Archive for May, 2006

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Tattoos

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If your body is covered in tattoos I am going to have very little sympathy for you when I give you an injection of local anesthetic. If you then complain about how much it hurts I just plain old don’t know what to think. If in the course of me fixing your small finger laceration […]


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Meet the Country’s Next Serial Killer

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One of the red flags for anti social behavior including murder, mayhem, basically anything bad you can think of is animal abuse. Also, a history of sexual abuse is a red flag. I think I just met Lucifer.
Brought to me by the local police tonight was a young man who has been bounced around from […]


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Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori

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I had the privelege of attending a memorial service on base today for some of our country’s finest warriors who were killed in action. I couldn’t help but think of the anti-war poem that I studied in 8th grade English- click the above title to read it. I don’t enjoy death or war but I’m […]


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Crystal

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At four in the morning I met a patient with stab wounds to his left arm and axilla (armpit). They were mostly superficial but the one on the posterior aspect of his axilla was well into the fat and needed deep sutures. Also, one of the superficial lacerations on his arm went right through a […]


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Skinny

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One night at our city hospital a scrawny, hippie-looking dude was brought in by police. He was about twenty years old. He was cuffed to the gurney. It was, perhaps, 20 degrees outside, and the streets were covered with snow and ice. I have no idea what this guy was arrested for, but he didn’t […]


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The JCAHO Shakedown

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JCAHO (commonly referred to as ‘JAY-CO’) is an onganization that has us by the short hairs. It is a prime example of good intentions evolving into micromanagement and unintended consequences. I could take the time to educate myself about the organization that has it’s nose in every hospital nook and cranny across the fruited plain […]


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Know What I’m Sayin’?

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There is no “know what I’m sayin’?” better way, “know what I’m sayin’?”, to make me think you are an idiot, “know what I’m sayin’?”, than to answer “know what I’m sayin’?”, to every question I ask you, “know what I’m sayin’?”.
Visit our home site here.


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I’ll Never Know

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Emergency Physicians are sometimes derided as ”cookbook” doctors unable to think much beyond the ”ABC‘’s (airway, breathing, and circulation). This is the order in which we address a critical patient… We secure the airway, then check and remedy any breathing problems, and then address circulatory inadequacies or problems.
There’s truth to this “cookbook” criticism. We all […]


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One’s Mind Wanders

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A man died on the surgical floor the other day. I took the call to run the code and it went on and on and on. We did not succeed in resuscitating him.
During the code we went through most of the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) algorithms but to no avail. We performed CPR for […]