Posts tagged news
Acquisition.
I do not usually make posts too far beyond the lens of medicine but there is enough anxiety in the air that I thought I should make an address regarding this.
As has been hovering in the ether recently and officially announced this morning, Tumblr, the service from which this blog is run, has been acquired by Yahoo!. This has caused quite an uproar in the social media community.
For readers who may not be aware, Yahoo! had made many acquisitions in the past that have since fallen out of relevance due to some poor planning and decision-making. The most prominent of these was Flickr, one of the original social media success stories.
Marissa Mayer, the current CEO of Yahoo!, is well aware of this history and has made the promise not to “screw it up.” Some people have remained skeptical; even as this morning’s news circulates, Wordpress has noted a spike in blog transfers from Tumblr.
But what does this mean for the Medical State of Mind?
For me and this blog, it will be business as usual. The Medical State of Mind is here to stay at its current location and on your dashboards for the foreseeable future.
When I first joined Tumblr three years ago, I was attracted to the culture, the ease of use, and the people. These have not changed and neither will this blog. While I too have some reservations about this acquisition, I am keeping an open mind and put my trust in the progressive, forward thinking vision that both Tumblr CEO David Karp and Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer have for their respective companies.
Onward,
Tom of the Medical State of Mind
Read more: Tumblr’s response. Yahoo!’s response.
Trend of Drug Overdoses in the United States.
While the interpretation of the data is somewhat imprecise and makes many assumptions and condensations, it is still shows a very concerning trend.
Of course, prescribed medications plays a large part of this picture. As my attendings often say: “we, as healthcare providers, are the single largest supplier of medications, appropriately used and abused.”
Most of those within the pharmaceuticals category had unknown intent but a strikingly large number exacted unintentional self-harm. This is from such issues as drug interactions, improper dosing, improper medications et cetera. Death in this portion, perhaps greater than any other category here, is an avoidable outcome.
What can we do as a health care system to curb this growing trend in prescribed pharmaceuticals? Is it a simple matter of education and systematic checks or can we do more? Discuss below.
3D Printer Makes World’s Smallest Human ‘Livers.’
3D printing technology just keeps getting better and better. This time, scientists at Organovo in San Diego were able to create a 3D printer that prints using liver cells. Layering these cells into a histologically correct lattice, the team plans to model disease processes and medication effects more accurately.
The plan is to eventually be able to print fully functional human livers that are viable for transplantation.
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.
First “Warmed Liver” Transplant Takes Place in London via OrganOx.
The concept is simple: preserve the function of transplant organs after they are removed from a donor’s body.
The solution: keep the organs functioning as close to physiological conditions as possible.
The challenge: making the solution a reality.
The dynamic duo who made this happen, an engineer and surgeon spent 15 years creating the technologies necessary to get this to work and it would appear that the very first “warm” organ transplant is recovering well. The future outlook of this concept is encouraging.
This is another victory for innovation, science, and medicine.
A High-Resolution Endoscope as Thin as a Human Hair
Engineers at Stanford have developed a prototype single-fiber endoscope that improves the resolution of these much-sought-after instruments fourfold over existing designs. The advance could lead to an era of needle-thin, minimally invasive endoscopes able to view features out of reach of today’s instruments.
Foreign Body Rectal Obstruction.
I looked the woman at the ER desk dead in the eye and said, “There is no other way to put this. I have a vibrating dildo inside my ass.”
And so began a terribly tale of a man going to the hospital to remove this object. Sparing no expense, the man tweets his predicament live to the world.
Four people tried to listen to my chest with a stethoscope. “Wait what’s that sound?” “I-it’s still on.”
A Girl Dying from Leukaemia Saved Using Altered T-Cells
Now this is very impressive.
Last summer, Emma, then six was near death from chemo-resistant leukaemia but is now in remission thanks to an experimental cancer treatment method developed by the University of Pennsylvania.
Doctors remove millions of Emma’s T-cells, and inserted new genes that enabled them to combat cancer cells. The kicker is that it involved using disabled HIV virions to deliver the genetic material. HIV particles are excellent genetic vectors and already have specificity towards T-cells. The new genes program the T-cells to attack B-cells.
The treatment very nearly killed her but she has emerged cancer free and still in complete remission.
This is very exciting stuff but make no mistake this is no end-all-be-all. Emma might have done extremely well with her treatment but the experiment has had its share of mixed results. Despite this, the researchers involved and the experts of the field think this approach has tremendous promise.
Cyborg Tissue Monitors Cells
Researchers at Harvard University have constructed a material that merges nanoscale electronics with biological tissues—a literal mesh of transistors and cells. The meshwork, acting as a scaffolding to facilitate improved cell growth, also acts as a monitoring system. Possible applications include monitoring localized pH and pharmacotherapy efficacy.
First it was “smart” sutures and now this. Where will nanotechnology take us next?
Iron Bar Removed from Builder's Head
Eduardo Leite, a 24-year-old construction worker was hit with an iron bar that fell from the fifth floor. The iron bar impaled his hard hat near the vertex of his skull and exited between his eyes. The iron bar has since been removed by the surgical team.
The report from the neurosurgeon suggests that the bar penetrated a part of the brain with no specific, major known function. However, it remains to be seen what, if any, damages will manifest themselves in this modern day Phineas Gauge incident until after he has had time to recover.
- Page 1 of 15
- Next »
