@alexwild If a trainee tells me that they use social media for academic purposes I follow them to aid in professional engagement. Otherwise I don’t. We have an explicit institutional policy that if I know about material posted that might put a trainee’s career at risk I have to talk with them about it. It feels unfair for me to enter their social media uninvited with that threat in the background. At orientation I review this policy and the need for them to invite me to engage

@alexwild Seeing insects with mimicry of social Hymenoptera is reliably delightful

@ChouvencL That is a wonderful photo of a super cute ant!

@millennialpedia @CDeZureMD Because Mastodon is just part of the Fediverse, I like #Pediaverse as inclusive of all things related to pediatrics.

@EmpiricGame We are always happy to see kids with abnormal screens! The most common abnormality in a humoral screen is insufficient protection against pneumococcal antigens. To verify a defect (versus good luck in avoiding infections) we immunize with Pneumovax (just polysaccharides) and not Prevnar (polysaccharides are conjugated to protein) because we want to see if that part functions. I think immunologists are the only ones left using Pneumovax so it’s a solid referral!

@ZulemaValdez I’m sorry that I missed this reply! I’m still getting used to this interface. It can definitely take a week (rarely more) to heal from venom injury but it’s interesting that the sun made it worse. Was this sunlight itself or do you think it was heat that caused it to re-swell?

@Pat What an interesting experience! The venom from Vespula contains multiple components that induce pain (using different mechanisms). I am so sorry to say that it seems more probable that they weren’t injecting venom than that you are immune to these different mechanisms. It’s not unusual for a single insect to inject no/little venom but interesting that multiple individuals were not injecting much venom when defending a colony. If you do get stung again I’d love to hear how it goes!