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Well, At Least her Nails look Fab!

December 9th, 2009 at 5:20 am » Comments (7)

      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 Bad

December 5th, 2009 at 5:26 am » Comments (7)

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 […]



Indications for Operation

October 28th, 2009 at 7:34 am » Comments (5)

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 […]



What Caused This?

August 25th, 2009 at 7:10 am » Comments (11)

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



Revenge is Sweet

August 23rd, 2009 at 1:43 am » Comments (4)

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 […]



Insurance-dependent Surgical Abilities

June 18th, 2009 at 7:32 am » Comments (7)

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, […]



Get some Cojones, Dude

June 3rd, 2009 at 7:39 am » Comments (6)

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 […]