Dr. Cranquis' Mumbled Gripes

flyonthewallmedstudent:

ley-med:

Today an elderly patient’s daughter asked if I could guarantee that the blood I might need to give to the patient (in case the patient is actively bleeding out during the surgery, which had a pretty high chance of happening) is from a donor who hadn’t been vaccinated against COVID.

Not gonna lie, I needed a moment to recover from that

There’s been hesitation prior to patients getting bone marrow transplants that didn’t exist before.

Typically you get all your childhood vaccines given to you again with new bone marrow.

When patients decline (still a tiny minority), some services then have to say well, we can’t offer this too you, because the risk of dying is high and the resource is so finite. But it’s the reality now.

I just can’t.

We are practicing medicine in a country of cromagnons.

wheresonichedgehogwnt:

I get so pissed off when I ask what parents’ thoughts are on vaccines and if they have any questions, and the parents just smugly ask me if I get my kid vaccinated, like it’s going to lead to some big “Gotcha!” moment

Yes, I vaccinate my kid

Yes, even flu and COVID

Hell, if I had it my way, she’d get an early MMR right now even though she’d have to get the shot again when she is 12 months old - that’s an extra shot and I’d be first in line for her to get it

Don’t try to ‘gotcha’ me, we have the same vet and animals don’t have HIPAA - I know you vaccinate your livestock because our vet was doing a farm call vaccinating your herd when my dog was stung in the muzzle by a bee and acted like the world was ending and we had to wait until he was done to bring her in (she was fine, she’d just never felt pain in her life before being stung by the bee, the psychic damage she incurred was severe but luckily no lasting physical harm occurred)

I cannot begin to fathom why you’d protect your cows’ health but not your kids’ health

But I don’t throw that in your face because my mama raised me right

If you want to risk your kids’ health by not vaccinating, own it and own the consequences

Don’t be a coward and try to pull my fully vaccinated kid into it

So good, as always. LOL!

alexseanchai:

dafydd2277:

the-moon-loves-the-sea:

(X)

And let’s remind everyone one that the Internet Archive duplicated all of its data to locations outside the US when Trump was elected the first time.

and if one doesn’t need one’s information to be US specific but does need it in English, the public health information sites run by the World Health Organization and relevant agencies in Canada, Australia, and the UK should all have it

CDC webpages go dark as Trump targets public health information

Resources for contraception, gender-affirming care, STIs and HIV flicker in and out of existence or vanish completely

the Guardian

Trump administration purges websites across federal health agencies

Research and basic information on subjects ranging from tuberculosis surveillance to adolescent health disappeared from federal health agenc

NPR

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

archive.org

ericathemad:

rhokotela:

Trump administration purges websites across federal health agencies

Research and basic information on subjects ranging from tuberculosis surveillance to adolescent health disappeared from federal health agenc

NPR

Great.

Let me tell you how fucking insidious this is.

This morning, i heard on the public health reddit that the HIV page at cdc.gov had been scrubbed. Sure enough, the landing page was there, but all links to information about programs, treatment, data were gone.

Then we started to hear that all CDC was going to be removing data. Whole data sets. I started looking, and the Social Vulnerability Index, which identifies geographic areas that are vulnerable to climate, economic, or health-related disasters, it was gone.

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which is a national survey that helps identify things like smoking prevalence, healthcare access, are people meeting nutrtion guidelines, was gone. I had just downloaded that dataset and the documentation on Tuesday to run some stats on colorectal cancer screening in my state. It was now gone.

My colleagues at the health department started messaging each other. Were they also having troubles finding data? People on reddit were frantically trying to download datasets, comparing what they already had. For fuck’s sake, the Census website and data was going down. The goddamn Census.

There are some heroes, like the good people at the r/DataHoarders subreddit who had heard rumblings earlier this week and had started scrapping the entire CDC website. The End of Term Archive had already been archiving federal websites and data for months, and are getting those datasets up on GitHub.

But this is unprecedented. This is fascism. This is an authoritarian regime removing public data from access to make sure theres nothing out there that can conflict with their message.

This is not normal.

If you live in the US and have the capability, call your reps and ask them what they’re doing about this data scrubbing, ESPECIALLY if they’re Democrats. Hold their feet to the fire.

i am without words.

(via echoesera)

fibro-memes:

Co-signed,
E. Cranquis, MD

(via brighid45)

Office printer repair guy: The paper gets jammed if you don’t fluff the pages first by fanning them a bit.

Cranquis: Yeah, I always do that when reloading the paper.

Nurse Naive: OH YES, DR CRANQUIS IS A PROFESSIONAL FLUFFER!

Cranquis:

Nurse: WHY? WHAT DID I SAY?

abrahamlincoln-official:

This may seem like a meme, but it is real. It’s formatted like this to get people’s attention and be memorable, in the hopes that maybe it saves some lives.

Edit 1: If any of you are unsure that this is real, check out the notes of folks talking about it.

Transcript:

[transcript of sign] 

Are you currently struggling with … MEDICAL BILLS? 

… Perhaps you should try … FAPping! 

Financial Aid Policy 

Did you know that most hospitals and some doctor’s offices are what is known as a 501r, or “medical non-profit”? 

This means they are legally required to have a “financial aid policy” or “charity care policy” 

What is means, is that they are LEGALLY REQUIRED under United States Law to provide FREE OR DISCOUNTED healthcare, and also to FORGIVE EXISTING MEDICAL DEBT to individuals with financial difficulty. 

Basically, every household making und $100K a year is eligible for a reduction in their medical costs. 

Billing departments often try to push people to get on a “payment plan” if someone asks, but don’t accept it! 

Ask if they have a Charity Care or Financial Aid policy “Based On Income.” 

If it looks like you might not qualify? 

Apply anyway. They try to scare people away with scary processes. 

YOU QUALIFY. EVEN IF YOU ARE ALREADY IN COLLECTIONS. 

[/end sign]

(Credit to Moonlit-wings for the transcription.)

https://www.dea.gov/everyday-takeback-day

A list of free drop-box locations across the United States where you can dispose of unwanted/expired medications.

drdessertfox:

It’s been really interesting to see the turn medicine has made with the public over the past several years. I would never advocate that you should trust any physician blindly, but it’s quite amazing that those with GED level education are trying to convince others glucola is evil, the vitamin K shot is unnecessary, and that doctors order certain medicines and tests because “big pharma” pays them to do so.

I want to be very clear- as an EM physician I am paid hourly, much like all other EM physicians. I do have an RVU component meaning I make more money if I am more efficient but that is only a minimal component of my pay. I want to have conversations with my patients and help address your emergencies, but it’s incredibly difficult when I’m met with antagonistic attitudes from the start that stem from misinformation and fear mongering of online crunchy mom influencers.

As an urgent care doc for 17 years, I watched the Covid pandemic (and the accompanying explosion in conspiracy pandering) dramatically damage the foundation of a good doctor-patient relationship: the mutual expectation that both people in the exam room are allied against the patient’s disease.

Now the battle lines are so often “doctor vs. patient’s disease, patient’s self-diagnosis, patient’s social media and news consumption admonishing the patient that doctors can’t be trusted, patient’s hostile attitude, patient’s assumption that its ok to verbally or even physically intimidate a medical professional…”

And against those odds, why should I bother to object even slightly when the patient insists on pursuing whatever subjective tangent they desire? Go ahead, start mocking me for “still thinking covid exists,” or grumbling when I ask if you’ve ever been vaccinated for XYZ, or ranting about how the zpak antibiotic knocks out your 24 hours of viral congestion. I will just sit there, tapping my fingers absently on the keyboard as if I’m jotting this all down in your chart, while hoping for an opening to still nudge your health in a saner direction and get this visit over with.

If that opening never comes? As of 2021, I no longer attempt to kindly address and rephrase your misconceptions, distilling my hard-earned education into layman’s terms for you, partnering with you to redraw the battle lines into a mutual battle against your disease.

So congrats. You win. You and your disease.

heardatmedschool:

“When in doubt, you can always explain to a patient with a drawing. They always appreciate it, no matter the education level.”

Solid advice.

My most common piece of medical artwork.

Drawing for patients, especially if you preface it with “I’m no artist, but…” is always met with appreciation for your effort to make things simpler to understand.

(via flyonthewallmedstudent)