Felasfa Wodajo, an orthopedic oncologist in Virginia, recently took his iPad into the operating theater to see how it performs in such an environment.
Being one of the editors at iMedicalApps, Dr. Wodajo just published his initial findings and they bode a rather bright clincial future for the iPad, and tablets in general.
SOURCE: iMedicalApps: Test driving the iPad in the hospital Operating Room…
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
In the continuing effort to make surgery less invasive, physicians at Johns Hopkins Hospital are operating on the brain through a tiny incision in one of the eyelids instead of lifting a large piece of the skull.
Named transpalpebral orbitofrontal craniotomy, the procedure allows for access to the middle and front regions of the brain. The cranial cavity is reached through a hole created by removing a small, half-inch to one-inch-square section of skull bone right above the eyebrow. Endoscopic surgery can then be performed with help of previously obtained CT and MRI data. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg, Germany, have developed a helmet that will make you think twice about continuing to cycle with a damaged helmet.
For maximum protection, safety helmets need to be damage-free, but it’s often impossible to know if a helmet is actually flawed after it’s been dropped or hit by something. The researchers have used polymers that start to smell if there are any small cracks, and will really stink in the case of any large cracks. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
They seem to like medical devices in the high stakes world of spelling championships. Anamika Veeramani, from Cleveland, Ohio, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee this weekend by spelling “stromuhr,” a rheometer designed to measure the amount and speed of blood flow through an artery.
Don’t feel bad — we’d never heard of it before either, and we’re supposed to be experts in this stuff. Education never ends…
Merriam-Webster: Stromuhr
London Science Museum: Ludwig-type stromuhr, London, England, 1920-1940
Press release: National Spelling Bee: A Spawning Ground for Future Physicians and Obscure Diseases
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
Current methods of testing people for food allergies aren’t particularly precise, leaving many people to falsely think that they have a condition that they really don’t.
MIT chemical engineer Christopher Love is working on a new test based on cytokines that may prove to be substantially faster and more reliable. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
