Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of mortality in the United States and represents over half of trauma related deaths.
Interesting things going on out there, aren't they? Town meeting riots, "death panels," trillion-dollar budgets, "evil businesses." As a clinician, a business owner, and a health care consumer (I broke my foot skydiving a few weeks ago), I've got to tell you: I am OK with the system as it is . . . almost.
The outbreak of a novel H1N1 virus in the spring was a colossal pandemic preparedness drill for a future virus or for a stronger resurgence of the strain this fall.
A new report and review of the literature comes from Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston of a 77-year-old Native American with follicular thyroid cancer post-radiation that spread to his hip, resulting in metastatic disease. He developed septic shock and necrotizing fasciitis of both thighs.
Physicians in the developed parts of the world have an unrealistic expectation that when they order a patient's specimen to be sent to the microbiology laboratory for culture that the results they receive in the laboratory's report are always reliable and can be used to initiate or modify the patient's therapeutic regimen.
