May 27th, 2011 by RamonaBatesMD in Health Tips
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Last year I didn’t write about dog bite prevention until the first week of June even though I know National Dog Bite Prevention Week is always the third full of week of May.
The numbers shared by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) haven’t changed: 4.7 million people are bitten by dogs each year in the US with 800,000 of them requiring medical attention.
If you have read this blog for very long, you know I dearly love my dogs — deceased ones (Columbo, Ladybug (photo), and Girlfriend) and the living one, Rusty. Still, I have no illusions that dogs bite and given the right provocation, I think mine would though most of the time they are totally harmless and would just invite you in to rob me.
Sadly, children are by far the most common victims of dog bites, occurring most often in children 5-9 years of age. Senior citizens are the second most common dog bite victims.
Children are also more likely to be severely injured and represent half of the dog-bite victims requiring medical attention every year. Almost two thirds of injuries among children Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
May 27th, 2011 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Humor, True Stories
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As the country wrestles with the cost of health-care, and as various media outlets address the role of emergency departments, I thought this little guide-might be helpful! I pulled it out of my archives from several years ago. Enjoy!
All too often, I discharge a patient and think to myself, What instructions can I give for this? Sometimes there are problems and questions that don’t have obvious solutions or answers. And in these situations, coming up with something useful for the patient to read at home is, to say the least, difficult. I’ve come up with a few based on some of the enigmas I see at Oconee Memorial Hospital.
Virginity evaluation: The emergency physician has not determined the status of your daughter’s virginity. In fact, the emergency physician does not wish to know the status of your daughter’s virginity. Furthermore, this doesn’t constitute an emergency. Unfortunately, no one has so far developed any simple home kits for making this determination. If you do, please notify the emergency department so that we can refer other families to your product. If you wish to know more about your daughter’s sexuality, try talking to her. If you found her naked in bed with a boy, you don’t need us.
Drug use evaluation: The emergency physician has not performed a random drug test on your teenage son. He has no complaints, is not suicidal, and has no apparent medical problem. This is not a family counseling center. If you want to know if he is using drugs, talk to him. Admittedly, he is a surly, unpleasant, disheveled, and foul-mouthed young man, whose multiple piercings make him look like a Stone Age erector set. But finding out if he is using drugs simply doesn’t constitute what we like to call an emergency. If he isn’t using drugs, be certain that repeated trips to the emergency department accompanied by screaming parents will certainly give him good reason to start.
Whole body numbness: It simply isn’t possible to be awake, walking, talking, and functioning and be entirely numb from head to toe. Admittedly, your ability to overcome the sensation of sharp needles and other painful stimuli is impressive, and may herald a future career with the CIA. For now, however, our physician has determined that the one thing likely to be numb on your person is your skull. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
May 27th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Health Policy, News
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The Center for Disease Control published the top ten public health achievements from 2001-2010, the first decade of the 21st century. In no order they are:
- Vaccine-preventable Diseases – new vaccines for herpes zoster, pneumonia, HPV and rotavirus have saved thousands of lives When you add in the older vaccines for diptheria, pertussus, tetanus and measles/mumps millions of lives have been saved around the world. (I saw diptheria in Haiti and it is horrible)
- Tobacco Control- We have been battling tobacco since 1964 but there is finally progress with more states enacting smoke-free laws and raising cigarette taxes. By 2010, the FDA banned flavored cigarettes and established restrictions on youth access. We have a long way to go. Smoking costs us all about $193 billion a year on medical costs and loss of productivity.
- Motor Vehicle Safety –Enforcing seat belt and child safety legislation has reduced deaths from crashes. Teen drivers have new policies too.
- Cardiovascular Disease Prevention-During the past decade, age-adjusted heart disease and stroke deaths declined. What worked? Treating hypertension, elevated cholesterol and smoking…along with improved treatment and medication. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
May 26th, 2011 by Elaine Schattner, M.D. in Health Tips, News, Opinion
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Last week Aaron Sorkin wrote for The Atlantic a piece in which he details his daily news feed, in What I Read. He’s not into blogs:
When I read the Times or The Wall Street Journal, I know those reporters had to have cleared a very high bar to get the jobs they have. When I read a blog piece from “BobsThoughts.com,” Bob could be the most qualified guy in the world but I have no way of knowing that because all he had to do to get his job was set up a website–something my 10-year-old daughter has been doing for 3 years. When The Times or The Journal get it wrong they have a lot of people to answer to. When Bob gets it wrong there are no immediate consequences for Bob except his wrong information is in the water supply now so there are consequences for us.
PZ Meyers, whose tagline for Pharyngula at ScienceBlogs is a bit crass for my taste, but with whom I often agree, writes On What’s Wrong With the Media:
This is the problem, that people blithely assume that because it is in the NY Times or the WSJ that it must be right — I’d rather read BobsThoughts.com because there, at least, poor lonely Bob must rely on the quality of his arguments rather than the prestige of his name and affiliation to persuade. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medical Lessons*
May 26th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Health Policy, Humor
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This is good. I knew the CDC was socially tuned-in but this came as a surprise: Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse . It’s every American’s guide to dealing with a zombie attack. You come thinking zombies but take away principles for emergency preparedness. Well done, CDC.
The real take away for those of us looking under the hood: effective health messaging should be creative and fun. While we’ll never be able to measure the true effectiveness of this approach in an emergency, expect the post’s massive traffic to convert important links on emergency preparedness. Hopefully the CDC will release stats on the effectiveness of this campaign.
I’d like to write more, but I’m goin’ to make my kit.
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
If you have read this blog for very long, you know I dearly love my dogs — deceased ones (Columbo, Ladybug (photo), and Girlfriend) and the living one, Rusty. Still, I have no illusions that dogs bite and given the right provocation, I think mine would though most of the time they are totally harmless and would just invite you in to rob me.
