Manto's Liver to Little Johnny: Thank You!

Manto wishes to thank the Johannesburg Transplant Unit for her new liver. She's sorry little Johnny didn't get the liver instead. And would like to make a toast to all those out there who supported her cause. Cheers! Glug.

The ethics of liver transplants for alcoholics...

Read an article on the front page of the Citizen, about Discovery Health (Bongi's favourite) refusing to fund a liver transplant on what seems like suspicion of alcohol abuse.

So I want to debate transplants. And the ethical eligibility to receive one. Liver transplants spring to mind.

Many conditions cause end-stage liver disease that would then require a liver transplant for survival. Livers are a scarce resource that do not become available everyday. For instance, in the UK, 17000 people are waiting for a liver transplant. If you're lucky, between 50 and 200 become available every year.

So, how do you allocate organs appropriately and fairly?

Do you want to give a liver to a person, who through large consumption of alcohol caused cirrhosis? Or do you want to give it to a child, who through no fault of their own, has biliary atresia. Or to a woman who developed auto immune hepatitis?

Most international guidelines say that for a person who has alcohol-induced liver failure to become eligible for a transplant, they need to have shown a period of abstinence and/or a period of rehabilitation. Usually 6 months.

After this period - does that make them deserving of a liver transplant? Should the guidelines be abolished as people who are alcoholics have a disease "that they are not in control of"? Even if you will continue to drink and destroy your new liver?

Should self-induced liver disease be deserving at all (taking into account the more deserving children and adults out there, who have had no control of the cause of their liver failure)?

What do you think?

Personally, I will tell the Organ Donation Society NOT to give my liver / organs to anybody who has not been substance abuse rehabilitated. Full stop.

Live Surgery #2 - More open heart surgery!

Is it just me? Or is that thing beatin' fast!?

Live Surgery #1 - Open Heart Surgery

Who would've thunk it? The world's video viewing spot of choice, YouTube, has live surgery.

Lock away the kids!

Vitality. Is it vital?

Question. What does everyone out there (South Africans) think of Vitality? We've just joined. Got our super cheap gym, earning points like crazy. Blah. Blah.

What do you think? Marketing gimmick? Or a real loyalty programme based on a healthly lifestyle?

Private Practice comes to South Africa

Shudder. This just CAN'T be good.

Some background from IMDB.

A highly regarded neo-natal surgeon and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Addison is also a board certified OB-GYN with fellowships in maternal-fetal medicine and medical genetics. She also completed two years of study on cystic fibrosis. In addition, she is also one of only a handful of surgeons in the world who knows how to separate fetal blood vessels. She is increditably wealthy but it was never clearly implied if she was weathy to begin with or if she had to work for her success. Addison met her future husband, Derek Shepherd, in medical school and completed her residency under the supervision of her now good friend, Dr. Richard Webber, whom she, at one point, avoided for almost a year after he taught her a valuable lesson about not getting too close to her patients by putting her on a case in which the patient would inevitably die.

Addie and Derek became extremely successful in their respective fields and each began their own practice in New York. This strained their marriage. After she was caught cheating with Derek's best friend, Mark Sloan, he moved to Seattle to get away from her. There, he met Dr. Meredith Grey with whom he started a relationship. Addison then arrived in Seattle at Richard's behest, and confronted Derek on his affair by introducing herself to Meredith as his wife.

After a period of antagonism between her and Derek (in which he continually referred to her as "Satan"), Addison decided to stay on as head of neo-natal surgery at Seattle Grace, signing a lucrative two-year contract after she and Derek decided to make an effort to work things out, but Derek was still in love with Meredith. After finding out that her husband slept with Meredith at the hospital-sponsored prom, however, Addison (in a drunken haze) called Mark Sloan to Seattle.

She and Derek then agreed that their marriage was over and started divorce proceedings. She asked Mark to go back to New York, but he stayed, expressing his desire to continue their relationship. Addison rebuffed him.When the divorce was finalized, Addison dropped the "Shepherd" from her last name. Wanting to make a fresh start, Derek happily relinquished most of their shared properties (their Brownstone in Manhattan overlooking Central Park and a residence in The Hamptons) to her believing that she deserved it under his initial impression that she only had a one-night stand with Mark while he carried an affair with Meredith.

Later, Addison divulged the whole truth regarding her infidelity to him which led to an emotionally painful encounter in which Derek told her to get out of his life. Addison is believed to have had a good relationship with the Shepherd family, in particular Nancy Shepherd (McBitchy), but, pending Derek's revelation of the true extent of Addison/Mark's relationship, her closeness to the Shepherds is in doubt.

Since arriving at Seattle Grace, Addison has made many friendships with other characters, most notably Callie Torres and Miranda Bailey. Callie and Addison often discuss their current relationships and love lives, which has ultimately led to a very close friendship between the two. Addison is also very good friends with fellow attending, Preston Burke. She has a strained friendship with Mark Sloan and doesn't have a strong friendship with any of the interns, with the exception of Alex Karev, but that friendship is reminiscent to that of hers with Mark Sloan. She has a father-daughter bond with Richard Webber, and is often portrayed to be very close to him. A possibility of a relationship between her and Alex Karev has been hinted at, when she kissed him in Joe's bar. Even after he rejected her affections, she continued to lust after him.

She has (along with Mark) decided to abstain from sex for 60 days. If Dr. Sloan completes the challenge, she is willing to try a real relationship with him; however, it is she who fails. She engages in a sexual encounter with Alex at the hospital and Mark learns of this after witnessing them stumbling out of an on-call room. She is spared from confessing, however, when Mark lies to her by telling her he had broken their promise long before.

According to many of the show's allusions, Addison then decides to pursue Alex Karev. Her advances are once again rejected, however, hinting at the potential departure of Addison though she has expressed immense interest in being the next Chief of Surgery. Addison visited her college friend Naomi in a Private Practice is Los Angeles to get pregnant. It turns out that Addison't cervical count is 2 and she can't become a mother. Dr Pete Finch kisses her to "remind her that she's not dried up"...

Sigh. It sounds truly awful. Has anyone seen it? Thoughts?

Best Of All Scrubbed Up (Part 2)

Not enough bloggers take the time to go back in the archives and rehash some of their best material... Egotistically speaking of course.

But we're different.

WELCOME TO PART 2 - The Best of All Scrubbed Up

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The World famous WHAT IS THAT?!? Competition

Ah. Nothing draws crowds like a bit of guess-the-gross-thing-on-the-operating-table. This series of posts probably ranks as the most popular we've ever written for All Scrubbed Up. Read Part 1 of the competition here - or click here to browse through all the posts and their respective answers (reveals!).

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HIV people CAN have children...

And then a heart-warming piece about an experience SA Doc had with some HIV patients. We must never forget our empathy - especially being South Africans, living in the health environment we do.

Aids is not a disease. It's a human rights issue.
- Nelson Mandela, 2005.

Read the post here.

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And there ends the lesson. What do you think of the BEST OF selection? Let us know in the comments...

Back.

We're baaaack!