Thought experiment: Would therapists be out of a job if we could “ fix ” persistent pain?
Every few years someone, somewhere, announces that “it won’t be long before we have a treatment to rid the world of persistent pain.” And there’s a hiss and roar to celebrate this momentous finding, and much ado about how wonderful it will be. I’m still waiting. BUT I thought it might be an interesting thought experiment to wonder what might happen if a “cure” was available for fibromyalgia. As readers will know, I have lived with what eventually was named “fibromyalgia” since my early 20’s, and probably longer. I’ve dabbled in various treatments ove...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - October 10, 2021 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Chronic pain Pain conditions Professional topics Research Science in practice biopsychosocial pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs

poem
Op Note IIThe patient was wheeled in.  We did a safety time-out.  As part of the new process, everyone needed to account for themselves.  We all needed to be known.  The anesthesiologist was a pompous genius. When he was 13 he had elucidated the basic mathematical conceits of Boyle ’s law before he’d ever heard of it.  When he found out his discovery had already been made, that it would always be Boyle ’s Law and not a law named after him, he retreated from scientific inquiry and spent his free time compiling lists of objectionable traits in all the souls he encountered in preparation for a d...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - October 9, 2021 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs

Scientist Studies Burn Therapies After Being Severely Burned as a Child
“If I was going to do science, I wanted it to help people,” says Julia Bohannon, Ph.D., an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Julia Bohannon. Credit: Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Bohannon researches therapies that could help prevent infections in patients with severe burn injuries. Infections are common in these patients because burn injuries typically suppress the immune system. Dr. Bohannon originally planned to become a burn surgeon, inspired by the doctor who treated her after she was severely burned as a child. But during h...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - October 6, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Injury and Illness Burns Profiles Source Type: blogs

Respected valued retained: working together to improve retention in anaesthesia
This report finds that up to one million operations may be delayed every year because of a shortage of 1,400 anaesthetists – and concludes that the situation will get worse, as one in four working anaesthetists plans to leave the NHS in the next five years. It suggests that working patterns should be adjusted to accommodate the changes of ageing and that adjustments should be made to pension and tax arrangements to ad dress the financial pressures that force doctors to retire.ReportRoyal College of Anaesthetists - news (Source: Health Management Specialist Library)
Source: Health Management Specialist Library - October 6, 2021 Category: UK Health Authors: The King ' s Fund Library Tags: Workforce and employment Source Type: blogs

Pain – or pain-related disability?
I’m struck at how often clinicians focus on pain intensity when how much pain intrudes on life matters more. I wonder whether new therapists might not have read some of the old studies looking at the relationship between pain intensity and disability – because while there is a relationship there, it’s not nearly as strong as we might think. Let’s define a couple of terms first: pain is, I think most of us can agree, “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage”. (click for full definition and not...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - October 3, 2021 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Trauma from my first anesthesia job
I still have a little mental trauma from my first anesthesia job. Well, actually, it’s really from the hospital. And it all occurred over a four-year period. The anesthesia group was awesome. The OR staff was like family. The patients and surgeries were challenging. It was a great first job to take out of training.Read more …Trauma from my first anesthesia job originally appeared inKevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 29, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/patrick-flaherty" rel="tag" > Patrick Flaherty, CAA < /a > < /span > Tags: Policy Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs

One plus one may not always equal two
If it hurts – take notice, and avoid it. Learn from it. If there are other people around, make sure your behaviour is noticeable so they take care of you and don’t do what you just did. If they look after you, you’ll probably do the same thing again when you hurt, if they don’t you probably won’t. This is one description of pain behaviour and how it works. It’s the only part of our pain experience that we can share directly with one another (actions and words). The “doing” part is also the part that is most affected by pain – even distress is signalled to others ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 26, 2021 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Uncategorized Chronic pain Clinical reasoning pain management Research Source Type: blogs

It ’s time to redesign anesthesia care delivery
As we orient our brand-new, fresh-faced CA-1 residents to the operating room each year, I ask this question. Has anyone explained to them that much of what they ’ll need to learn in the first couple of months is how to be a nurse? We watch them struggle to draw up propofol into a syringe withoutRead more …It ’s time to redesign anesthesia care delivery originally appeared inKevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - September 26, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/karen-s-sibert" rel="tag" > Karen S. Sibert, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Physician Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs

Science Snippet: Brush Up on Biofilms
A biofilm is a highly organized community of microorganisms that develops naturally on certain surfaces. Typically, biofilms are made up of microbes and an extracellular matrix that they produce. This matrix can include polysaccharides (chains of sugars), proteins, lipids, DNA, and other molecules. The matrix gives the biofilm structure and helps it stick to a surface. Formation of a biofilm often involves a process called quorum sensing. In this process, microbes detect when they reach a certain population density and change their behavior in ways that help them function as a community. Biofilms are common and h...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - September 22, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Injury and Illness Bacteria Biofilms Microbes Source Type: blogs

What Gets You Down?
Sometimes external forces can induce depression. They can induce panic. They can control how you see the world if you let them.I’ve got surgery coming up this week, so I’m getting my blogging in early. I want to work on my current novel when I start to come out of the anesthesia. We’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, I’m watching the crypto market implode …again.I decided to get into crypto last Spring —two days before China cracked down on Bitcoin miners and the Chinese banks that did business with them. I had only invested $10. It was play money, to be honest, but what a lesson that was fo...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 20, 2021 Category: Psychiatry Tags: Depression Goodreads Journaling Writing Source Type: blogs

“ Research says ” – and why lived experience matters
Discussion section? The only bits read by some people – if they go past the abstract? These sections are important, but not perhaps for the reasons you might think. When I first started reading research papers, I used to think the Background was intended to highlight an unanswered question, and the Discussion was to put the answer (from the Results) into context and to establish “where next”? And there’s truth to this perspective. But it’s a beginner’s look at research. It’s a start to understanding the context of a piece of investigation. Reading these sections does give an insigh...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 12, 2021 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 30th 2021
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter, please visit: https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/ Longevity Industry Consulting Services Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out mo...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 29, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Pregnancy in Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy : LSCS or vaginal delivery ?
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a specific genetic disorder of myocyte (myosin and others) within the sarcomere. Though uncommon in pregnancy it raises considerable anxiety to the patient, family, and the obstetrician.  Hemodynamics Though we tend to worry more about dynamic LVOT obstruction, it is actually the restrictive physiology of LV myocardium that might cause more concern. Three key variables operate in this entity namely preload, afterload, and contractility that determine the cardiac hemodynamics and possibly the symptoms. We know the classical consequence of pregnancy is a fall in systemic vascular resistance(...
Source: Dr.S.Venkatesan MD - August 27, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: dr s venkatesan Tags: Pregnancy and heart pregnancy and heart disease Uncategorized esc ropac zahara pregnancy heart disease complicating pregnancy indication for lscs in hcm hocm lscs or normal delivery in hocm hcm pregnancy in hocm pregnancy in hypertrophic c Source Type: blogs