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In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

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Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#201

Post by LorenPechtel »

_zywo wrote: post #49
brnt wrote: post #41

There's hacking and there is _hacking_. My sister is training to be a doctor and she has come to dislike the heavily regulated environment we have here in which doctors are not allowed to do anything of this sort. Now, they also don't usually need to, which is a good think, but after she returned from a year in South America, she misses the on-your-feet thinking, creativity and flexibility she could and had to employ…

Yeah, but the problem is that some doctors are not capable of doing things of this sort safely, and thus doctor regulations happen. There are definitely unnecessary regulations out there, but I imagine that most of them are simply yet another symptom of "any large enough system eventually gets ruined by abuse".

Improvised answers aren't safe. It's just sometimes they're the best of a bad set of options.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#202

Post by LorenPechtel »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #158

> She stated she had fallen from a "bike", by which Wallace assumed she meant a bicycle. > It emerged that she had not merely fallen from a bicycle but had been flung to the ground while riding on a motorcycle that collided with a car > Wallace suspected she had previously concealed the extent of her injuries so as to avoid being taken off the flight. Taking medical history is very hard. Patients minimizing their sym…

Many people call motorcycles "bikes". I wouldn't even call this omitting details.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#203

Post by LorenPechtel »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #114

The funny thing is, as an orthopedic surgeon in England, Wallace probably hadn't put in a chest tube in years, while the other "junior" doctor training in internal medicine, Tom Wong, probably did one every week. I have no inside knowledge, but I suspect Dr Wong probably did most of the procedure while the senior doctor Wallace took most of the credit later. As the senior doctor, Wallace was certainly responsible for…

I don't think the ground exam was flawed--rather, she was downplaying the problem because she wanted to fly.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#204

Post by taneq »

hammock wrote: post #113
taneq wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I say “correct” instead of saying “right.”

Doesn't help if the doctor's question was "Am I cutting into the right side?"

This is why they draw on you with texta saying "cut here you dumbf*k" and then get you to sign three times to say the texta is correct and that you've confirmed it to all and sundry.

It seems dumb but if it saves me from having someone dissect my right knee when I wanted someone to bolt a new AC ligament into my left one, I'm all for it.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#205

Post by taneq »

saary wrote: post #122
hammock wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't help if the doctor's question was "Am I cutting into the right side?"

When I've practiced as a paramedic the best practice was to ask the patient to point to the pain and not just verbally confirm

If all else fails the penis points to the problem.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#206

Post by CRConrad »

et2o wrote: post #152
marcodiego wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Famous case in Brazil: in 1998 a surgeon used cyanoacrylate glue on the heart of a patient: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fol/geral/gx055168.htm

Using cyanoacrylate glue is is very common in medicine for skin closure. Doesn’t seem ridiculous to use in other settings.

First I heard of it was when my kid was rushed to hospital from kindergarten for a cut above hos eyebrow (where his best friend had thrown a toy car at him, probably in a tiff about who'd get to play with it) in ~2006-7. It was a funny colour, a bright light purple; I presume for better visibility (in contrast to most normal human skin colours) both at application and afterwards. Faded away after a few days IIRC; can't recall any return visit to check on it.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#207

Post by CRConrad »

sgjohnson wrote: post #168
ViViDboarder wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, only £300? Private insurance in the US is so much more than that. When you get care, is a portion paid by NHS and the remainder from the private company? Or maybe the existence of NHS puts healthcare costs much less than that in the US.

> When you get care, is a portion paid by NHS and the remainder from the private company? It’d be NHS if the non-urgent treatment would be immediately available from them (which is basically never), otherwise I’d be sent to a private hospital. > Or maybe the existence of NHS puts healthcare costs much less than that in the US. This probably helps, but the US healthcare costs are just fucked for no good reason. I like…

> the US healthcare costs are just fucked for no good reason.

Amen to that.

> I like to look at South Korea as an example of reasonable costs in a healthcare system that’s 100% private (the government just picks up the tab afterwards).

From Britain you don't have to look that far abroad for this: Germany would suffice, AIUI, or maybe even just across the Channel to France. (But, hey, congrats on leaving the club of civilised nations.)

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#208

Post by Traubenfuchs »

gumby wrote: post #61
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

„emergent“ means the prevalence is increasing? Why?

From your name and punctuation I assume you’re German. Thats actually not the use here but that meaning is common. “Emerge” is simply Frenchified Latin for ausgehen. In this case however it appears to be medical (perhaps ER) slang for “rapidly becoming an emergency”

Yes I am a German native speaker.

I assumed emergent means „rapidly increasing numbers of“ and not „ Arising suddenly and unexpectedly, calling for quick judgment and prompt action.“.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#209

Post by CRConrad »

philliphaydon wrote: post #34
chimprich wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the patient had quite a high pain threshold, since she was already ignoring a broken arm and ribs in addition to the pneumothorax in order to make her flight.

There isn't much you can do about broken ribs afaik? And the broken arm depends on the type of break. I split my humorous bone length ways. Initially because of adrenaline, it was absolutely painless, after an hour the pain kicked in. If I didn't move my arm it was fine but if I moved it, wow, 2nd most painful experience in my life.

> I split my humorous bone length ways

So you're hilarious, now that you have an extra funny bone?

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#210

Post by ada1981 »

kube-system wrote: post #135
sgjohnson wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bankruptcy is actually quite a piece of cake in several US states. In fact most of them even let you keep your home. Bankruptcy is not some sort of a financial death sentence. In fact you’ll even be able to get access to credit almost immediately, because the default risk just after bankruptcy is extremely low due to the fact that you can’t declare bankruptcy for another 2-3 years. Yes, your credit score is trashed f…

That’s what I was alluding to. Part of the high bankruptcy rates in the US are because we have very liberal laws about bankruptcy. Not only do you get to keep your home, but the majority of people who file Chapter 7 keep everything . That’s not to say we don’t have issues with medical costs… I’m just speaking generally about using bankruptcy rates as an indicator.

Can you share more about people keeping everything?
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