November 22nd, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Health Tips
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Led by Scott McIntosh, MD and his colleagues, the Wilderness Medical Society has published “Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Frostbite” (Wild Environ Med 2011:22;156-166). These guidelines are intended to provide clinicians about best evidence-based practices, and were derived from the deliberations of an expert panel, of which I was a member. The guidelines present the main prophylactic and therapeutic modalities for frostbite and provide recommendations for their roles in patient management. The guidelines also provide suggested approaches to prevention and management of each disorder that incorporate the recommendations.
In outline format, here is what can be found in these guidelines: Read more »
This post, Guidelines For The Treatment And Prevention Of Frostbite, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
November 21st, 2011 by Shadowfax in Opinion
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We respond to certain “Code Blue” situations in our hospital. In the ED, of course, and in the outpatient areas and radiology, and if needed as back-up in the inpatient units. The hospital issues one of those overhead calls when there is a code blue — a cardiac arrest or other collapse, person down, injury, etc., but we also carry a pager in the ER in case we don’t hear the overhead call. The pager also signifies which doc is designated to respond to such a call, since we often have 8 docs working at once. It’s a little ritual we have at change of shift, passing off the pager and the spectralink phone, like the passing of the torch to the oncoming doc.
So of course I took the pager home the other day and had to make an extra trip to the hospital to return it. Ugh.
As I was driving back in, I took a moment to really look at the thing, and it struck me that this pager is the exact same model I used in medical school and residency, way back in the mid nineties. The exact same one: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
November 21st, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in Quackery Exposed, True Stories
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Photo Credit: Mark Crislip, M.D.
During a recent trip, I met a woman whose father had just passed away. When she discovered that I was a physician, she decided to tell me the sad story of the events leading up to his death. She gave me permission to share the story on my blog so long as I did not identify her or her family by name. For the purposes of the story, I’ll refer to the woman as Sue, and her father as Frank.
Frank was a healthy, robust man, descended from a long line of nonagenerians. Everyone assumed that he would live well into his 90’s – at least 30 more good years. One day Frank began having some leg pain, which he ignored as long as he could. Sue noticed him limping around a week later and decided to take him to see a physician. As it turned out, Frank had a deep venous thrombosis (or blood clot) in his leg, caused by a previously undiagnosed, mild genetic clotting disorder. The physicians treated him with heparin to prevent the clot from expanding, and prescribed coumadin to protect him from having the clot travel to his lungs – a condition (pulmonary embolism) that carries with it a high risk of death.
While researching his new medicines, Frank came upon an alternative medicine website. The site warned people against taking coumadin (stating that it was “a form of rat poison”) and offering herbal supplements instead. Frank decided to stop taking his coumadin, and purchased the alternative medicine from the website. Two weeks later he Read more »
November 21st, 2011 by DeborahSchwarzRPA in Opinion, Research
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Robert S. Brown, Jr., MD, MPH
The November 10, 2011 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine features an editorial by Robert S. Brown, Jr., MD, MPH, Director of the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation, titled Transplantation for Alcoholic Hepatitis — Time to Rethink the 6-Month “Rule.”
In this editorial, Dr. Brown addresses the difficult questions surrounding how to fairly allocate donor organs, which are in far shorter supply than their demand. In the case of patients with alcoholic hepatitis, current guidelines exclude such patients from the liver transplant waiting list unless they have successfully abstained from alcohol for at least six months. Yet as Dr. Brown points out, many die before this required, albeit arbitrary, window elapses. And a new study indicates that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Columbia University Department of Surgery Blog*
November 21st, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Opinion, Research
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I learned a lot from putting together an abstract for a national heart meeting.
- More than just learning how to e-submit, e-upload and e-print a large poster;
- More than what t-tests and chi-squares measure;
- More than learning that females respond differently to AF ablation;
- And surely more than which coffee shop offers the best work place.
Putting this thing together showed me stuff: the process of discovery, it’s role in helping us be better doctors and the difficulties inherent in doing this kind of valuable research in our current system.
So of course…bloggers blog.
First: Many have asked why we bothered doing research? What’s the motivation? Money? Fame? A greater purpose?
It was none of these. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
