Contrast

What he does...

What I do...

?! #492

I was reading a NYT article on hospital compliance with hand-washing when I came across this gem of a comment:

"I'm confused. I thought the only way hand washing would kill bacteria is if the water was boiling hot."

Um, have you heard of SOAP?

you know you're in medicine when #253

You're watching a television show and during a scene in which a character is getting blood drawn you look at the syringe and remark "that's not what blood looks like."

take it where you find it

Is it sad that I feel validated when I correctly diagnose tv characters before the tv doctors?

Medical funfact #249

We use protamine sulfate to reverse the effects of the blood thinner heparin. One potential side effect exists for males who have undergone vasectomy...

Protamine is made from salmon sperm. Usually, the (human) testicles reside across a special barrier from the rest of the body, much like the brain. If this barrier was damaged during a vasectomy, some of the protamine could cross it. The human immune system would then mount an allergic reaction to the non-human sperm proteins.

And for the beauty pageant contestants out there: no, protamine cannot get you pregnant.

them apples!

Is it just me, or have apples become ginormous?

LOL

LOL

hat tip: geekinheels blog.

And now for something completely different

A little humour...

I find my white coat heavy and it contains: a pager, tiny notebook, pens, penlight, reflex hammer, pocket medicine book, alcohol swabs, my cellphone and a near card. That's light compared to.... The Mr. Always Prepared For Everything Guy. And yes, these students really do exist.

Who knew?

The reservoir for leprosy in the USA is armadillos.

Scorpion stings can cause acute pancreatitis.

Pearls of wisdom

Recent quotes from lecture:

"Our country handles schizoid personalities very well. That's why we have software engineers, pathologists and Montana." -Dr. J

"Biopsying an aneurysm is not a successful procedure." -Dr. G

"If someone's head is cut completely off, that's not an emergency - that's a tragedy." - Dr. G

You know you're a med student when...

You realise you washed suture with your white coat.

AND you're excited it's still in tact so you can practice.

My competitive nature

I felt a certain pressure to match last year's pumpkin. I fear I did not manage it.

Last year:













This year:

Oops

I'm pretty sure I just heard Chase, on the show House, order Streptokinase and heparin. That would be a no-no. You can use tPa with heparin, but not streptokinase.

The environment of medicine is all wrong on the show, but usually the medicine (diagnostically) is accurate. Where was your physician-fact checker? Tsk tsk. I'm disappointed.

Words medical school taught me to spell:

abscess
arrhythmia
component
dilated
epididymis
etiology
exercise
fourchette
gynecomastia
immunoflorescence
staphylococcus
wenckebach

Acute hepatic congestion or nutmeg?

Liver or pumpkin pie?

Finally watching tv

Old woman to doc: Dr, When I arrived at the hospital I had one leg and now I have two!
Doc: Well, there is a war on, is it possible you miscounted?

-Dr. Who [episode 10 season 1]

Watch where you're mowing

We recently had a lecture on bioterrorism within our infectious diseases sequence. One of the potential diseases that could be used as a weapon is Tularemia, a not-too-deadily infection caused by Francisella tularensis. It has a low infective dose, does not spread human-human, but you would feel like crap for a while. The Soviets were accused of using it and the US even researched its use as a weapon in the '50s.

Anyway, what I think is much more interesting is the outbreak that occurred in Martha's Vineyard in 2000. The CDC documented cases of people getting sick from lawn-mowing. Apparently, they mowed over nests of infected rabbits, aerosolizing the infected rabbits and inhaling the bug. That's right. The people of Martha's vineyard got sick from aerosolized bunnies.

It was then published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1233993