughout is really very distracting.
However, all is not lost – there are those other videos to draw on, of course.
I think a visit of the Ankle Brachial Index category is worth a try particularly as it contains only two videos.
Ankle Brachial Index (ABI) Test: How to Perform
For once, the comments appear to be universally upbeat, positive and supportive (wonders will never cease). The video is close to seven- and three-quarter minutes and sadly still incorporates that music at the start. This time the medical Professional is John Cooke who actually seems to have a good voice and a very relaxed style of presentation – heaven be praised.
In addition, the muppet with the music mania has not decorated this with background noises. In fact it is marvellously quiet and calm. Unfortunately, there are some additional noises coming from an handheld doppler device, employed as part of the video. I don’t think these will exclude this video from the Procrastination Pen playlist, but it might mean that the video gets dropped to the archive list on subsequent review.
Venous Testing
This is just over five minutes so not long. It starts with the familiar music (spit spit). John Cooke and again he starts with a good delivery well measured and low toned. The doppler device is heard as before. I’m not certain if that might not prove noisy of a night time. I’ll include the video in the playlist but it may suffer transfer to archive if it proves excessively distracting.
So the Ankle Brachial Index category came to the rescue, (marginally).
The Stanford Medicine playlist on the Procrastination Pen is here:
The Procrastination Pen playlist (which is no-doubt what you have all been reading this in order to locate) is found here:
I have been listening to this playlist most nights and some of the videos that were members have now been removed. If any of your favourites are missing from that main playlist you can find them here in the archive list:
Quite often the videos getting removed have no faults other than occasional intrusive noises.
The playlist of items that are great for ASMR (but contain an age verification function), usually a great way to interrupt your listening in the middle of the night, is here:
I hope that you find the playlists restful and that you get a good night’s sleep.
Hope to see you again back here for the next blog article.
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The Procrastination Pen 