Nurses, Nursing, and the Nature of Suffering
In the course of many nurses ' healthcare careers, witnessing the illness, suffering, and death of others is commonplace. From dialysis and med-surg to home health and the ICU, nurses create therapeutic relationships with patients and their families, providing spiritual and emotional comfort, compassion, and expert skilled care based on many decades of nursing science and evidence-based interventions.Aside from witnessing the challenges faced by others, nurses are themselves human beings with their own life experiences, victories, and suffering. How a nurse navigates their own personal suffering plays a role in determining...
Source: Digital Doorway - November 4, 2018 Category: Nursing Tags: healthcare nurse nurses nursing Source Type: blogs
How to become a diabetic
It’s so easy, anyone can do it!
Becoming a type 2 diabetic and proudly having to finger stick your way to blood sugar control is patriotic, as it builds revenues for Big Pharma and the healthcare industry. What better way to support your country than to help successful industries grow larger, increase shareholder value, and increase the salary and perks for hard working executives?
So if you want to join the growing ranks of people who are becoming diabetic, now the largest epidemic of chronic disease ever witnessed in the history of the world, here’s what you do:
Cut your fat intake — Because it leaves you ...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - October 23, 2018 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: News & Updates diabetes gluten gluten-free grain-free grains wheat belly Source Type: blogs
Unexpected Lessons Learned From the Wheat Belly Lifestyle
In the seven years since the original Wheat Belly book hit bookstores and turned the nutritional world topsy-turvy and millions of people have engaged in a grain-free lifestyle, many unique lessons have been learned.
Even though I had engaged the practices of this lifestyle for a number of years and in thousands of people before I broadcast these ideas through books, expanding the audience to many more people yielded feedback on an enormous scale, new lessons that even surprised me.
Among the new lessons learned along the way:
Plantar fasciitis—I did not expect to have so many people report that this painful condition t...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - October 17, 2018 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: News & Updates bowel flora gluten gluten-free grain-free grains Inflammation Weight Loss Source Type: blogs
Film Series: Watching Big Fish Next to My Mother in the Hospital
Now, this is an interesting coincidence, as I was watching “Big Fish” on Amazon Video whilst visiting my mother during her last week in this world. I was summoned to Portland by my physician brother who told me that my mother was dying. She had been ill and we expected her to pass a year ago, but she rallied and was discharged from hospice. But now, she was having another heart attack and we had decided that with her progressive dementia and renal failure, she would not undergo dialysis. We had this discussion with her before the first heart attack and she had agreed with the plan. ...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - October 9, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Practical Bioethics Tags: Health Care advance care planning advance directives end of life planning syndicated Source Type: blogs
It ’s the physician’s job to think of worst-case scenarios
I saw two patients with a chief complaint of bubbles in their urine this month.
One middle-aged woman had eaten some wild mushrooms she was pretty sure she had identified correctly, but once her urine turned bubbly a few days later, she came in to make sure her kidneys were OK.
Even though she was feeling quite well, they were not, and she ended up going straight to Cityside hospital for IV fluids, a kidney biopsy, and dialysis. We don’t know yet how much her kidney function will recover and we still don’t know if the mushrooms had anything to do with it.
I saw her in followup the other day, and she was taking everythi...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - October 3, 2018 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/a-country-doctor" rel="tag" > A Country Doctor, MD < /a > Tags: Conditions Nephrology Primary Care Source Type: blogs
Thromboresistant Hydrogel Materials for Venous Catheters: Interview with CEO of Access Vascular
Access Vascular, based in Massachusetts, has developed a peripherally inserted central venous catheter (PICC) composed of a thromboresistant hydrogel material. The catheter could reduce the incidence of catheter-related thrombi and resulting adverse events.
When a catheter encounters blood, blood cells and proteins begin to accumulate on its surface. The surface material of the catheter, along with its shape, has a significant effect on the speed and magnitude of this process. Catheter-related thrombi can result in a variety of serious complications, including pulmonary embolism, infections, loss of venous flow, deep vein ...
Source: Medgadget - October 2, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Anesthesiology Emergency Medicine Exclusive Materials Radiology Surgery Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs
Clinical Ethics and Inappropriate Care at ASBH 2018
In conclusion. patients assessed as receiving inappropriate critical care receive much burdensome and resource-intensive medical care, largely while non-alert, demonstrating the effects of mismatch between treatment and prognosis.
Creeping Noninterference-Focused Autonomy in Modern Medicine: How We Created and Continue to Feed the Problem of FutilityCatherine S. Heith, MD
The intersection of autonomy with modern-technologized and patient-satisfaction-driven medicine has had unexpected consequences. Although autonomy sprung from informed consent and the "right to die" movement, modern medicine, when paired with “ortho...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - September 29, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
A dialysis patient with nonspecific symptoms and pseudonormalization of ST segments
This study from Herzog et al (from our own Hennepin County Medical Center) included patients from a national registry and compared 3049 patients on dialysis admitted and eventually found to have acute MI compared with 534,395 patients not on dialysis admitted with an eventual diagnosis of acute MI. Of these groups, only 22% of dialysis patients had an admission diagnosis consistent with acute MI while 43.8% of nondialysis patients had the correct admission diagnosis of acute MI. Dialysis patients had double the rate of cardiac arrest (11% vs 5%), were less likely to receive reperfusion therapy when eligible (47% vs. ...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - September 29, 2018 Category: Cardiology Authors: Daniel Lee Source Type: blogs
About 1,100 Puerto Rican Deaths from Maria -- NOT 2,795 or 4,645
The estimated number of above-average “excess deaths” in Puerto Ricoattributedto Hurricane Maria (Sept 20, 2017) is a difficult figure to estimate objectively. Puerto Rico’s official figure of 64 deaths by December 9, 2017 (which the President remembered) counted only those deathsdirectlyattributed to the storm and confirmed by medical examiners. Most of thedirect deaths from Katrina were fromdrowning– which is much easier to attribute to the storm than many other causes of death. Studies of Puerto Rican deaths from Maria aspire to account for a wide range ofindirect effects that are presumed (not proven) to b...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 17, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Alan Reynolds Source Type: blogs
Healthy lifestyle can prevent diabetes (and even reverse it)
The rate of type 2 diabetes is increasing around the world. Type 2 diabetes is a major cause of vision loss and blindness, kidney failure requiring dialysis, heart attacks, strokes, amputations, infections and even early death. Over 80% of people with prediabetes (that is, high blood sugars with the high risk for developing full-blown diabetes) don’t know it. Heck, one in four people who have full-blown diabetes don’t know they have it! Research suggests that a healthy lifestyle can prevent diabetes from occurring in the first place and even reverse its progress.
Can a healthy diet and lifestyle prevent diabetes?
The D...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - September 5, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Monique Tello, MD, MPH Tags: Diabetes Diet and Weight Loss Food as medicine Healthy Eating Prevention Source Type: blogs
A Bayer of a Case
A 30-year-old woman was brought in by EMS tearful and reluctant to answer questions initially. Her mother was with her and stated that the patient had been depressed and may have taken some pills in a suicide attempt. Her initial vitals on presentation were a temperature of 99.1°F, heart rate of 128 bpm, blood pressure of132/92 mm Hg, and a respiratory rate of 26 bpm. She had clear lungs and sinus tachycardia on cardiac monitoring. She admitted to having taken "a lot" of aspirin.Initial LabsCBC: WBC of 14, hemoglobin of 14 g/dL, hematocrit of 42%, platelet count of 250,000BMP: Sodium of 132 mEq/L, pot...
Source: The Tox Cave - August 31, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
LITFL Review 345
Life in the Fast Lane • LITFL • Medical Blog Life in the Fast Lane • LITFL • Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog
Welcome to the 345th LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest and deliver a bite-sized chunk of FOAM.
The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week
From Australia’s SONO AUS 2018 conference back in February are half-hour presenta...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - August 27, 2018 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Marjorie Lazoff, MD Tags: Education LITFL review Source Type: blogs
Talking it Like it is: Advice from a HPM Fellow to all the New Interns
by Christine BridgesThe hallways are full again after a short June reprieve. Starched white coats, cleaner than it ever seemed possible bustle through the hallways, making up in speed what they lack in direction. They fill each space with eager anticipation. It is almost palpable. It is the scent of July. Each furtive glance at the clipboard in the elevator fills me with longing to tell them the advice I wish had been passed out with my first pager.The biggest challenge ahead of you will be communication. Over the next 3-7 years more often than relieving tension pneumothoraxes, performing thoracenteses, or placing art line...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - August 22, 2018 Category: Palliative Care Tags: bridges communication intern residency The profession Source Type: blogs
This Device Helps Improve Accuracy of Dialysis Catheter Placement
Patients on hemodialysis have to undergo vascular access procedures, typically arteriovenous fistulas or arteriovenous grafts. Some, though, are limited to tunneled cuffed catheters due to heart failure or poor cardiac reserve. Properly placing tunneled cuffed catheters can be challenging and failures can lead to serious complications such as clots and central vein thrombosis, in addition to having to repeat the placements.
At the Okayama University in Japan, clinical researchers have developed a tool that helps to accurately place dialysis catheters and avoid repeat procedures. This can reduce the burden on patients, low...
Source: Medgadget - August 15, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Radiology Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs
