This week’s blog is by a friend and colleague Dr. Ed Bender. Ed is a cardiothoracic surgeon who is affiliated with Stanford and practices in the Bay area. He is a pioneer in the development and use of Smartphone Apps for surgeons. Using Smartphone Apps in a Daily Medical Read More
Author: alexlittle@att.net
Politics get in the way. Hospitals that have medical residency training programs (this includes trainees in internal medicine, surgery, and all other specialties) are responsible for paying the salary and benefits of their residents. In turn the hospitals bill and are reimbursed by Medicare which is where the government housed Read More
The surgeon’s dilemma. An unescapable result of any invasive operation, certainly the chest surgery I performed for several decades, is pain. Patients hurt…a lot. My patients needed, actually required, narcotics/opioids (opioids are narcotics) for their pain. If the pain was insufficiently treated they not only suffered but were unable Read More
Escape from the heat. Tucson really heats up this time of the year. Except for the days when the monsoon rains provide some relief (and unusual humidity) the daily high temperature is routinely between 100° and 110°. To get a break from the unrelenting heat my wife and I headed Read More
It’s all good. I don’t venture to pretend that retirement is the same for everyone. I am aware that for some, retirement implies the loss of meaningful life and a boring, empty existence. Not for me. My wife and I are now eight years into retirement and life is truly Read More
Air in the chest. The lungs completely fill the thoracic cavity (the inside of the chest) as we breath in and out. During the normal respiratory cycle the chest enlarges as chest wall muscles draw it out and the diaphragm descends. This creates negative pressure which expands the compliant lungs. Read More
It’s alive. Many harbor the belief that the desert is bereft of life; it’s just cacti and the occasional bug. Not so at all. My wife and I live in the middle of the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona and we have found that to be far from accurate. The Read More
They live among us. My talented wife Louise has been making glass beads and jewelry for a couple of decades. I don’t mean she purchases components from others and puts them together. She does it all from scratch. She makes the beads in her studio by hunkering over a hot Read More
Medical schools provide safety nets. The safety net idea is to “catch” patients that fall through the system that catches and cares for the insured. Those that slip through are uninsured or have insurance that is insufficient to give them a foothold in the world of for profit hospitals and Read More
Pus in the chest. Any fluid accumulation in the chest but outside the lung, between the two pleural surfaces, constitutes a pleural effusion. My previous blog addressed malignant ones. An infected effusion is called empyema. The most frequent cause is pneumonia. Uninfected effusions frequently accompany pneumonia but occasionally they are Read More
