As I am now working in a COVID vaccination clinic, my mind has been drifting to the pointy end of things of late. Today it suddely dawned on me: We are currently managing the Delta strain of COVID.The vaccine is given into the deltoid muscle of the upper arm. The deltoid muscle is named after […]
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In a short editorial article for the journal of wellness, Dr Anoop Kumar explores the topic of consciousness as it is generally held in the medical profession. That is… a product of the interactions of material elements ( eg neurons, the brain etc). Dr Anoop writes: At first glance, the assumption of the primacy of matter may […]
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Life was pretty tough for a junior nurse back in the day*: Military hospital, France 1945: the flatus nurse does her rounds. At precisely 7 AM each morning the flatus nurse would commence her round.Patients would assume the Schlemberg’s position (recumbant with legs held high in the air) and one by one, amidst much grunting, […]
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One of the responsibilities of the Emergency Department where I used to work was to attend medical emergencies (or ‘codes’) elsewhere in the hospital. We would dispatch a medical emergency team (known as a MET team), comprising a senior doctor and nurse. When their pager goes off they respond by pushing this rather big trolley […]
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He was a big man. In the midst of a big code. And he was in big trouble. We needed to move this man from the MRI table back onto his bed in a real quick hurry. To do this we would use a large rectangular plastic spatula known as a PatSlide. Described as a […]
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Here are 3 remarkable true stories about the very same bed space in the emergency department where I worked: Resuscitation Bed 1. The first story I wrote after an incident with a colleague at work. The second two were written by others as responses to that story……
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Some time ago we had a 98 yo lady (whom I will call Betty), transferred to our emergency department from a local nursing home. Betty was having palliative care at the nursing home and was well aware that she was soon going to die. Betty had completed an advance care directive (ACD) stating her wishes […]
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