tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41538846994019927262024-02-19T01:24:15.540-08:00RedTriageRed TRIAGEEd Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-40732486914150362312022-08-08T13:11:00.006-07:002022-08-08T13:49:30.611-07:00If You Want to Make God Laugh... Early on in the pandemic one of my daughters exclaimed "Covid ruins everything!" It became a running joke in our house, a bittersweet realization that our lives had collectively acquired a news sense of unpredictability. Whenever some minor disappointment would arise, or some expectation, dashed, we'd all exclaim "Covid ruins everything." As if the virus was some super villain Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-42312897206619362952020-08-28T08:05:00.002-07:002020-08-28T08:05:20.205-07:00Why Do Some People Get Through COVID19 Infections Unscathed? Why Do Some People Weather Coronavirus Infection Unscathed?
August 24, 2020 by Emily Laber-Warren
One of the reasons Covid-19 has spread so swiftly around the globe is that for the first days after infection, people feel healthy. Instead of staying home in bed, they may be out and about, unknowingly passing the virus along. But in addition to these pre-symptomatic patients, the relentless Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-77300797393983992822020-05-25T04:52:00.002-07:002020-05-25T04:52:36.032-07:00No One Knows What the Future HoldsEarly on, I started getting direct messages from friends and acquaintances asking what to expect when COVID19 hit our shores. How bad would it be? What should we do? Most often --once school and then other life started to close down -- how long will this last? I explained then -- and continue to explain today -- that this is a new and different disease and we are just learning as we go. We Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-47086360576539087162020-05-25T04:03:00.002-07:002020-05-25T04:03:38.770-07:00A day in the ER fighting COVID19Great storytelling of a doctor who fought Ebola and is now fighting COVID19 from AJ+He fought and survived Ebola, and now he's on the frontline of #COVID19 in NYC. This is a day working in the ER, as told by Dr.@Craig_A_Spencer. pic.twitter.com/gXmnD4qbW7— AJ+ (@ajplus) May 24, 2020 Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-51332839379449584152020-05-22T13:06:00.000-07:002020-05-22T13:06:21.589-07:00EKG Interpretation by ... Ortho? Sure you passed your ACLS class --barely -- but your specialty area doesn't deal with
electro-physiology all that much and you have a hard time remembering what all
those EKG rhythms mean. @TCKMed on twitter had a great thread to ... um ..
help.
Safe Squiggles (NSR)- Aw yeeee- Pumpy boi doin good-
Don't tell me it's a false flag shut up nerd
pic.twitter.com/XSVi0cFsG9Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-86946968424261533182020-03-13T12:00:00.001-07:002020-03-13T12:12:45.120-07:00I Think it's going to rain today
I woke up with this song in my head. This morning I realized it is Friday the 13th of March. Back in the ER tonight. After a week of summer weather. Woke up to rain. Last night was a tipping point I think. People in the United States started to realize that -- regardless of whether they personally got sick -- the next few weeks or months were going to be disrupted. It was the cancellation ofEd Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-65832550548236930432018-07-17T19:52:00.000-07:002018-07-17T19:52:42.462-07:00Think Fast: Understanding Stroke
When I was in nursing school, a friend of mine was walking out of a class when he suddenly couldn’t speak, his left arm and leg stopped working.
There were other students all around him, but they didn’t recognize what was happening and they kept asking him what they should do. Because the blood was cut off to a part of his brain that controlled speech he couldn’t tell them. He knew that Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-82180916361550053002018-04-16T03:16:00.001-07:002018-04-16T03:16:30.700-07:00It's the Prices, Stupid
There are a lot of problems with the US Healthcare system that prevent the ideal capitalist model from transferring its invisible-hand efficiencies to make us all well at minimal cost.
The most obvious problem is people rarely price-shop prior to purchasing healthcare services. Moreover, even if they did, no one knows how much anything costs
Instead, a parasitic multilayered economy Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-31669306487205373352018-04-11T20:28:00.000-07:002018-04-12T04:37:52.103-07:00Stories of Those We Carry: Green Glasses
The sun was out - rare this far north on an early spring day.
Visiting cousins from someplace else, you walked along the beach collecting shells and letting sand get between your toes.
Letting the cold water exhilarate your young skin to life.
As late afternoon passed, you and your cousins, 11 and 13, wandered down the beach away from the rented house in the dunes.
At some point the Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-20743756464458681092018-03-25T02:02:00.000-07:002018-03-25T02:02:07.238-07:00The fragmented US Healthcare system wastes billions just trying to collect bills.
Because the US healthcare system is a mess, it requires armies of people just to figure out who pays what. Those hours and hours of work are a tax on the system, making every interaction more expensive, according to a study recently published in the journal of the American Medical Association.
As the LA Times notes:
The unnecessarily complex, fragmented, and inefficient system Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-14418197748234530432018-02-13T03:03:00.001-08:002018-02-13T03:03:19.920-08:00If you think we are prepared for a pandemic, think again.
We are in one of the worst flu seasons in recent decades with thousands of Americans dying every week and the Trump Administration is proposing huge cuts to health care access, spending and public health.
Indeed, Republican efforts to cut access to healthcare -- affordable healthcare -- for every American put us on the path to a deadly global pandemic.
AS reported by Futurism, Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-31961527016984478632018-01-31T04:52:00.002-08:002018-01-31T04:53:48.170-08:00The Myth of Islands
An Island is a lie.
On my way to work, I drive along Willapa Bay and pass by the two Islands that can be seen from the mainland. Long Island crowds just feet from the highway that hugs the shore. Heavily forested it stretches away to the horizon, appearing as solid shoreline. Long Island holds a grove of ancient forest and in days past was inhabited with settlements. There is a ferry landingEd Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-9114466828599690592017-12-02T03:50:00.002-08:002017-12-02T03:50:28.853-08:00The Avalanche of Death: This is just the start of US healthcare's collapse
The tax plan passed by the GOP last night is mostly a sop to their donors with some ultra-conservative red meat thrown in to win a few senators who may have once pretended to care about fiscal responsibility.
However, one thing included in the bill is essentially a repeal of the individual mandate to have health insurance -- a key component of the Affordable Care Act.
With this mandate gone, Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-87809555781823291832017-12-02T02:50:00.000-08:002017-12-02T02:50:18.133-08:00Own it and LearnAs a nurse, I hate making mistakes.
I try not to make them, but they sneak up on you despite your best efforts.
Usually, they come when you feel like you're on top of things, like you have it all under control.
Let your guard down.
Fail to do the one thing you always do.
Fail to catch that vital bit of information at that crucial time.
Trust, when you know you shouldn't.
When I do make Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-7731141579415032352017-01-19T11:34:00.001-08:002017-01-19T11:34:07.217-08:00The GOP Plan to Kill Employer-Based Health Insurance
Mabel Goodwin, forty-five, is examined by a woman doctor at the employment office of the Bell Aircraft plant. Our Employer based health insurance has its roots in World War II. Library of Congress photo.
I don't know what worries me more, the fact that after eight years, Republicans don't have any single plan as they rush to replace the Affordable Care Act, or the plans that they DO Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-54288527516106118702017-01-10T13:16:00.001-08:002017-01-10T13:17:57.092-08:00Trump is going to kill children with this one
TRUMP is anti-science and pro conspiracy theory -- a dangerous combination where the health of millions of American children are concerned.
Now he selected an anti-vaccine kook to head the Commission on Vaccine Safety.
As the Washington Post reports Trump is selecting vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr:
The stunning move contradicts established science, medicine and Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-59851861347476600742016-11-12T08:56:00.003-08:002016-11-12T08:56:54.501-08:00What's Going to Happen to Obamacare? Republicans have been elected on a single promise over the past few elections -- repeal Obamacare.
Most people have heard the name, but don't know what it means. If you ask them about the benefits of individual provisions of the law, they are in favor of it. If you call it Obamacare -- they hate it.
The problem all along has been that there is no Republican alternative -- that's because Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-61649837391236565192016-10-26T08:09:00.002-07:002016-10-26T08:17:55.068-07:00You Can Only Do What You Can Do
full steam a head
Triage is all about sorting out the sick from the un-sick prior to the application of limited resources.
It is a vital part of the job we do.
There are times when it feels like bailing water with a teacup on a sinking ship.
A well designed Emergency Department will have enough nurses and doctors to handle the daily expected volumes of bellyaches and runny noses as well as Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-26065085947330524182016-10-04T10:19:00.002-07:002016-10-06T17:43:38.582-07:00The Profit-Making Costs On Our Health
photo: Library of Congress
The profit-motivated US healthcare system not only makes our healthcare more expensive than other industrialized nations, it also changes our our culture and our behavior to make us less healthy.
One of the biggest problems with the American healthcare system is that it is a rigged economic game where you don't know the price of what anything costs, and yet the Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-62351588418818323412016-06-27T11:19:00.000-07:002016-06-27T14:04:50.931-07:00Healthcare Ain't Hamburgers: Why Bills from the Emergency Room Are so High
A few weeks ago, I was working the night shift in the Emergency Room and I got a call.
"My two year old have a fever of 100.4, that's bad right?"
"Not really," I said. "Kids get sick all the time, the fever is the body's way of fighting an infection."
I got a few more details, made a suggestions for dosing Tylenol and Ibuprofen and to encourage hydration.
"So I don't need to bring him in?"
"YouEd Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-17994612420593016842016-05-06T05:19:00.001-07:002016-05-06T11:35:51.087-07:00 The Myth of Islands
An Island is a lie.
On my way to work, I drive along Willapa Bay and pass by the two Islands that can be seen from the mainland. Long Island crowds just feet from the highway that hugs the shore. Heavily forested it stretches away to the horizon, appearing as solid shoreline. Long Island holds a grove of ancient forest and in days past was inhabited with settlements. There is a ferry landing Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-48423289825019685732015-10-26T11:25:00.001-07:002015-10-26T13:57:10.185-07:00Why Food Science is So Bad (And So Often Wrong)
VOX.com Graphic
This week the World Health Organization put processed meat on the list of 478 other things that could cause cancer.
Eating an extra 50 grams of processed meat each day will increase a man's risk of colon cancer by 18 percent from baseline risk over a ten year period.
That said, your risk of getting colon cancer is small, but if you eat 50 grams of processed meat every day, itEd Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-33151469739521165482015-08-28T08:37:00.000-07:002015-08-30T09:27:38.109-07:00Best Thing on the Worst Day
via Library of Congress
It was a busy night.
That is saying a lot.
All of our Monday nights are busy these days, but this was bad even by our standards. We had our fastest night shift ER doc working and extra staff, but still the patient's kept pouring in all night long.
We had sick patients too.
It was so bad that we woke up the morning shift doc and brought him in at 4 am because Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-42575624190406518352015-02-02T11:01:00.000-08:002015-02-02T11:04:49.060-08:00Things You Didn't Know About Opiates
image stolen from American Apothocary
The Atlantic has a great infographic about the history of opiates in both medical use and abuse. It is full of historical revelations including:
Laudanum was first formulated in the 1500s and is still available today by prescription.
Heroin was formulated to be a less addictive alternative to morphine.
Free samples of heroin were mailed out to try and Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153884699401992726.post-7225423091767786192015-01-24T11:20:00.000-08:002015-02-15T08:52:41.111-08:00Do We Need C-Collars?
I was first on scene. An extended cab pickup with trailer was in the ditch on its side. Snow was falling, but the ditch was full of icy water. A woman was standing outside the truck "my husband is trapped inside." I had my partner call for extrication help. I opened the back door of the truck and a Rottweiler dog came flying out, barking, but eager to get out of the overturned rig.
It Ed Hunthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13782557190034683718noreply@blogger.com0