Thursday, February 28, 2013

Automatic Heart Stent !!

Self Assembling Plastic structures !! Wow !!

I immediatly thought "heart stent"...the medical uses of this tech are huge in surgery...even self-applied, laymens level medical applications.

http://vimeo.com/58840897

http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/4d-printing-self-assembly-20130228/

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

PA bridge programs #2: PA -to MD or DO program


  1. Physician Assistant to MD bridge program | Pathology | Student ...

    forums.studentdoctor.net › ... › PathologyShare
    Mar 17, 2008 – I have had a bit of free time here and there and I came across some old forums on here about PA (physician assistant) to MD bridge programs.
  2. Any shortcuts for P.A. becoming M.D.? - College Confidential

    talk.collegeconfidential.com › ... › Pre-Med Topics
    15 posts - 9 authors - Feb 18, 2010
    There is no such bridge program from PA to MD although the idea has been discussed. If he wants to eventually get into med school, he should ...
    You've visited this page 2 times. Last visit: 10/18/12
  3. Oceania University of Medicine: PA to MD

    www.patomd.org/
    Introducing our "Flexible" MD Degree Introducing our Flexible MD Degree for Graduates.PA to MD - Oceania University of Medicine RT to MD - Oceania ...
  4. PA to DO at LECOM, is it worth it? - MomMD - student and doctor forums

    www.mommd.com › ... › Women in Medicine › General Discussion
    10 posts - Sep 1, 2012
    So here is my dilemma: I am considering applying to the PA to DO bridge program at LECOM. This program takes one year off of med school, ...
  5. First PA-C to DO bridge program!: Clinician 1

    clinician1.com/posts/article/first_pa_c_to_do_bridge_program/
    If bridge programs do indeed become realty, the creators need to think ... 1) bachelors, 27-30 months for PA school, 3 years for the MD/DO, then residency. vs.
    You've visited this page 2 times. Last visit: 10/18/12
  6. A new twist on PA-MD/DO bridge: fast-track

    www.physicianassistantforum.com › ... › News
    15 posts - 7 authors - Jun 2, 2008
    What PA or NP is going to go thousands of dollars into more debt for an MD bridge program just to become a family practitioner and make ...
    You've visited this page 2 times. Last visit: 2/11/12
  7. Physician Assistant (PA) To Physician (DO) Bridge Program - The ...

    eyedrd.org/.../physician-assistant-pa-to-physician-do-bridge-pr...
    Aug 12, 2011 – Physician Assistant (PA) To Physician (DO) Bridge Program ... to the blame on “Texas budget crunch could delay M.D. program in Fort Worth.” ...
  8. View topic - Can anyone speak about Monserrat Medical School ...

    www.studentdoc.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11315
    10 posts - 5 authors - Dec 28, 2008
    This is a program that allows PA's bridge to MD, DO to MD, Dual Degree programs. Also considered a Caribbean school, which allows tracks ...
  9. Physician Assistant-to-Physician Bridge Program - community ...

    community.advanceweb.com/.../pa.../physician-assistant-to-ph...
    Aug 14, 2008 – This begs the question of whether it would be more appropriate to develop a "PA to MD bridge program" to fulfill the primary healthcare deficit.

Accuvein - infrared device for placing IVs into veins with precision - really cool

This is a really cool new invention that really helps nurses and others put IV into veins, especially for people that are hard to stick.

http://www.accuvein.com/


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Accupuncture and Ideal Weight Info

Tai Sohpia Accupuncture Institute: Maryland
  http://www.tai.edu/History.aspx

Newsletter: Qi
  http://emperors.edu/qiblog/2013/01/start-your-acupuncture-career/

Met Life: Longevity Tables - Ideal Weight from people that live the longest
  http://www.halls.md/ideal-weight/met.htm

About the "Metropolitan Life" tables of height and weight.

By Steven B. Halls, MD
In 1943, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company introduced their standard height-weight tables for men and women. The tables were revisedslightly in 1983. They were called "desirable" weights, which would indicate those persons with the lowest mortality rates4. However, the phrase "ideal weight5" gradually became associated with these tables in common usage, even though the word "ideal" was not specifically published with the tables.
Height & Weight Table For Women1
Height
Feet Inches
Small
Frame
Medium
Frame
Large
Frame
4' 10"102-111109-121118-131
4' 11"103-113111-123120-134
5' 0"104-115113-126122-137
5' 1"106-118115-129125-140
5' 2"108-121118-132128-143
5' 3"111-124121-135131-147
5' 4"114-127124-138134-151
5' 5"117-130127-141137-155
5' 6"120-133130-144140-159
5' 7"123-136133-147143-163
5' 8"126-139136-150146-167
5' 9"129-142139-153149-170
5' 10"132-145142-156152-173
5' 11"135-148145-159155-176
6' 0"138-151148-162158-179
Weights at ages 25-59 based on lowest mortality. Weight in pounds according to frame (in indoor clothing weighing 3 lbs.; shoes with 1" heels)


Height & Weight Table For Men2
Height
Feet Inches
Small
Frame
Medium
Frame
Large
Frame
5' 2"128-134131-141138-150
5' 3"130-136133-143140-153
5'' 4"132-138135-145142-156
5' 5"134-140137-148144-160
5' 6"136-142139-151146-164
5' 7"138-145142-154149-168
5' 8"140-148145-157152-172
5' 9"142-151148-160155-176
5' 10"144-154151-163158-180
5' 11"146-157154-166161-184
6' 0"149-160157-170164-188
6' 1"152-164160-174168-192
6' 2"155-168164-178172-197
6' 3"158-172167-182176-202
6' 4"162-176171-187181-207
Weights at ages 25-59 based on lowest mortality. Weight in pounds according to frame (in indoor clothing weighing 5 lbs.; shoes with 1" heels)

What is Frame Size?

The Met Life website gives the following instructions3 to estimate frame size:
"Bend forearm upward at a 90 degree angle. Keep fingers straight and turn the inside of your wrist toward your body. Place thumb and index finger of other hand on the two prominent bones on either side of the elbow. Measure space between your fingers on a ruler.(A physician would use a caliper.) Compare with tables below listing elbow measurements for medium-framed men and women. Measurements lower than those listed indicate small frame. Higher measurements indicate large frame."
ELBOW MEASUREMENTS FOR MEDIUM FRAME
Height in 1" heelsElbowHeight in 1" heelsElbow
MenBreadthWomenBreadth
5'2"-5'3"21/2"-27/8"4'10"-4'11"21/4"-21/2"
5'4"-5'7"25/8"-27/8"5'0"-5'3"21/4"-21/2"
5'8"-5'11"23/4"-3"5'4"-5'7"23/8"-25/8"
6'0"-6'3"23/4"-31/8"5'8"-5'11"23/8"-25/8"
6'4"27/8"-31/4"6'0"21/2"-23/4"
Credit should be given to the Med Life table creators for attempting to use "frame size" as a way to compensate for the differences between peoples body shapes and skeletal muscle mass. In theory, elbow-width or wrist-width does correlate fairly well with muscle and bone mass. But in practice, the definition of frame size is too difficult for people to use, so virtually nobody uses frame size as intended. Instead, people subjectively choose their own categories.

Problems with the Met Life tables

Most people who use the Met Life tables don't realize that they should specify their height while wearing "1 inch heel shoes". There are MANY websites using these tables that neglect to point this out.
The tables were designed for adults aged 25 to 59 years. They are certainly not suitable for children, and their usefulness in young adults is dubious. ( Remember that the tables were based on data collected by Life Insurance companies, and not many young adults have life insurance.)
The tables give reasonable results for people whose stature (tallness) is slightly shorter than the average, but the table results are poor for very short people, and particularly poor for tall people. This is illustrated in the following chart. The Met Life "medium frame" weight range is illustrated as a light blue or pink color. The median weight at each increment of height is the solid black line. Notice that they don't match in slope. For very tall men and women, the Met Life tables suggest impossibly low weights.
average weight men average weight women

The heights and weights of Men and Women are gradually increasing over time. People are slightly taller and heavier now, than they were in 1979. As population tallness increases, more and more people will discover the problems with the Met Life tables.
In light of the above problems, I believe the Metropolitan Life tables of height and weight should not be recommended for setting a target goal for weight-loss, unless you happen to be just below average height for your Gender.
ideal weightFor better Ideal body weight calculation methods, visit this page.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Low Radiation CAT scan

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/510861/ct-scanner-delivers-less-radiation/


A new CT scanner exposes patients to less radiation while providing doctors with clearer images to help with diagnoses, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
“CT” stands for Computerized Tomography, which involves combining lots of x-ray images taken from different angles into a three-dimensional view of what’s inside the body. The technology can be especially useful for diagnoses in emergency situations, and the number of CT scans in recent years has increased dramatically, says Marcus Chen, a cardiovascular imager at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, in Bethesda, Maryland.  But the increase in the use of CT scans raises concerns about the amount of radiation to which patients are exposed, says Chen.
The risk of developing cancer from the radiation delivered by one CT scan is low, but the large number of scans performed each year—more than 70 million—translates to a significant risk. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute estimated that the 72 million CT scans performed in the U.S. in 2007 could lead to 29,000 new cancers. On average, the organ studied in a CT scan of an adult receives around 15 millisieverts of radiation, compared with roughly 3.1 millisieverts of radiation exposure from natural sources each year.
This concern has led researchers to seek ways to reduce the amount of radiation exposure a patient receives in a scan. They are working to improve both hardware, to make the scans go faster and need less repetition, and software, to process the x-ray data better (see “Clear CT Scans with Less Radiation”).
The new CT scanning system, from Toshiba Medical, combines several improvements to reduce radiation exposure. The overall body of a CT scanner is shaped like a large ring. An x-ray tube and a detector spin separately in the ring, opposite one another, and a patient lies in the center.  X-rays travel through the patient as they are delivered by the tube and captured by the detectors. The new Toshiba machine has five times as many detectors as most machines, which means that more of an organ can be captured at a time, decreasing the number of passes of the scanner required.
The x-ray components in the new system also spin faster—it takes only 275 milliseconds for them to complete a rotation, instead of 350 millisesconds—which means a patient gets irradiated for less time. In cases where doctors are looking at a moving organ such as the heart, the faster spinning also reduces the number of times a doctor may need to try to get a good image. “It’s like having faster film in your camera,” says Chen.  Changes to the way the system generates x-rays and computes the images also mean patients spend less time getting hit with radiation.
Chen and colleagues at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute used the Toshiba system to examine 107 adult patients of different ages and sizes for plaque buildup and cardiovascular problems. Patient size matters because more x-rays are required to image a larger person. “A lot of imaging centers will use one setting for all patients,” says Chen. “You get beautiful image quality on everybody, but the downside is that some patients get more radiation than they probably should.” In his study, the system takes a quick preliminary scan that uses low-dose x-rays to figure out how big a patient is and how much radiation will be needed for the diagnostic image.
Most patients who got a scan in the new Toshiba machine received 0.93 millisieverts of radiation, and almost every patient received less than 4 millisieverts. Radiation exposure was decreased by as much as 95 percent relative to other CT scanners currently in use.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Monday, February 4, 2013

How CAT scan really work: physics of CAT scans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmkdAqd5ReY

CAT Scan Inventor: Robert S. Ledley



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/robert-s-ledley-inventor-of-whole-body-ct-scanner-dies-at-86.html?_r=0

Inventor Hall of Fame:
   http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/95.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/us/robert-s-ledley-inventor-of-whole-body-ct-scanner-dies-at-86.html?_r=0

How CAT scans really work:
   http://science.howstuffworks.com/cat-scan2.htm

Unusual fatality: Pontine Hemorrhage - bleeding out at the brain stem

Saw a weird trauma case: Pontine Hemorrhage....almost always fatal, but some drainage surgeries work.


Here are the surgeries:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01809107?LI=true


Volume 25Issue 3-4pp 269-276

Primary pontine haemorrhage revealed by pneumoencephalo-roulette tomography, and a report on surgically treated cases

Summary

Pneumoencephalo-roulette tomography has been carried out in seven cases of primary pontine haemorrhage. An extensive mass lesion has been distinctly visualized in all cases during life without any severe complications.
An intrapontine haematoma has been removed in a 47-year-old male, and a ventriculo-atrial shunt has been done in a 41-year-old male. These two surgically treated patients have survived primary pontine haemorrhage. Eight cases of successful surgical approach to intrapontine haematoma have been previously reported in the literature.