I had a conversation recently with a colleague that reminded me of a particularly bizarre and morbid case from medical school. Now, dear readers, you get to hear it. Anyway, I was doing my surgical rotation my third year of med school and unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it), […]

Gas is good when it lights your stove burner, but it ain’t good other times. It ain’t good when someone gives you a “Dutch Oven” in bed. But it REALLY is bad when it forms in your non-healing, infected foot wound. Yes, my friends, Clostridium Perfringens, “Gas Gangrene” that killed so many in […]

Tell me Dr Hippocrates, what are the indications for performing surgery in this case?
Well Dr Lowly ERP, the indications are hotly debated.
Interesting. How so?
Unfortunately, no good data has shown much improvement of cognition or survival in patients who are operated on vs those who are not.
Wow, so, even this case where a previously functional and […]

This is an easy one:
We had a woman with this recently. What surgery did she just have? Answers tomorrow.

I have come to get used to getting a raft of crap from a consultant who does not agree with my diagnosis over the phone. It is part of the territory of working in the ER. It is even worse when they come in the ER and STILL disagree with you (and then give […]

So, personally I think it is very sad that a consultant would state that he is not comfortable with performing a certain procedure (because it was not part of his residency training) when he finds out that the patient has no insurance. However, as soon as he finds out the patient really DOES have insurance, […]

The other day a Cardio-thoracic surgeon was called to see a patient who had a probable pleural abscess with a haemothorax seen on chest X-ray. He came down with his usual arrogant airs about him (think Alec Baldwin in the movie “Malice” where he says “I AM GOD”), and looking over the lab values on […]