April 26th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements
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What do you get when you confess on your blog to having a
love affair with food and a history of a GI disorder? You get invited to attend a really cool event,
a sort of Iron Chef meets Scrubs, right here in Washington DC!
Yes my friends, I’ve been invited to participate in a
gluten-free cook off hosted by the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness and
moderated by CNN’s news anchor Heidi Collins.
I’m going to be teamed up with a chef in a gluten-free cooking
contest. I’m not sure how the chef will
want me to participate – but I’m hoping that I get to do a little more than pot
stirring and taste testing. There will
be three teams, and 9 healthcare professionals – including 4 docs, 3
pharmacists, 1 nurse, and 1 dietician.
Given hospitals’ reputation for culinary mediocrity, I’m not sure that
we bring any credibility to the contest – but if anyone chokes, we’ll
resuscitate promptly.
The contest is on May 4th in the evening… maybe
you can catch us on a cable channel with a high number? All proceeds go to Celiac disease research
and awareness programs.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
April 9th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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In a recent study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers found that blood tests and a history of patient symptoms might be all that’s needed to diagnose the majority of individuals with celiac disease. Until now, a diagnosis required a biopsy of the intestinal wall.
It is estimated that celiac disease (caused by an autoimmune reaction to wheat gluten) remains undiagnosed in a whopping 85% of cases. This may be due to the fact that symptoms are often non-specific (diarrhea and constipation, fatigue, anemia, tooth enamel defects, weight loss, and dry skin are some of the symptoms).
The researchers report:
We devised and evaluated a clinical decision tool that used a combination of pre-endoscopy serological testing (for tissue transglutaminase antibodies) and assessment of symptoms to identify patients with coeliac disease. This decision tool might help increase the detection of coeliac disease in patients attending for gastroscopy without the need to perform routine duodenal biopsy.
As efforts are underway to increase awareness in the primary care community about the disease, it is good to know that diagnosis may no longer require an invasive test!
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
March 18th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
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Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
–Mark Twain
My favorite writer of all time is Mark Twain. His keen observations and uncanny ability to combine wisdom and wit makes his writing incredibly entertaining, don’t you think? I thought it would be fun to take a few of his quotes and illustrate them with true stories from my mental archives.
Today’s quote is about doing the right thing. I remember a case where a young internal medicine intern was taking care of a 42 year old mother of 3. The mother had HIV/AIDS and had come to the hospital to have her PEG tube repositioned. Somewhere along the way, she required a central line placement, and as a result ended up with a pretty severe line infection. The woman’s condition was rapidly deteriorating on the medicine inpatient service, and the intern taking care of her called the ICU fellow to evaluate her for admission to the intensive care unit.
The fellow examined the patient and explained to the intern that the woman had “end stage AIDS” and that excessive intensive care management would be a futile endeavor, and that the ICU beds must be reserved for other patients.
“But she was fine when she came to us, the line we put in caused her downward spiral – she’s not necessarily ‘end stage,’” protested the intern.
The fellow wouldn’t budge, and so the intern was left to manage the patient – now with a resting heart rate of 170 and dropping blood pressure. The intern stayed up all night, aggressively hydrating the woman and administering IV antibiotics with the nursing staff.
The next day the intern called the ICU fellow again, explaining that the patient was getting worse. The ICU fellow responded that he’d already seen the patient and that his decision still stands. The intern called her senior resident, who told her that there was nothing he could do if the ICU fellow didn’t want to admit the patient.
The intern went back to the patient’s room and held her cold, cachectic hand. “How are you feeling?” she asked nervously.
The frail woman turned her head to the intern and whispered simply, “I am so scared.”
The intern decided to call the hospital’s ethics committee to explain the case and ask if it really was appropriate to prevent a young mother from being admitted to the ICU if she had been in reasonable health until her recent admission. The president of the ethics committee reviewed the case immediately, and called the ICU fellow’s attending and required him to admit the patient. Soon thereafter, the patient was wheeled into the ICU, where she was treated aggressively for sepsis and heart failure.
The next day during ICU rounds the attending physician asked for the name of the intern who had insisted on the admission. After hearing the name, he simply replied with a wry smile, “remind me never to f [mess] with her.”
The patient survived the infection and spent mother’s day with her children several weeks later.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
March 11th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
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Alright, I confess – my mother is probably the number one fan of this blog. Ever since I told her I’d be writing one, she has been reading it faithfully. I asked her not to post comments (only because it’s a tad embarrassing to have your parents interacting with you in front of an audience, and frankly, I haven’t noticed a single other blogger doing this!) but alas, she couldn’t resist on that last one. And that’s ok, because I know you readers don’t mind.
My mom does have rare occasions of impulse control failure. One of the more memorable ones was during “Parents Day” at my medical school. The Alumni Association had planned a reception for the parents of the incoming class of 2000 at Columbia U. College of Physicians & Surgeons. There was a full agenda, and my mom quickly noticed that the surgeon who’d saved my life was slotted to speak. The auditorium was full of hundreds of proud parents and their kids, all excited about embarking on a noble career in medicine.
Well, just as my former surgeon was introduced and was walking to the podium my mother jumped up and ran in front of him and asked if she could please have the mike. The MC was visibly nervous (not as much as I was), but after quickly sizing my mom up, she decided that it would be ok to let her have the podium briefly.
In one of the most moving speeches in recent memory, my mother proceeded to explain the story of how Dr. Schullinger had promised not to give up on me (a baby with little chance of survival) and how he had kept his promise to this day. She described the miraculous abdominal surgery (where he had to remove most of my colon), and how he had faithfully responded to every Christmas card she sent him, reporting on my progress for 26 consecutive years. She thanked him for what he did, and pledged that her daughter would devote her life to “doing likewise.”
Well, that brought down the house. Everyone cheered for Dr. Schullinger, who turned beet red (he’s a very shy and humble person) and stumbled through the beginning of his speech. It was a great moment in medicine.
Of course, I was teased mercilessly for the rest of the year – my classmates called me Valerie “semi-colon” Jones, and they would ask if my mother was going to help me with my homework… But kids will be kids.
What I learned from my mom that day is that this old Hebrew proverb is important to follow:
“Never withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thy hand to do it.”
So if someone has done something good for you, or you notice an act of kindness – why not shout it from the hill tops? May goodness rise above the low level grumbling that we live in day to day.
Let’s revel in the sunny parts of life.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
March 10th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
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Ok, so now that I’ve given you a really good example of the dangers of VIPs bullying doctors, I will present the flip side of the coin: a good kind of patient aggressiveness.
A 10 month old baby was vomiting and febrile, and her new mom brought her in to the hospital for an evaluation. She was told that it was gastroenteritis (my favorite diagnosis of late) and that the baby would get over it soon enough. The young mother insisted that she knew her baby, and that the infant had never been this fussy and that there really did seem to be something more serious at play. Again, she received eye rolls from everyone from technicians to nursing staff to physicians. “New mothers are so histrionic,” everyone thought.
But as the evening wore on, the baby became fussier and fussier, and began scratching herself all over. The nurses came in and tied her chubby arms and legs down so that she wouldn’t tear her skin. The mom wrung her hands all night. The doctor went home, yawning and sure that the baby would be fine in the morning.
Several episodes of violent, projectile vomiting ensued, and the mother pleaded for someone to take another look. No one would listen, as the doctor had written in the chart that the baby had gastroenteritis, so that was what it was.
In the middle of the night, after the physician had gone home, the mom insisted that the nurses page him to come back to the hospital. The nurses initially refused, but the mother told them that she would personally make their night miserable if they didn’t comply. The annoyed physician came back to the hospital against his better judgment, and found the mother and baby looking far worse than when he’d left. In fact, the baby’s vitals were becoming unstable and her abdomen was quite distended.
The physician ordered an abdominal x-ray series. It showed an advanced intussusception and the belly was distended with gangrene. He knew that she was likely to die. He asked the mother if she wanted him to call the general surgeon (who had no experience with operating on babies) or if she’d like to take a chance and get the infant to an academic center in New York City that had a team of pediatric surgeons on call. Time was of the essence, but surgical expertise varied greatly between the two options. The mom could tell that the physician was terrified, and her instincts told her that she should get the most experienced doctor to operate on her baby.
A few hours later, the baby was rushed into the O.R. at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. The pediatric surgeon on the case told the mother that it was unlikely that the child would live, but that he promised not to give up on the baby. At that point, the baby was septic and seizing.
In a truly miraculous turn of events, the surgeon was able to resect the dead bowel and save the baby’s life. If the baby had arrived even a few minutes later, she probably wouldn’t have made it.
So in this case, I applaud the mother for being persistent and forcing the medical staff to take a closer look at this “gastroenteritis.” In our imperfect medical system, patients and families must sometimes advocate for themselves in order to get the attention they require. This story, in particular, means a lot to me, because I still bear the abdominal scar from the surgery.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
