On long car journeys I relax by browsing medical stock image libraries. Here's what I found...
Don't write patient details on the label; write the result of the test. Also, use the red vacutainer.
Pre-printed labels are available to help you if you are unsure what the result will be. Also, use the purple vacutainer.
If you are transporting antibodies to 'the' COVID-19, use a clotting tube.
Alternatively use a yellow vacutainer. Unfortunately this patient later turned out to have both Ebola & Dengue.
If you have malignant hyperthermia, please do NOT get on an aeroplane.
The COVID virus is both visible to the naked eye on a monochromatic X-ray and emits a red glow. The depicted emotional response to realising this seems appropriate.
If your X-ray looks like this however, PCR testing is probably not required.
If performing finger prick testing, please clean your desk first.
Neither the photographer nor the model here seem to have ever seen a pregnant woman before.
Nope.
Definitely still nope.
And finally, my favourite title of all that combines sexism with a mysterious neon pictographic overlay for no apparent reason.
@todguest As requested, here's a thread on how consultants are paid in NZ. I'll break it down to allow comparisons with other healthcare systems. The preferred terminology is 'Senior Medical Officer' (SMO) or 'Specialist'.
None of this information is secret. It is negotiated nationally by our union (ASMS) & every national contract (MECA) is published online. Current agreement is here: asms.org.nz/wp-content/upl…
Some terminology explainers required. Up until July 2022, every region was overseen by a DHB (District Health Board) who ran the hospitals, paid the staff etc. Everyone is now united under a single employer - Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ.
30 bad COVID arguments debunked: thelogicofscience.com/2022/01/19/deb…
These are so frequent & so soundly rebuffed, I'm putting them all on here because you can't be trusted to click on link. Skip the next 30 if you're so over this right now.
Watching ICUs around the world burn to the ground in 2021 makes it all the more bizarre we have not had a single COVID patient in @WellingtonICU. We have little idea of how 'lucky' we are.
But, of course, none of it was down to luck. Geography helped, but this year should end with New Zealanders thanking the public health experts & the contact tracers who stood between us and COVID and the politicians who listened to them.
And the District Health Boards that enabled rapid mass vaccination and the community leaders that encouraged and enabled this. But there was inequity; and undoubtedly it could have been done better. health.govt.nz/our-work/disea…
Coffee Cures Covid. This gloriously cynical French study proves beyond statistical doubt that coffee's active constituent (1,3,6-trimethylxanthine) is the Next Big Thing. mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/11…
Confirmed COVID patients were randomised to 65mg morning coffee vs control of those who refused it.
Is this the most French study ever conducted?
Coffee significantly reduced the use of antibiotics, % of lung-lesion abnormality on CT and reduced the hospital length of stay from 15 to 9.5 days in French COVID patients
I’m just a jobbing intensivist but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this it’s best expressed as a 10 metre high neon sign saying ‘do what you normally do’ backlit by fireworks.
And the more I read stuff on here I’m inclined to wonder whether social media isn’t part of the COVID solution but driving the anthesis of the neon sign.
I’ve read about Perspex boxes and COVID phenotypes and fish tank decontaminants and some very strong opinions (because who doesn’t right now) on face mask fitting and remain mostly baffled at people changing established practices based on a tweet from someone they’ve never met.
My argument is that the patients we look after and their families that we talk to approach sudden bad events with expectations informed by what they have seen.
Our outcome expectations are also informed by what we have seen. The difference is they are likely to have seen it on TV; we are likely to have seen it in emergency departments & intensive care units.