Member

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From Blogs:

Dr. Bruce Campbell, a Professor of ENT Surgery, known informally among medical bloggers as Headmirror, doesn’t think it’s a good idea to nap in the operating room and talks about the difficulty that most of us have leaving work behind even when we take a break.  Bruce, is the “Blogging Surgeon” on WUWM - Milwaukee Public Radio! Scroll to the bottom of this link and listen. It’s well worth your time.

Our intrepid surgeon from the South African low veld, Bongi, has a run in with the good old boy setup that exists in all academic hospitals and waxes eloquent on healthcare professionals’ twisted sense of humour (that’s with a u).

Not content with being a plastic surgeon, a creator of exquisite quilts and a prolific, erudite blogger, Dr. Ramona Bates tries her hand at penning Haikus. I liked this one…

Too big , too small, sad
Cut, sew, reduce, augment, lift
Happy, happy girls

In the fortnight since the last edition of SurgeXperiences, one that she hosted, Ramona has posted about Breast Augmentation & Reduction, being Tongue-tied as a child and has reviewed articles on reducing incidence of ear deformity in FaceLift and the prevalence of persistent pain following breast cancer surgery.

Inspired by Ramona, Dr. T the Anesthesioboist, produces a Haiku about her work…

Hard metal, soft flesh,
cylinder poised, larynx found:
the pillars of life.

…and shares a glimpse into a marriage.

Dr. Smak shares a similar story about the Greatest Generation.

Dr. Chris Coppola’s book “Coppola, A Pediatric Surgeon in Iraq” is out. Here’s a great review of the book by Dr. Harriet Hall.

Dr. Philip Alexander, a surgical gastroenterologist and author of the blog Manali Hospital, who works with his wife, Dr. Anna, an internist, in The Lady Willingdon Hospital in the picturesque Kullu valley operates on a patient with elephantiasis who had been refused surgery in many hospitals over the last fifteen years.

From Mckmama comes this story of how some nifty work by an interventional cardiac electrophysiologist called Dr.A (No. Not this one) cures a young kid with supraventricular tachycardia.

Dr. Westby Fisher, the medical blogosphere’s own cardiac electrophysiologist relates the tale of a patient being rejected, then accepted, to the cardiac transplantation list and poses some difficult questions at the end.

Dr. Jeffrey Parks, the Buckeye Surgeon, shares his thoughts about an article in the New Yorker about an entity known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) which is a variant of cognitive dementia that develops in people who are subjected to repeated blows to the head (pugilists and football players especially). Buckeye also had to deal with something that didn’t belong in the chest of a nonagenarian lady and some unnecessary tests ordered by a PCP on a post-op patient who was doing well.

Mark, the self-described mouse asthmatologist, takes a really close look at a fungus.

911DOC at M.D.O.D. tells us how to use the force to reduce dislocated shoulders.

Dr. Kevin Pho says surgeons don’t receive enough training when resident work-hours are capped.

Dr. Margaret Polaneczky, aka TBTAM, weighs in on the pros and cons of Mammographic screening and the recent article on Cancer Prevention in The New York Times. On a lighter note, she gives us a recipe for feeding the chemo tummy.

Bone MD asks who is needed more, superspecialist or super-generalist orthopods?

Jasmine Hall from OnlineNursingPrograms.Net lists 10 Unbelievable Robots Transforming Medicine.

Take a look at the superb collection of radiological cases in Dr. Keshav Kulkarni’s Daily Dose.

Here’s a sampler from Dr. Sid Schwab’s blog for those of you who want more surgical posts.

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Surgical News:

Poorer Outcomes After ‘Off-Pump’ Bypass Surgery via Dr. Ves Dimov’s tweet.

Longer-term outcomes for people who had coronary bypass surgery “off-pump,” meaning without the use of a heart-lung machine, were worse than for those undergoing the conventional procedure, a major study finds.
One year after surgery, about one in 10 patients getting the off-pump procedure had died, suffered major complications, had heart attacks or required repeat bypasses, compared to 7.4 percent of those who underwent operations using heart-lung machines, researchers report in the Nov. 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Barbara Duck, The MedicalQuack, shares this story about an innovative method being used to repair the breastbone after it is intentionally broken to provide access to the heart during open-heart surgery. The technique uses a state-of-the-art adhesive that rapidly bonds to bone and accelerates the recovery process.

Dr. William Ganz, co-inventor of the Swan-Ganz Catheter, dies at 90.

Your next body is growing in a lab right now, says Gizmodo (via MedGadget).

A new miniature, hand-held microscope may allow more precise removal of brain tumors and an easier recognition of tumor locations during surgery.

Laser eye surgery (PRK & LASIK) to correct vision problems does not appear to be associated with lasting changes to cells lining the inside of the cornea at nine years after the procedure, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. (via ScienceDaily)

Among postmenopausal women, the risk of hip fractures increases steeply with age and is seven times higher in 70-year-olds than in 50-year-olds, according to a study in this week’s PLoS Medicine. (via ScienceDaily)

Despite being highly effective and beneficial for many patients, unexpected consequences are emerging in patients who are prescribed proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) for reflux diseases. Physicians are warned to monitor these effects and prescribe these medications carefully, according to a new commentary published in the November 2009 issue of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. (via ScienceDaily)

New Mayo Clinic research studied the association between prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and prostate size and found that routine annual evaluation of prostate growth is not necessarily a predictor for the development of prostate cancer. However the study suggests that if a man’s PSA level is rising quickly, a prostate biopsy is reasonable to determine if he has prostate cancer. (via ScienceDaily)

The effectiveness of a screening colonoscopy may depend on the time of day it is performed. According to a new UCLA study, early-morning colonoscopies yielded more polyps per patient than later screenings, and fewer polyps were found hour by hour as the day progressed. (via ScienceDaily)

An Indiana University study involving 2,453 women ages 18 to 68 found that lubricant use during sexual activity alone or with a partner contributed to higher ratings of pleasurable and satisfying sex. (via ScienceDaily) - I think this could qualify for next year’s IgNobel Prize.

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Humour:

Mrs. Kerri Morrone Sparling digs into her archives for us to enjoy again the open letter to her Pancreas.

KevinMD thinks there’s something strangely disturbing about the anatomical imagining of cute Hello Kitty’s insides and finds anatomy on the street.

From MedGadget - 3D CT Scans of a Lego Toy MRI.

Some comics from my posterous blog: the trojan, the x-ray technician & the 5 second rule.

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Update: November 14 is/was (this post was posted when half the world was still on Nov 14)

World Diabetes Day

and Kerri has a wonderful video up at her blog.

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There is no host yet for the next edition

SurgeXperiences 311

to be posted on November 29, 2009.

If you are interested in hosting, contact Jeffrey Leow

Deadline for submissions is on Friday, November 27.

Please send in your submissions early via this form.

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An aggregated feed of credible, rotating health and medicine blog carnivals is also available.

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