What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago • Hacker News Board

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#11

Post by Scoundreller » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

elric wrote: post #8

Anecdata: I distinctly remember spending a lot of time lying on my stomach in hospital beds during several stints of double pneumonia I experienced as a child, some 30 years ago. It's hard to imagine that front line doctors didn't know about proning a month ago. Is this a technique that went out of vogue since my childhood, only to be replaced with a reliance on sedation and ventilators, and is it making a comeback d…

> Or it it because proning unconscious, intubated patients is hard work and requires three nurses?

I think in this situation, it’s letting these patients be managed without sedation or intubation.

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#12

Post by sumedh » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #7

chki wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clickbait maybe, but as with all Times coverage of the Coronavirus there is no paywall, at least for me.

I only see the first paragraph and a notice telling me to create an account to continue.

If you create an account the corona virus articles are free.

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#13

Post by ristoalas » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:25 AM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #6

That if you're under 54 corona virus isn't any more deadly than the flu?

Unfortunately, the answer seems "no" so far. Based on for example [1], the infection fatality ratio appears to be 10 times worse than the seasonal flu for people aged 30-39. Also, hospitalisation rate is higher (e.g. in age group 30-39, the study estimates that 3.4% of the infected people were hospitalised), which is higher (even for younger people) than the hospitalisation rate of the flu.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1473-3099%2820...

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#14

Post by papermachete » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:27 AM UTC

tpnCC wrote: post #10

okasaki wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only see the first paragraph and a notice telling me to create an account to continue.

If this is what u mean U saw, "Log in or create a free New York Times account to continue reading in private mode.", then u could be in a private browsing-mode, and hence u could not go further than first para. Edit: spelling

You pay with your privacy.

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#15

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:30 AM UTC

elric wrote: post #8

Anecdata: I distinctly remember spending a lot of time lying on my stomach in hospital beds during several stints of double pneumonia I experienced as a child, some 30 years ago. It's hard to imagine that front line doctors didn't know about proning a month ago. Is this a technique that went out of vogue since my childhood, only to be replaced with a reliance on sedation and ventilators, and is it making a comeback d…

> It's hard to imagine that front line doctors didn't know about proning a month ago.

Where do you get the idea they didn’t?

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#16

Post by clort » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:36 AM UTC

sumedh wrote: post #12

okasaki wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only see the first paragraph and a notice telling me to create an account to continue.

If you create an account the corona virus articles are free.

if you block third party scripts (from nyt.com in this case) it just shows the whole article

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#17

Post by elisharobinson » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:38 AM UTC

please perma ban NyT .

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#18

Post by downerending » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Annoying to be sure, but you can circumvent the paywall by adding a period to the end of the domain name.

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#19

Post by goldenkey » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:44 AM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Just click the lock in the address bar and hit Site Settings. Clear the cookies with a couple clicks. Always works for me.

Re: What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago

#20

Post by dmurray » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 10:48 AM UTC

> “You put a tube into somebody,” Dr. Levitan said, “and the amount of work required not to kill that person goes up by a factor of 100,” creating a cascade that slows down laboratory results, X-rays and other care.

I'd hope this could be a generally applicable lesson after the pandemic. In less overwhelming times, the medical best practice is once someone is in hospital, prescribe the statistically best treatment even if it costs 100 times as much in resources and manpower. Now they go for simpler treatments because the resources aren't available to support the others, at least when the benefit is marginal.

But hospital resources are always stretched to the limit in some way. If you can treat a patient with 100x less intervention from doctors and nurses, you can instead treat 100x more patients, or build 100x more hospitals, or spend some of your hospital money on public health initiatives, all of which would improve overall health outcomes.