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3-D Bone Scaffolding System May Aid Surgeons In Facial Reconstruction

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It would be fantastic to use 3D printers to produce bone replacements:

Now, Washington State University engineers are unveiling a unique implementation of the tech that could aid in the regrowth of damaged or diseased bones. Utilizing a ceramic compound, the group’s optimized ProMetal 3D printer builds dissolvable scaffolds coated with a plastic binding agent that serve as a blueprint for tissue growth. The team’s already logged four long years fine tuning the process, having already achieved positive results testing on rats and rabbits, but it appears there’s still a ways to go — about 10 -12 years, according to the project’s co-author Susmita Bose — before orthopedic and dental surgeons can begin offering “printed” bone replacements.

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Is The Adderall Shortage A Harbinger Of Future Drug Supply Problems?

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Today, most- if not all- Doctor’s offices are strained by the shortage of some prescription medication or vaccine.  A month ago, President Obama signed his executive order, directing the FDA to take steps to reduce drug shortages as the White House stated that drug shortages have nearly tripled over the past five years reaching the stunning number of 178 in 2010.  These shortages make regular news:  Cancer patients without the chemotherapy needed to keep them alive, antibiotics unavailable to treat life-threatening infections, or intravenous nutrition to support the critically ill fighting to live while medical teams and families search for elusive remedies.

As this new reality plays out in hospitals and homes the media is provided a steady stream of drama for our morning paper or evening news.  Meanwhile, time and focus is repeatedly stolen from physicians, patients, and parents in a myriad of ways.  Currently, my medical practice- in primary care Internal Medicine- has been negatively affected by the shortage of Adderall, a medication used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  What this medical condition may lack in dramatic news-worthiness it more than makes up for in sheer numbers with an estimated 4.5 million Americans living with this condition today.

I had my first inkling several months ago of the affect the Adderall shortage would have on my practice after one of my patients called frustrated  that their pharmacy did not have their Adderall at the prescribed dosage.  By calling several pharmacies I was able to find their medication at a smaller dose. Advising my patient to “double-up” I wrote another prescription and had to direct my patient to return to my office to pick up the rewritten  prescription- a time-consuming process that doctors and patients can ill afford to repeat on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, this scenario -initially thought an exception- has now become the rule monopolizing my own time while draining the daily resources of my staff, nurse, and medical partner.  Most ironically though, Read more »

Video Describes Procedure To Determine The Cause Of Your Snoring

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Our office has produced a new video describing “where” snoring comes from determined by a simple procedure known as sedated or sleep endoscopy. At its most basic definition, snoring is noise produced from a vibrating mucosal surface in the upper airway.

Though snoring can be defined simply, the tough question is WHERE are these vibrating mucosal surfaces? Because unless one can define WHERE the snoring is coming from, successful treatment can’t be pursued definitively.

An office exam performed while a patient is awake is suboptimal as the patient is awake… and not snoring. As such, it is an educated guess where the snoring problem is stemming from.

To this end, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*

Penn Students Use XBox Kinect To Create Device For Visually Impaired

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r5lq7rt1 Students Hack Microsofts Kinect to Assist the Visually Impaired Two computer science students from the University of Pennsylvania, Eric Berdinis and Jeff Kiske, have hacked together a very impressive tactile feedback system for the visually impaired using a Microsoft Kinect device and a number of vibration actuators. The Kinecthesia is a belt worn camera system that detects the location and depth of objects in front of the wearer using depth information detected by the Kinect sensor. This information is processed on a BeagleBoard open computer platform and then used to drive six vibration motors located to the left, center and right of the user. The video below shows a demo of the system in use and gives a quick explanation of its operation.

The students came up with the idea for the Kinecthesia when Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

The Cutest Nutrition Video Ever: Introducing The Porter Family

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As my regular readers already know, I’ve been eagerly coaching the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Triple Play Fit Family Challenge (FFC) participants on healthy eating. During a recent phone call with the families I expressed some wistfulness about not being able to *see* what they’ve been eating (the FFC blog is filled with charming action shots of the families exercising, but almost no food cameos). And this is what the Porter family just sent me. It’s a video inviting me to a dinner of grilled tilapia, brown rice, acorn squash, mushrooms and broccoli. Tell me if this isn’t the cutest nutrition video ever?

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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