Foreign Body to the Face and Facial Laceration Repair
Part 1 in a Series
Wound care and suture repair are two of the most frequently encountered issues in the emergency department. It is the midlevel provider’s job to be familiar with proper wound care and suturing techniques as well as quick and safe treatment of soft tissue skin injuries. You can use various suturing techniques and styles, but it is important to find a few that really work for you, often tailored to the area of injury.
This month, we are focusing on lacerations and puncture wounds to the soft tissue of the face. Future posts will touch on other suturing skills, with some great tips from our plastic surge...
Source: The Procedural Pause - January 31, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Results of the Survey on Who Are the Mentally Ill?
Thank you to everyone who participated!The survey was published on Shrink Rap from December 10, 2013 - December 22, 2013.Respondents were solicited through social media, including blogs, listservs, Facebook, and Twitter. Respondents were not limited to the United States. Please note that the survey was not validated. The data below was pasted directly from the Google "Summary of Responses" with no analysis or interpretation.SummaryAnyone who has seen a therapist is mentally illTrue172%False67698%Anyone who has been in psychotherapy with a psychiatrist is mentally illTrue619%False63091%Anyone who take...
Source: Shrink Rap - January 2, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs
Merck's Drug Development in The New Yorker
The New Yorker has an article about Merck's discovery and development of suvorexant, their orexin inhibitor for insomnia. It also goes into the (not completely reassuring) history of zolpidem (known under the brand name of Ambien), which is the main (and generic) competitor for any new sleep drug.
The piece is pretty accurate about drug research, I have to say:
John Renger, the Merck neuroscientist, has a homemade, mocked-up advertisement for suvorexant pinned to the wall outside his ground-floor office, on a Merck campus in West Point, Pennsylvania. A woman in a darkened room looks unhappily at an alarm clock. It’s 4 ...
Source: In the Pipeline - December 3, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Drug Development Source Type: blogs
Hearing Voices? It’s OK, It’s Part Of Who We Are
In my 30′s my life was turned upside down by a huge psychotic breakdown. I was terrorised by auditory and visual hallucinations. The voices I heard provided a relentless commentary on what was happening in my mind. I link my psychotic episode to traumatic events during my dysfunctional childhood and first, abusive marriage. I am in no doubt about this and challenge those who say “it would have happened anyway” because in no way was it biological in origin. I first heard voices at 14, just after the death of my grandmother. I was anxious and depressed and my parents took me, without telling me,...
Source: Dawn Willis sharing the News and Views of the Mentally Wealthy - November 27, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Authors: judithhaire Tags: *Special Guest Writers* Hallucination Hearing Voices Movement Member of Parliament Mental disorder National Health Service NHS Psychosis Rufus May Source Type: blogs
It Is Interesting To See An Editorial In The SMH Pointing Out E-Health Failure On Mr Abbott’s Part.
This editorial appeared last week in the Sydney Morning Herald.Electronic health records will make it easier to save a lifeDate November 11, 2013 EDITORIALHow could 22 doctors overlook the signs that one man was suffering from a serious drug addiction? Nathan Attard, 34, died alone, in an apartment infested with stray animals and filled with rubbish and drug paraphernalia, a Sydney coroner's court has heard. Doctors had prescribed him an array of medication including Xanax, morphine, Seroquel and Valium.After the conclusion of the inquest into Attard's death, Deputy State Coroner Carmel Forbes is expected to recommend a st...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - November 19, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Dr David More MB PhD FACHI Source Type: blogs
Medical Mispronunciations and Misspelled Words: The Definitive List.
Hearing medical mispronunciations and seeing misspelled words are an under appreciated joy of working in healthcare. Physicians often forget just how alien the language of medicine is to people who don't live it everyday. The best part about being a physician is not helping people recover from critical illness. The best part is not about listening and understanding with compassion and empathy. Nope, the best part about being a physician is hearing patients and other healthcare providers butcher the language of medicine and experiencing great entertainment in the process. Doctors c...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - October 2, 2013 Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Authors: Tamer Mahrous Source Type: blogs
Longing for Normalcy…
“Hey Dad?” I asked this afternoon. “What pills am I taking these days?” I should be more proactive about this. My father usually gives me a handful of pills to take and I down them with a gulp of soda without even looking at them. Dad apprehensively let me look at all the medications I am taking. Nothing seemed amiss. One thing I noticed was that I am taking four .05mg Klonopin every night and that sure will keep you sleepy. Klonopin is in the same family of drugs as Valium and Xanax. The “pams”. “What’s wrong?” my father asked warily. “I just feel so sleepy all the time. It must be the Risperdal...
Source: The 4th Avenue Blues - September 29, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Andrew Quixote Source Type: blogs
Go Water Your Eggs or Something
Monday - Entry 36:Not sure where to begin. Let’s try this: And then I was depressed.There. I can work with a beginning like that. It’s spells out the problem and hints that something happened before I made my realization.This day has been a hard one to get through. The sickness lingers, sapping me of energy & strength. Each cough is a gagging experience. My lungs burn. My head throbs. I’ve been sick like this since August 21st. I know. I know. I promised not to count the days. I haven’t. I just remember acutely the day my life ended. You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t consider lying on the couch being produ...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - September 24, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Tags: Journaling Writing Depression Therapizing Source Type: blogs
What If It’s Alzheimer’s? Four Critical Questions
No one wants to have a loved one diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. There’s nothing more painful and chilling than learning your loved one has dementia.
By Marie Marley
+Alzheimer's Reading Room
More than five million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer’s disease. It takes an average of 30 months from the time family members notice the first symptoms of dementia until the person is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
There are several reasons for this, but one of the principal ones is that family members hesitate to take their loved one to a doctor, fearing that the diagnosis will in fact turn o...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - July 17, 2013 Category: Dementia Authors: Bob DeMarco Source Type: blogs
Brain makes its own version of Valium
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found that a naturally occurring protein secreted only in discrete areas of the mammalian brain may act as a Valium-like brake on certain types of epileptic seizures. The protein is known as diazepam binding inhibitor, or DBI. It calms the rhythms of a key brain circuit […] (Source: Biosingularity)
Source: Biosingularity - June 6, 2013 Category: Research Authors: Derya Tags: Biotechnology Source Type: blogs
Revealed Government Documents Show Vaccine Injured Children in Small African Village Used Like Lab Rats
Conclusion
The parents’ requests are simple and the same as any other parent left in this impossible situation. They feel deserted and betrayed by the Chadian government, who have left their children to die, while at the same time announcing the vaccination program to be a success. All the parents are very angry and are pleading with the world to help. They state they need lawyers, doctors, medication and above all, support.
This whole debacle has been a coverup from the very beginning. One of the children’s relatives has told me that there has never been a case of meningitis in this part of Africa. So, why vaccina...
Source: vactruth.com - May 19, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Christina England Tags: Christina England Top Stories Adverse Reaction MenAfriVac Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP) PATH United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) World Health Organization (WHO) Source Type: blogs
Orexin and Insomnia
If Valium makes you groggy, and Ambien makes you sleepwalk…
A compound that blocks a brain receptor you probably have never heard of may hold the key to the next generation of sleeping pills—and there is always a next generation of sleeping pills.
A new class of hypnotic compounds that serve as antagonists for the neurotransmitter orexin may combat insomnia without the “confusional arousals” that have come to plague some users of zolpidem, otherwise known as Ambien. Sleepwalking, sleep driving, and sleep sex are common among the reports. Orexin is involved in central nervous system arousal. So-called DORAs, or...
Source: Addiction Inbox - May 7, 2013 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs
Happy Fiftieth Birthday Valium - by Will Nicholl
A recent report published by the charity MIND – which paints a troubling, and important portrait of Britons driven to alcohol, cigarettes and prescription medication to differing extents by the stress of working-life – makes it a prescient moment to cast the mind back to a series of very strange goings-on.
The time was the late 1950s, the place a hospital canteen in the North of England. Perhaps pickings in that week’s British Medical Journal had been lean – or patients that day exasperating – because the topic of conversation was a newspaper article about a Swiss circus-master who had found a drug to calm his t...
Source: PharmaGossip - May 5, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
Which Prescription Drugs Do Americans Abuse Most?
By: Laura Sciuto
According to a 2010 study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, approximately 7 million people in the United States -- or 2.7 percent of the population -- annually abuse prescription drugs. This abuse primarily occurs when people take medication not prescribed to them or take their own prescription drugs at a higher dosage than recommended by their doctor.
The most commonly abused prescription drugs fall into three categories: Opioids (pain relievers), depressants and stimulants. Below is a breakdown of each category, compiled using the latest statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse:
O...
Source: PharmaGossip - May 3, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
