DocTalk

Doc,

We have a player here for Podunkville U that will miss all of basketball season for cardiac testing that requires three months of no athletic activity before the testing can be done. What kind of tests need an otherwise healthy athlete to do nothing for three months?

PU has done things that haven't passed the smell test before in hiding things from the media and we're wondering if there's more to the story than the official party line.

Thanks in advance.

 

It's hard to know what's going on but to answer your specific question. There are heart conditions that could require rep[eattesting after months of rest to see if hear tfunction had returned to normnal. For example, myocarditis, an inflammation of heart muscle (often as a complication of a viral infection like a cold) can require the patient to rest for three to six months before underoging an echocardiogram or other heart function test.

 

I have the duty this Thanksgiving,as I presume most of the people on the board do.

There is a certain camaraderie among hospital folk who work nights, holidays and weekends. We often complain, sometimes too loudly, about the pressed turkey in the cafeteria, missed family functions and the frustrations dealing with trying to comply with federal mandates that take time away from patient care, but in general we have much to be thankful for.

More thanks online today. Happy Thanksgiving.

Ben

www.MDdirect.org/blog

 

Who does you work when you call in sick? More in this week's web rant.

Thanks for reading.

Ben

 

Imagine what you couldn't do if your hand went numb. Could you type at your keyboard, make a sandwich, get a key out to open your door. Brett Favre couldn't hold a football. More about why hands go numb and some anatomy behind it on the web.

Thanks for reading.

www.MDdirect.org/blog

Ben

 

Numbers matter in medicine but on occasion statistics make it hard to decide what to do. More on the web.

Thank you for reading the missives his past year. On average, more than 400 people a day read the web entries. It just goes to show that you can fool some of teh people some of the time.

Happy new year.

Ben

 

The new year often gives permission for people to change. It helps if it coincides with routine milestones. In football circles, the end of the NFL season and the myriad of college bowl games seem to offer opportunity to hire and fire coaches. Losing is not an acceptable option and heads often roll. We expect organizations to have leadership to take them in a positive direction, yet we often fail on a personal level to hire coaches that can guide us to a long and healthy lives. This week we get to visit about why family docs are important.

Thanks for reading.

www.MDdirect.org/blog

 

Watching sports on television can bring the experience of the game right into your living room. One of the dubious benefits is being able to watch injury replays and having the color commentator highlight the damage being done. Add a shot of the player suffering on the sideline withe the sideline reporter hovering nearby can turn viewer into voyeur. For the treating doc, there is benefit. The history of how the injury occurred can help make the diagnosis. History is key in patient care, whether it is chest pain from a tackle or from a heart attack. More on the web.

Thanks for reading.

www.MDdirect.org/blog

 

The snow is gently falling and it’s picturesque lookinh out into the Wisconsin winter. Fortunately, its warm inside as I write this. For those working outside, from mailmen to construction workers, bundling up to survive a day in the cold mans layers of insulated clothing. But every weekend, depending upon who is left standing in the NFL playoffs, we’re shown the spectacle of elite athetes pretending that playing in Chicago in January is the same as playing in Miami. Who is kidding who?

More about cold weather injuries in this week’s web entry. Thanks for reading and please feel free to pass this link to your friends (or enemies).

Ben

www.MDdirect.org/blog

 

Two athletes, two knees, two sports, two outcomes. If it were wide world of sports, Jay Cutler would embody the agony of defeat while Lindsey Vonn would rise in victory. More about their MCLs this week on the web. Thanks for reading.

www.MDdirect.org/blog

 

The throw away tag on the thirteen Iowa football players admitted to the hospital for rhabdomyolysis was that their charts had been inappropriately accessed. The electronic medical record may be inevitable but it makes victim the concept of medical privacy. It may be impossible to secure every person's chart, but if celebrities, VIPs and those in the news can have their records breached, then there is little hope for just regular folk.

More on this week's web note

www.MDdirect.org/blog

 

Having a useless ticket to the Super Bowl may be more than a little inconvenient, but what if you needed admission to the hospital and there was no bed available. Welcome to triage, ambulance diversion and ER boarding. And if you think it's bad in the US, just look what's going on north of the border...

www.MDdirect.org/blog