Not Dead but Not Alive; The terminally unhealed languish in America’s hospitals.

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May lay in a hospital bed, her wrinkled and mottled skin covered with leads, and sensors that monitored her every breath and heartbeat. A camera that was mounted on the wall allowed a doctor to zoom in closely enough to count her tattered eyelashes. Her husband  sat at her bedside, gently stroking her withering gray hair  as her chest moved slowly up and down accompanied by the soft whoosh-whoosh of the ventilator that breathed for her. He stared expectantly at her face as if at any moment she would rise and free herself from the myriad tubes that sustained her.  Her adult daughters sat and stared blankly at the floor, waiting for something, anything. The streams of data transmitted from her body were monitored closely both by a team in a remote electronic-ICU bunker 50 miles away and her ICU nurse 15 feet away. Yet what May could not have realized was that despite her family’s presence at her bedside and the twenty-four hour care she received, she had been abandoned. She was alone. 

Several weeks earlier, May came to the hospital from her nursing home, “yet another pneumonia”, the note in her chart said.  “She seems to get one of these every few months” said her husband “can’t we give her something for that?”. The Emergency Room physician explained that she had aspiration, essentially choking on her own food and spit. She would continue to get pneumonia, until she eventually passed away. This wasn’t the first time he had heard this. “They told me before to let her die, but I didn’t listen to them, I told them to treat her anyway, and she made it through. I didn’t give up on her then and I’m not going to now”, adding “she’s a fighter”. Her husband Daniels countenance was such that the Emergency physician admitting May to the hospital didn’t bother asking whether his wife should be resuscitated in the event her heart  or lungs stopped working and she needed to be put on life support. May was admitted to the general medical ward, and was started  on antibiotics, but she eventually got worse. Sometime in the middle of the night a nurse found her ashen and struggling to breathe, and called a “code blue”. May’s breathing had gotten so bad that she needed life support, she had a tube put down her trachea and was taken to the ICU where she was put on a ventilator.

Doctors worked on her for more than a week,  treating her pneumonia with powerful antibiotics. But even as her pneumonia cleared, her body withered. Her skin hung from her bones as her muscles wasted away, her eyes hollowed, and the skin of her arms filled with bruises as nurses struggled to find a place from which to draw blood. On the second Sunday of her ICU stay, the doctors tried a “trial extubation”. As the family understood it, her lungs had improved to the point that she might be able to be taken off the ventilator, but her body was now so weak, they did not know whether she would actually be able to breathe on her own. If she had to be put back on the ventilator, the doctors told them, she would require a tracheostomy that would allow her to live on the ventilator long term.  The social worker would then seek placement in a long term facility for patients on long term ventilators, essentially a hybrid hospital, rehab, and nursing home in one. Her breathing failed within minutes of being taken off the ventilator, and she was immediately put back on life support.

It was the following day, Monday morning, that I met with May’s family to discuss what had happened the day before, it was the beginning of my ICU week. For May and her family it was the beginning of their third week in the ICU, and it showed. Her husband, Daniel looked unkept, his thick shock of gray hair was whirled and tangled, his flannel shirt partly tucked into ripped and stained jeans. He gave the impression of someone who had not been taking care of himself, let alone someone who could take care of his chronically ill wife. His visage upon seeing me betrayed both surprise and regret as he recognized me from four months earlier.  I was the doctor who told him that May was going to die. Continue reading “Not Dead but Not Alive; The terminally unhealed languish in America’s hospitals.”

Doctors’ Prescription to Reduce Gun Violence

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Like a lot of people, I get pretty numbed to gun violence on television. I stopped watching the local news because all they seem to show is news about shootings. The general public’s perception about gun violence is that it’s always somebody else, that the person  who was shot had somehow been involved in crime. The numbness we feel to gun violence often ends for most of us when things hit close to home, when you or someone you know is affected. Continue reading “Doctors’ Prescription to Reduce Gun Violence”

Stem Cells and COPD: What You Need to Know.

I enjoy fielding questions from patients. Yes, I sense you’re rolling your eyes, but really, anything that I can answer that helps keep them out of the hospital is, I feel, time well spent. Recently though,  I’ve been fielding a number of questions that have me concerned. These questions often have a leading tenor about them like, “are you using stem cells for COPD yet?” The questions imply that stem cells are the de rigeur treatment for COPD. Now I may not be at the leading edge of any fashion, but being unfashionable in my treatment regimens? Never!

I can’t blame anyone for wanting to seek out treatments for COPD. It is after all, a leading cause of death and illness in the U.S. And it’s widely regarded that the changes caused by COPD/emphysema in the lungs are permanent. While there are now several different treatment options for emphysema/COPD, very few can prolong life. So if I had a family member with emphysema, I might naturally seek out treatments for COPD that go beyond the usual treatments, and with all the hype surrounding stem cells, why not take a look?

What people find when they google “stem cells and COPD” is in a word, distressing. It’s a fantasy world full of promises of health, healing, and better breathing. Equally distressing are the things that people who visit these sites aren’t recognizing: the greed, lies, lack of ethics, illusions, and misleading claims. Continue reading “Stem Cells and COPD: What You Need to Know.”

The Shocking Truth Behind “Shocking” Healthcare Social Media Statistics

As a regular follower of social media, I am keenly aware of changes in the healthcare landscape as it relates to social media. While there’s much talk about the impact of social media in healthcare, most of the action sits on the consumer side of the equation. Much of the medical world has to yet to tap into its potential. For most healthcare providers social media engagement amounts to little more than watching as others dip their feet, testing  the waters. A few watch as they anticipate their own entry into the arena. Still many others watch with the expectation that the water would soon become bloody.

So its with a burlap full  of salt that I read various healthcare social media stats promulgated in various infographics, twitter feeds, and blog posts celebrating Medicine 2.0 powered by social media. Collectively they hash and rehash a series of surprising statistics that aren’t exactly bogus, but aren’t exactly completely factual either.

A recent one caught my eye with the claim was that “53% of physicians practices have a facebook page”. This was curious to me, because as I read this in the physician lounge and  took my own poll, the results was much closer to 5% than 50%. Continue reading “The Shocking Truth Behind “Shocking” Healthcare Social Media Statistics”

Top 5 CPAP Travel Tips from a Sleep Doctor and CPAP User.

Sleep Apnea is a condition that aflicts millions of people.  There are 2 types of sleep apnea, central, and obstructive. Obstructive is by far the most common, and is usually what is referred to when people talk about “sleep apnea”. Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when, during sleep, the airway passages in the throat close and block the movement of air. Common symptoms are snoring, gasping during sleep, sleepiness during the day, and the overall feeling that your sleep was not restful. While we all may have a laugh recalling that uncle or grandpa that was “sawing logs” all night when they slept over, the truth is that sleep apnea can have profound negative effects on overall health. Sleep apnea has been linked with stroke, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and is an important contributor to deaths and injuries due to traffic accidents. The most common and effective treatment for sleep apnea is the use of a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) device. As a sleep physician, and a CPAP user myself I know the importance of using your CPAP whenever you sleep, that includes during travel.

Whether I’m travelling across a state line or an equatorial line, whether the destination is medical education, or a mediterranean beach, my CPAP is along for the ride. Because of this, I’ve also run into pretty  much every complication, problem, pitfall, morass, and quagmire that you can have when travelling with your CPAP. Thus I present to you, gleaned from both my experiences and those of my patients, my Top 5 tips for travelling with your CPAP.

  1. Bring Your CPAP With You!

This would seem obvious, but it’s not. Alot of people see their CPAP as an assistive  device which they only need to use when they need it. But they really need to look at it for what it is: therapy. You take your hypertension and diabetes medicines with you when you travel, think of your CPAP the same way. Besides, if you’re travelling for business, you need to be sharp and focused. If you’re travelling for pleasure, well who wants to spend their hard earned vacation being tired and irritable? CPAP will help you get the most out your travels! Continue reading “Top 5 CPAP Travel Tips from a Sleep Doctor and CPAP User.”

Me and My A.E.D.

“Everyone should have BLS training. . . we’ll all be better off because of it”     -Me.

I arrived at my designated gate at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.  The run there kept the adrenaline level up in my system, though the hubbub was now well behind. I pulled the crumpled boarding pass out of my pocket as I caught my breath. No that’s a hotel receipt. Check the other pocket, there it is, Zone 3, that can’t be that bad; I thought,  there’s gotta be, what maybe 6 or 7 zones, right? “Welcome aboard American Airlines flight to Flint, Michigan” the gate attendant announced. We welcome our platinum medallion, gold medallion, silver medallion, bronze high-flyers, copper star club, as well as plastic fantastic, and purple star members, followed by zones one and two” The last of the passengers was already through the jetway. “Now boarding zone three, welcome aboard”.

After handing over my crumpled boarding pass for scanning, I made my  down the jetway and onto what appeared to be a small but fairly packed little jet. Passengers on each side of the aisle eyed me as I walked past, a few noticed that my jeans were soaked from the knees down. Some caught the odor that  trailed behind, a light of recognition igniting in their eyes as they realized what it was. Does he really smell like that? Is he the one that’s dragging that awful scent through this cabin?

6 hours earlier things had been going very differently for me. My colleagues and I had just given a well received talk at the annual Chest convention. I had reconnected with old friends that I hadn’t seen since training.  I had just personally  thanked Kevin Pho (of KevinMD fame) in the hotel coffee shop for giving our keynote address and getting our membership fired up about the future of medicine and social media. It was with this sense of excitement and renewed enthusiasm that I boarded my plane to catch a connection at O’Hare.

I also distinctly recall that, at the time, my pants were absolutely one-hundred percent completely dry. Continue reading “Me and My A.E.D.”

September is Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month, Learn More About This Deadly Disease.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis  is a disease which involves progressive scarring of the lungs of unknown cause (hence the term idiopathic).  The median survival from the time of diagnosis is 2 to 3 years, though the course is variable and many patients deteriorate rapidly.

There is little in the way of effective treatment and no cure other than lung transplantation.

There are excellent resources available to learn about this disease.

For Patients: The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation and Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis. Both resources provide information regarding patient support groups,  fund raising, and advocacy.

For Physicians: The CHEST Foundation website includes information for patients and physicians. I have found this helpful in answering many common questions for patients with newly diagnosed IPF. The author is a pulmonologist whose father died from IPF.

In addition, the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation conducts numerous activities throughout the year and is a great resource for information about the disease.

3 Ways Obamacare is Destroying American Healthcare.

As I was watching CNN news recently, I noted in the headlines different ways Obamacare is failing.  Current problems discussed were the customers’ sticker shock of high deductible plans (up to $12,700 for families), the president blaming the insurance companies for having substandard plans, and the people blaming the president for losing their current insurance.

One patient even complained, “My new health care plan tripled in price, and now, it is like having a third loan to deal with, including my car and home loan.”

The current law and regulations being implemented under Obamacare will ultimately lead to sicker patients and low quality care for three reasons:

1.  Older doctors will retire early fed up with the system. These older doctors feel that the loss of a patient-physician relationship and the burdensome regulations (ie. paperwork) will choke off their ability to provide good care.  In addition, their expenses are increasing with these new regulations.  Add in the projected cuts in reimbursement up to 26%, and their livelihood will be threatened. These cuts could force these doctors out of practice or force them to stop seeing Medicare patients simply because their expenses (which rise yearly) are exceeding their declining reimbursement, which has declined steadily over the past several years already. Continue reading “3 Ways Obamacare is Destroying American Healthcare.”