All Scrubbed Up

Unfortunately due to other commitments and just generally getting older, SA Doc and myself have to announce that All Scrubbed is retiring. It's been one helluva ride - and thank you to everyone for being part of it. Every comment was highly appreciated and kept us going through the last 2 years. We'll obviously keep it alive so you can trawl through the archives. There are some doozies! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Totsiens! Ciao! Blog closed. End.

The world has become a much smaller place, thanks to technology and globalization. But no matter how connected we are, there still exist huge disparities between the rich and the poor. The gap gets wider with each passing year, for individuals and nations. In the eyes of the developed world, third world countries are perceived as places where the standard of living is poor and where the things they take for granted are considered luxuries. In reality however, third world countries have their share of both the obscenely rich and the dirt poor. And the main reason for their backwardness is not just the paucity of money, but also the lack of awareness and education among the poorer and downtrodden sections of society. When we consider the state of medical services in these countries, we see that the rich are able to afford any kind of treatment for all kinds of diseases. But for the poor and the middle class, medication is prohibitively expensive simply because quality medical services ...

Drinking coffee 'protects the heart' . Researchers have discovered that regular coffee drinkers are less likely to be admitted to hospital with irregular heart beats or rhythms. And the more cups they drink a day, the less likely they are to suffer from the condition. (From The Telegraph). OK. But isn't red wine and whiskey good for the heart as well? Hook me up to a combo drip of the 3 of those. I've thought of SA Doc's next post. WHY COFFEE WILL KILL YOU. Awesome.

So, SA Doc is losing a bit of faith in this blog, not finding the time to feed her ghost writer with juicy medical tidbits. Is there anyone out there still reading this? Time to pack in the towel on 2 years of awesome medical blogging and fun - or should we kick SA Doc in the ass and get some more stories?

I think that this post should be a warning to all that not all medical information available on the web is true. I constantly have patients bringing me the latest information that they have downloaded from the web about their particular condition. 90% of the time, it is rootin tootin junk. It requires great diplomacy to explain that to them, since these web pages usually gives them false hope about the treatments that they may need (or may be able to avoid). CLAIM: According to a university study, oral sex may significantly decrease the risk of breast cancer in women. No, this wasn't a real CNN page (or Associated Press article), nor did North Carolina State University perform a study on the connection between fellatio and breast cancer. (If nothing else, the names of the doctors cited in the article — "Dr. B.J. Sooner," "Dr. Inserta Shafteer," "Dr. Len Lictepeen" — should have given it away as a hoax.) More info here ... Sies!

Recently reported by The Daily Maverick... The Australian Medical Association ran an advertisement in newspapers offering a bounty of A$3,000 (just over R20,000) to anyone who persuades a foreign doctor to work in that country. We're short 2500 doctors in this bloody country. Oz should leave ours alone!

I've been engaging a lot recently with the notion of an electronic health record. For those of you who don't know, this is usually an online version of collated data to do with your health. Simply - your pathology, your doc notes, all the hospital visits, illnesses and drug usage are kept in one secure place. You can access it and most of the time, so can a healthcare provider. For those of you that are not in tune with the medical world - this is something you have to know about as it is the backbone of the Obama administration. By having an electronic health record, there is a saving on administration as well as all the good things a centralised database brings. eg. Less duplication of tests and better management of healthcare. Discovery Health in South Africa is launching one next year. It'll be interesting to see how the "population" engages with it. This blog is very interesting in that it clearly outlines the fact that your medical records belong to YOU. M...

It’s a problem that still plagues most third world countries because the level of awareness is pretty low, because the people are not educated enough, and because HIV/AIDS is still rampant. The most important thing on an HIV positive pregnant woman’s mind is the fear that she will pass on the dreaded disease to her unborn child, and most women opt for an abortion rather than put their child through the same torment that they undergo every day. But the truth is, if you follow the right precautions, babies with HIV mothers are unaffected by this virus. Combination antiretroviral therapy must be provided to the mother during pregnancy and during labor, and to the child after birth. Breastfeeding must be avoided as much as possible, and if the mother insists on it or if the child is allergic to other forms of sustenance, they can try the preventive method suggested by a study conducted by the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill. According to this study, providing the infant wit...

Quick excerpt here from a 2001 study that proves tobacco laws reduce smoking. This is damn old. We're getting better at it. The source site is also great for other South African public health statistics . Tobacco consumption declines by Mokgadi Pela 2001-03-16 Tobacco consumption in South Africa has fallen for eight consecutive years since 1991, a meeting to discuss the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control heard in Sandton, Johannesburg, on the 12th of March. Delivering the keynote address, Dr Derek Yach, of the World Health Organisation, said this was a result of sustained tobacco control measures. He said in 1998-99 more than 30 billion cigarettes were released for consumption, down by 17 percent from the 36 billion released in 1993-94. The work of public health advocates in South Africa thrived. Led by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, South Africa's tobacco control story is now a shining example for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control of public excellence...

For those of you who don't know... Smoking laws are getting stricter. YES! Good on ya, South Africa. If only they'd extend it to alcohol (btw, when is SAB going to STOP making quarts in glass bottles? Have you SEEN Friday night at Bara??) Although he pokes fun and says that smoking laws do nothing - this is not true. There have been large changes in the prevalence of smoking of the first set of laws were passed in South Africa. Same for you overseas? Another post on this soon. More on iMod .

Great article on understanding hospitals, the do's, don'ts, knows and nots. While hospitals can provide a secure refuge when you are seriously ill, remember that hospitals can be scary places! For one thing, the very fact that your doctor wants you to be admitted into hospital means that he thinks you are quite ill and this in itself can generate considerable anxiety! Even worse, hospitals can be very unfriendly places. Not only do hospitals strip you of all your dignity (having to wear a half-open hospital gown which barely covers your body properly does not do much good to your ego!), but also they subject you to painful routines and humiliating rituals performed by a retinue of strangers. Moreover, you could be woken up at any time of the day, (or night), deprived of your privacy, forced to eat unpalatable food, cut off from friends and family, and denied a lot of the independence which you take so much for granted in daily life. Also, remember that hospitals can be danger...

Beware of those basic principles of medical tests! *ANC YL FULLY BEHIND SOUTH AFRICA¹S GOLDEN GIRL MOKGADI CASTER SEMENYA* *11 September 2009* The African National Congress Youth League is fully behind the International Athletics Associations Federation (IAAF) World Championships Gold Medallist, Caster Semenya amidst the malicious rumour of a medical report from the IAAF. The ANC YL has interacted with Athletics South Africa and established that there was never a legitimate test conducted on Caster Semenya and all basic principles of medical tests are grossly violated. The ANC YL calls on the IAAF to distance itself from the Australian Media reports, and in line with basic medical ethics illegitimate any test done on Caster Semenya without her concern. Even if a test is done, the ANC YL will never accept the categorisation of Caster Semenya as a hermaphrodite, because in South Africa and the entire world of sanity, such does not exist. The basic, traditional and known method to determi...

Death count... wait for it... 2. Some say, a flash in the pan. Others say, this is how it starts. We really dunno. SA Doc thinks the pandemonium is a bit OTT (over the top).

The human body is a fascinating and intricate construction, and there are many reasons to learn more about it. You may want to know how it works so that you can better understand your own, and thereby make the best decisions possible in regards to good health and maintenance. You may want to understand how it works so that you can move into a profession that works to restore it to health. You may just be curious. Whatever the reason, these 7 excellent open courseware collections to learn about the human body are a great place to begin or to continue your study of the human body. General Human Anatomy General Human Anatomy takes a general look at the structure of the body and all its systems. This is a cursory examination of the human body as a structure provided by UC Bekeley and is the perfect start to any study of the human body. Human Anatomy Human Anatomy, provided by Emory University, takes the investigation a step farther examining the systems of the human body. It takes ...

What the hell. “I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes intercommunications incomprehensibleness”. This is a sentence where the Nth word is N letters long. e.g. 3rd word is 3 letters long, 8th word is 8 letters long and so on.

From GraphJam . Hilarious. All they forgot was the seizures. Why is it that there is at least ONE seizure per episode of House. SA Doc tells me it's a lot more exciting than real life. Even the Baragwanath pit.

Opium for new-borns I'm sure this would make them sleep well (not only the Opium, but 46% alcohol!)

A double bill for you today. Amazing that these "medicines" existed. Oh but for the old days eh? Cocaine tablets (1900) All stage actors, singers teachers and preachers had to have them for a maximum performance. Great to "smooth" the voice. Cocaine drops for toothache Very popular for children in 1885. Not only they relieved the pain, they made the children happy!

Opium? Really? Awesome.

A paper weight A paper weight promoting C.F. Boehringer & Soehne ( Mannheim , Germany ). They were proud of being the biggest producers in the world of products containing Quinine and Cocaine.