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Baby's Life Saved with Groundbreaking 3-D Printed Device that Restored His Breathing

A bioresorbable splint has been created and used for first time at the University of Michigan, where doctors implanted the device in an infant and stopped a life-threatening condition called tracheobronchomalacia.

This volumetric printing business is really starting to make some medical advances possible. Last time it was 3-D printed liver lobule, this time it is a tracheal splint to help a baby breathe. Science and technology are awesome.

Why Physicians Need to Write

I would argue that one cannot be a good doctor without being able to communicate one’s thoughts, knowledge, opinions, and analyses in writing.

I write for many reasons. One of them is to reflect on my day, to debrief on the moments that my colleagues and seniors impart on me. Another reason I continue to write is to keep the passion of medicine alive.

It is no secret that most of us lose our ability to empathize in third year, a year where we are exposed to the real world of medicine for the first time. We are young and impressionable and bad habits can quickly form if one is not careful. Our passion for medicine, as it turns out, is a fragile and easily corruptible entity; I try not to lose sight of that.

I write for these two reasons and many more personal ones as well. Why do you write?

The Biopsy: Medical School Essay Edits

I was recently contacted by Roheet from the Biopsy. A prospective medical student who has been maintaining a beautiful blog that reflects on the process of medicine in the digital age, he is offering to help anyone who is applying to medicine with reviewing their personal essays.

The deadline for submissions is May 20th, 2013. Submit here.

Many thanks to Roheet for his kindness and generosity in offering this service to other student hopefuls.

Harpoon Pierces Man's Skull in Cleaning Accident, Doesn't Damage Brain

Despite accidentally shooting himself in the face with a speargun last week, Bruno Barcellos de Souza Coutinho of Brazil will somehow manage to leave the hospital with his brain intact.

This man lost the vision in his left eye when the harpoon penetrated the eyeball but beyond that and a bit of “negligible brain trauma,” he is set to make a full recovery. And hopefully he has learned a valuable lesson:

Make sure that a weapon is not loaded before you proceed to cleaning it.

This has been a public safety announcement.

The Impossible Workload for Doctors in Training

I remember reading about these new regulations when I was in first year. It was all that everyone could talk about: the days will be better.

Being exposed to clinical teaching this year, I can tell you that this restriction often times exists as a formality on paper only. By mandate of the university, we are only supposed to work up sixteen hours excluding call shifts. At that point, we are mandated to work only until handover and latest until noon.

I can count on one hand how often I have gone by the rules. I have almost always worked the whole day following call. Thirty-plus-hour days are not uncommon. Partly, the issue is one of manpower to meet the requirements and objectives of a day; partly, it is still the expectation of the team that you do not clock out until the job is done.

Is restricting the hours the solution? It would appear not. However, we struggle to find the answer. No one denies that it is unhealthy and the outcomes suffer, but simply restricting hours is most definitely not the solution. 

I Do Not Fear Death by Roger Ebert

“I will pass away sooner than most people who read this, but that doesn’t shake my sense of wonder and joy.”

The essay is from Roger Ebert’s Life Itself: A Memoir and was published to Salon as a memorial of sorts for a recently deceased critic and friend. It is a beautifully written essay about that final threshold to which we all find at the end of our days.

Visualizing Birth and Death

Hospitals are the crossroads to life and death.

In three short months, I have seen my share of new lives start on this earth and seen a few of the patients I have worked with pass into memory. The cycle of life is conveyed through these two intertwined moments. Enter stage left. Exit stage right. 

The following link simulates the births and deaths in the United States in real time. Where one life ends, another begins.

Beautiful Cervix Project

One of the residents I did call with told me about this website she had come across that might be of use to me, given my string of patient refusals. The Beautiful Cervix Project describes itself as a grassroots movement celebrating the beauty and intricacies of women’s bodies and fertility.

The centrepiece of the website, that which the resident thought I could use as a resource was the gallery, a small collection of both normal and abnormal cervixes on speculum exam. (Not safe for work)

For the female readers of this blog who might be curious or interested in what it is that we inspect and examine during these exams, you might learn from this website as well. 

Or maybe it is just too much information.

Becoming a Physician

For many students, finding the right specialty for themselves is a nebulous process. The direction one’s career takes slowly crystallizes in third and fourth year of medical school. It is during this time period that students are exposed to every major specialty and differentiate into their areas of interest.

In a previous post, I wrote about a Canadian guide to residency programs. While it is a good primer for medical students edging closer to graduation, it serves little practical purpose for the outside.

For the prospective medical student, here is a guide to 35 different medical specialties created by the Canadian Medical Association. Follow the link for more details.

Life, Interrupted: Five Days of Chemo

“Every month, I go to the hospital to receive outpatient chemotherapy injections for five days in a row. My doctors say this will be my routine for the next year.”

I remember when my father underwent chemotherapy. “Experimental combination,” the oncologist would say. The cancer was aggressive and advanced. A standard treatment protocol was out of consideration. There was not much they could do about his mets, but they were hopeful that chemo would prolong his life beyond the months they could foresee. 

Sadly, that never came to pass, but what did pass was the terrible after effects of chemotherapy. My father was a strong man, and even in his last days following chemo, the misery of it was plainly obvious. It is such a strange and horrible dilemma to suffer at the hands of either cancer unchecked or of the potent and toxic chemo.

To not have undergone chemo would have most likely made his last days easier, but then again, at that point, we were willing to take any chance.

Follow the link to read the first person account of Suleika Jaouad as she writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer in the series: Life, Interrupted.