Her hands and feet amputated, a Brazilian model dies from Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis. What happened?

Mariana Bridi da Costa, a 20-year old Brazilian model, tragically died early Saturday morning from Pseudomonas aeruginosa urosepsis.

How can this happen?

Miss Bridi da Costa initially presented on December 30th, and was diagnosed with kidney stones. An ultrasound, plain film, or CT scan likely would have been done to confirm the diagnosis. I assume that a urinalysis was also performed, and if …

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Her hands and feet amputated, a Brazilian model dies from Pseudomonas aeruginosa sepsis. What happened?

Op-ed: Medicare’s mistake

The following op-ed was published on January 14th, 2009 in the USA Today.

Every patient’s worst nightmare is going to the hospital for a procedure only to have a surgical instrument left in his body, the wrong limb or organ operated on or, worse, dying from a medical mistake. These types of mistakes should never happen.

So when Medicare recently instituted a plan to deny hospital payments for …

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Op-ed: Medicare’s mistake

Jett Travolta’s seizure and death, was Scientology a factor?

Jett Travolta tragically passed away yesterday, after being found unconscious in his hotel room by his caretaker. There is speculation that he had a seizure and hit his head on a bathtub.

Travolta apparently had a long history of medical problems, including Kawasaki disease, which is a vasculitis that primarily affects children. It is one of the most common causes of acquired heart disease in children, and …

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Jett Travolta’s seizure and death, was Scientology a factor?

Why too many CT and MRI scans can be dangerous for patients

This is an important article to read.

Many of the incentives today encourage doctors to order more advanced imaging scans, like CTs and MRIs. This expensive practice is invariably caused by this common scenario, as “patients who are in pain often demand scans hoping to find out what is wrong, doctors are tempted to offer scans to those patients, and then, once a scan is done, it …

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Why too many CT and MRI scans can be dangerous for patients

Is there a place for a part-time medical residency?

Doctors in training often do so in their prime family-rearing years.

A few pediatric residencies are offering part-time residency options, designed for those who also want to raise their own families. Proponents argue that residents can not only get more rest, but also avoid depression, which affected almost a quarter of pediatrics residents.

Combined with the talk of further limiting work hours down to 56 …

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Is there a place for a part-time medical residency?

Sharpie for surgery

Surgeons use markers to identify the right body part for procedures. Unfortunately, they care become contaminated with bacteria which can lead to surgical site infections.

Enter the Sharpie: “As it turns out, the ink used in a Sharpie pen has an alcohol base, making it an unexpected germ fighter.”

Who knew? The Sharpie is probably also many times cheaper than the single-use “sterile” pen used …

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Sharpie for surgery

Are MRI results accurate?

Most physicians and patients think that the MRI scan is one of the more sensitive and comprehensive diagnostic tests.

However, there is significant variability in reading and performing the scans, which makes having it done at a reputable institution more imperative:

Magnetic resonance machines, though, vary enormously, and not just in the strength of their magnets. Even more important, radiologists say, is the quality of the imaging …

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Are MRI results accurate?

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Abortion by massage

Disturbing:

The petite 44-year old, who declined to give her last name, paid 150 pesos ($3) for a hilot, or traditional midwife like Minda, to crush her three-month old fetus using rough strokes and pincer-like grips on her belly.

The procedure, which can also involve pounding the lower abdomen to trigger a miscarriage, is called a massage.

(via Healthbolt)

Abortion by massage

What killed Beethoven?

Lead poisoning is the common answer. However, new analysis (found in the Beethoven Journal – which I never knew existed) sheds new light:

Christian Reiter has conducted months of painstaking work applying CSI-like methods to strands of Beethoven’s hair.

He says his analysis, published last week in the Beethoven Journal, found that in the final months of the composer’s life, lead concentrations in his body spiked …

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What killed Beethoven?

Cafepharma.com

The NY Times with a profile. Unsurprisingly, they lack corporate support:

Not surprisingly, Cafepharma lacks corporate fans.

Pfizer, the subject of the site’s most popular bulletin board, declined repeated requests to discuss Cafepharma. Shreya Prudlo, a spokeswoman, said that Pfizer monitored every “communication channel” that reached its constituency, and that each needed to be “viewed based on their accuracy and integrity.”

Medtronic, which has the busiest Cafepharma …

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Cafepharma.com

Death by Bengay

Overuse of muscle cream lead to this teen’s death:

A medical examiner blamed a 17-year-old track star’s death on the use of too much muscle cream, the kind used to soothe aching legs after exercise.

Arielle Newman, a cross-country runner at Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island, died after her body absorbed high levels of methyl salicylate, an anti-inflammatory found in sports creams such as Bengay and Icy Hot, …

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Death by Bengay

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