Recent content by jdaasbo

There was an interesting piece in in the AMA News (the newspaper) about a month or two ago about a hospital refusing to care for patients who had sued that hospital. The story as I recall, started when the hospital hired a new radiologist. The new radiologist re-read some radiologic studies...

I saw the NRMP's stats the other day. There were roughly 840 people who applied but did not match this year. Scary stuff.

A better plan of action when your are making up your mind to do either an ACGME or AOA residency is to ask fellowship directors at ACGME programs if they consider AOA trained applicants (equally). Work backwards. Whether the AOA will approve your ACGME fellowship is immaterial if you are...

I think my point was that since there is no CONCLUSIVE evidence either way you should do what is safest for the patient. In my opinion, there is no benefit on the inpatient general medical floor of having a patient with an acute exacerbation of COPD oxygenate to Sao2 of 100% if they are...

The references for Dr. Levetown's editorial: 1. Kochanek KD, Smith BL, Anderson RN: Deaths: Preliminary data for 1999. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2001; 49 (3): 1–49 2. American Thoracic Society: ATS guidelines: Diagnosis and care of patients with COPD. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 1995; 152: S77...

and the third half ________________ 5. The editorial which accompanied the above piece. I think this is very even-handed. Oxygen-induced acute hypercapnia in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: What's the problem? Levetown, Marcia MD "For most of the past decade, chronic...

Here is the second half _______________ 4. A pilot study with 34 patients which does not support the hypothesis that oxygen can lead to hypercapnia: Oxygen therapy for hypercapnic patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and acute respiratory failure: a randomized, controlled...

Let’s try to keep this whole thing civil. We are doctors, not WWF wrestlers. Chiding someone to “make the transition from ICU nurse to med student... and learn deductive evidence based reasoning” is not productive. This should be an educational exercise, rather than chest thumping. No...

ER is correct. A good rule of thumb is to titrate the oxgen to a pulse ox (Sa02) of 90%, which will give you roughly a Pa02 of 60 Torr. What most commonly gets the overly oxygenated COPD patient in trouble is not an MI. As the patient has abundant PA02, their alveolar minute ventilation...

IM and FP at the surface seem pretty similar. They are in fact quite different. IM is a narrower focus. IM people tend to be more detail oriented and in general are more comfortable taking care of sicker adult patients with multiple chronic and complex medical problems. These days upwards of...

The latest edition of Hurst's "The Heart" has a chapter on each.

GI and cardiology are by far the hardest to get into. After this, moderately competitive ones are heme/onc, pulm/critical care, nephrology. Less competitive ones are rheum, ID, geriatrics. That said, all of them are becoming more competitive as fewer people want to do primary care internal...

Whiskey Barrel, Let's be civil about this. Your comments come across as condescending and this does not help you make your point. Dazzling us with radiology technical terms also does help you make your point either. You do not need to convince me that you are a better radiologist than I...

Numbers and statistics are not really useful I feel in this matter. If you are a DO applying for cardiology fellowship you will certainly be one of a very few. My year of application, there were 706 fellowship positions offered through the match, 14 of those went to DOs. I have no idea how...

Here is a thought. We order/perform tests to answer a specific clinical questions (ie is there coronary artery disease or not?). We are all aware and agree that screening for "disease in general" with the "pan-CT" is neither cost-effective nor good medicine. Perhaps the answer lies in...