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Video Describes Procedure To Determine The Cause Of Your Snoring

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*

Microcystic Lymphatic Malformations Of The Tongue

lymphaticmalformation

Photo Credit: eMedicine.com

I stumbled across this article while previewing JAMA & Archives CME articles (full reference below). The article gives an overview of lymphatic malformations, noting that both sexes are equally affected, and there is no predilection for any race.

Lymphatic malformations are vascular malformations with an unknown cause. They are estimated to make up 6% of all benign soft-tissue tumors in children. While they may be rare, 50% of all lymphatic malformations are already obvious at the time of birth. Most (90%) are diagnosed by the end of the second year of life owing to clinical symptoms.

About 60% of all lymphatic malformations are found in the head and neck region. Regarding the mouth, the tongue is most commonly affected.

Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

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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