All Scrubbed Up

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.

And THIS?! Click the image to see it full size... Yowsers. Will have to wait for SA Doc's comment on this. She's still at work. I think this is two vagina lady's blog: I have two vaginas! A quote from the article, if you will... When I was dating, I'd just say, "So I have a little something to tell you." I never got any other reaction except, "Oh, my God, that's so cool," because they'd want to have sex in both sides and see what it felt like. Apparently, the right side is, well, more normal. The left side is a lot smaller. But they're both tight. That's a plus. I've got two G-spots, too, so I've always appreciated men who were extra dexterous with their fingers. I get to have two orgasms at the same time. So, who calls bullshit?

Now I'm confused. Anonymous (WHY always anonymous!?) posted a link to an urban myth page - with this exact story on it. Extract from that site here: Claim : A man who has had an embryo implanted in his abdomen is engaged in the world's first human male pregnancy. Status : False. Origins : The possibility of a man's becoming pregnant has been the subject of more than a few works of speculative fiction and comedy, and the topic was given some sober consideration in the media after the British weekly New Society ran an article discussing specifics of the procedure in 1986. It could be done, New Society reasoned, if an egg were fertilized in vitro and implanted in a man's abdominal cavity. The embryo would have to attach itself to a major organ, the man would have to undergo hormone injections, and the child would have to be delivered by caesarian section, but it was possible, they speculated. (The child would have to be male, though, or else the necessary hormone injectio...

There have been a couple of comments over the last week on our male pregnancy post. Nooo. Can't be. Impossible. You're yanking our chain. La la la. Chaps. It's true. Check out the interview...

OK. So this isn't new news... But I'm willing to bet there are a BUNCH of people out there who don't read Time Magazine. So here it is. And it's FASCINATING! This is why I became a doctor (for weird shit, of course!). My last post introduced the concept of extra-uterine pregnancy. So, is male pregnancy possible? Time magazine seems to think so... Now, my position on this first of all (scroll down if you really must see the picture). As a women's rights activist (mostly), I DON'T think that men should throw down the corporate life and take up the child bearing role. Firstly, as a Doctor, I believe that it is extemely dangerous and you risk the life of not only the fetus, but also of the father. Implantation has to be in a good place ( where the HELL might that be in a man?! - Andy ) giving a good supply of blood to the fetus... and at the same time not harming the father. Believe it or not, the liver is NOT a good place (when the placenta detaches, the liver coul...

Now here's a scary story... The world's major drug companies have been accused of turning a blind eye to the multibillion-dollar trade in fake medicine that has resulted in an explosion of child malaria deaths in developing countries. According to the British Independent newspaper, the problem has been particularly acute in Africa, with anti-malarial drugs faked on an industrial scale. One of the world's leading experts on malaria, Prof Nick White of Oxford University, estimates that malaria causes more than one million deaths each year of which 90% are children. He said that counterfeit medicine was a major reason why malaria had become, over the past 30 years, Africa's biggest child killer, 'from an illness that used to be easily treated with medicines'. Some of the fake drugs contain no medicine at all, but others have tiny traces of the real ingredients - which leads to another, potentially bigger problem as it allows the malaria parasite to build up resist...

Recently I read an article in the medical chronicals that blew me away. It was about a Doctor in New York (oh praise his alpha malesness) that is doing some experimental surgery... Wait for it... Trans-vaginal cholecystectomy! Oh my. Maybe it is because I have a vagina that this shocks me, but can you really imagine having your gallbladder (which lies up under your right ribs) removed through your vagina. THAT'S A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST 25CM! And exactly what our trans-vaginal cholecystectomy pioneer dude is attempting. The article claims that it will cause less pain, less scarring and quicker recovery! As it is, the conventional way to remove a gallbladder is via laproscope. So... you choose: 5 small (1-2cm) cuts in your abdomen or getting the think yanked through your love hole? This just proves the point that male doctors have no absolutely no cooking clue about female systems. Let's see how much he would like the surgery if we did it trans-urethrally (that's up the ja...

HERE's a story. After all the debate around the possibility of using Ubuntu to roll out a cheap technology infrastructure to aid SA hospitals - it seems like someone took notice. Whether the Premier, Mr Mbhazima Shilowa (who looks absolutely DASHING in his jazz hat) reads All Scrubbed Up or not is another question. But hark the sounds of technology actually helping the patient situation. Reported in the Citizen recently... Shilowa also announced that long queues at provincial hospitals and clinics could soon be a thing of the past, should the government’s smart-card plan materialise. In his State of the Province address he painted a picture of a paperless information system that would ensure speedy access to healthcare in all communities, especially for chronically ill patients. He said the province would develop a computerised card system so patients would just have to “swipe” their cards when rushed into hospital for medical emergencies or when collecting medicines. “This sys...

It started a couple of days ago, as reported on IOL . Outshone by colleagues who were brimming with good health at a cabinet cluster briefing in Cape Town on Thursday, Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang became an object of pity and embarrassment. And continued yesterday as reports flooded the media of the honorable Tshabalala-Msimang descending onto a ventilator at Joburg General private section. Tshabalala-Msimang's health has been under the microscope since she returned to duty earlier this year - after a long illness. She was admitted to the same hospital last year for several weeks suffering from a lung infection. Her spokesman, Sibani Mngadi, confirmed she was being treated for severe anaemia and residual pleural effusion (fluid in the lining of the lungs). Now, we would never wish this on anyone. Even though she's done some pretty pathetic things - health is health. And, somewhere deep inside, our beloved Manto understands some of the primary care issues facing...

Recently spotted on iAfrica.com . Medical scheme, Discovery Health, is investigating claims made by fraud convict Schabir Shaik for his 76-day stay at a Durban hospital, the Sunday Times reported. Yeah. Isn’t it great when your medical aid is working for you. Making sure dodgy claims get thoroughly investigated before implementing a rate hike to cover its losses. Shaik, a dependent on his wife Zuleika's Discovery medical scheme, was admitted to a private hospital, St Augustine's, where the cost of his bed alone totals more than R150 000. His admission into hospital, 16 days after his prison term commenced, sparked an outcry from medical experts and the public. No shit, Sherlock! R150k just on a bed is a cause for concern! So is the very fortunate timing of our beloved fraudster taking ill. I wonder what’s wrong with the poor man? Nothing a quick stint at Bara won’t fix?

More Ubuntu stuff soon... Keep reading! Some important news though... just in. It happened the other day. Anything 900g or less must breathe by itself or die. There are reasons of course, like not enough staff or intubators. Studies have also shown poor prognoses in lower grammages. Therefore those with a higher chance of surviving - will get the intubators. This one is 3500 grams. Makes you think. Doesn't it?

Vindicated! Yes! I wasn't as much of a zealot as I thought I was . The DSTV Streetpole ad series that featured pouty-lips Rihanna with a subheading 'Be Unfaithful' - of couse referring to decoders at a special special low price... has been changed. It now says Visit Paris . That's clever, while not encouraging promiscuity. Win win. PS. Buhle Dlamini wrote a piece for Business Day on the same subject. Published 5 December. Self-congratulatory pat on the Scrubbed Up back for scooping the story by 15 days !

Spotted in The Saturday Star , a wonderfully non-investigative lambasting of Energy Drink Cocktails. Hold on tight - this one's gonna get tabloid. Firstly, let's state the obvious. People who drink a lot, don't remember what happens to them. Duh. Yes, by adding stimulants like caffeinated energy drinks, you're slightly masking how drunk you really are. But the cold hard truth remains, it's not the energy drinks causing young girls to wake up in a stranger's bed - it's the 7 vodkas that got mixed with it. Nothing has changed . You drink 7 vodkas. You get plonked. So, let's analyse. The article reads like a high-school scare poster. BIG warnings about drinking energy drinks, going to the bathroom in pairs an avoiding scary men... but coffee and espresso cause the same medical issues! If you suffer from high blood pressure or pre-existing heart disease, even a wild afternoon in the coffee shop can be as dangerous. What they say is vague and generic enough t...

So, Google Maps just opened its warm capitalist arms to South Africa. We took a quick trip to show the world of blogging... Baragwanath Hospital. Old Bara is apparently the biggest hospital in the world by bed count. It's also the most multi-cultural Doctor-fest around. SA Doc had a Russian, Yugoslavian, Pakistanian, Congonese, Indian and 4 South Africans... just in one unit! Feast your eyes ladies and gents. Note size of shacks bottom left and houses middle top. Just under 2km in diameter - no wonder the porters laze off.

A DSTV StreetPole ad recently caught my attention. In true DSTV style, it offered out some big words, some sexy pictures and a great special on decoders. It was the words that got me thinking. Score Big. Go Wild. Be Unfaithful. DSTV R599. The Be Unfaithful portion of that ad came complete with smacker lips Rihanna looking seductive (pretty sure it was her). You can't really fault the ad (can you?) - because then you'd have to fault every magazine cover and E! Entertainment programme this side of 1989. But it does get you thinking though. In public media, where do you draw the line between sexy, suggestive tease and promoting unsafe behaviour? We live in a country that is more uneducated regarding sexual issues than we care to admit. Just where and when, I wonder, should the public start asking questions? Or am I just turning into an HIV zealot?

It’s nearing that time of year again. Med Students getting sweaty, trying to cram 6 years of lungs, guns and antibiotics into a mind already warped by the smell of formaldehyde. They’re dosing up on whatever they can get there hands on (with the imminent promise of Schedule 5+ if they can just… get… through… this). That’s because, after November at the University of Cape Town – 6th year medical students become DOCTORS. The class of 2003 used to mark these momentous yearly occasions with their own brand of cleansing ritual. The whole class, dressed to theme (Doctors by Day, Victoria Secret by Night was my personal favourite), would flock to an arbitrary building on the side M3. They would quickly and clinically get themselves boozed… and flash the traffic. This wasn’t any ordinary flashing of the traffic. With stethoscopes flying, lab coats swirling and SA’s finest wiggling their jiggly bit – the event made KFM news 3 years in a row, and was responsible for more than a few dented bump...

Recently spotted on BodyHack , a Wired Magazine blog about medical stuff. Raised the heckles a tad, no? "In some cases the best way to fight a fire is to light a fire of your own. But could the best way to fight AIDS possibly be with AIDS? Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are testing the idea that a modified strain of the HIV virus, called a lentivirus, could be turned into a sort of anti-AIDS guided missile that could directly target the HIV virus already in patients. Naturally safety was the primary concern. The Scientist reports: One safety concern with using lentiviruses as gene delivery vectors is that they might form replication-competent lentiviruses, but Levine and his colleagues found no evidence of this in any of the patients. Another concern is vector mobilization, which the researchers saw in the first 60 days after injection, but not after that. This mobilization probably doesn't mean the vector isn't safe, said Richard Sutton of Baylor College o...

Nope. Not part of the Anarchy Cookbook on interesting ways to heat up an anti-inflammatory - but rather some pharmaceutical DRM (that's Doctor Relationship Management for those in the know). The Wicked Food Cooking School played host to the latest round of Novartis talks on Prixige's Lumiracoxib - the Cox2 inhibitor (not as rude as it sounds) to end all Cox2 inhibitors - or so they tell me. The introductory speech washed over me like morphine - very few intelligent questions from the nonDoc. Except one interesting case scenario: 56 year old banker. Presenting with Osteo-Arthritis in the knee. Panado just wasn't cutting it because the poor bugger was walking 5km, 4 times a week. Stop me when it's starting to sound like crazy talk... but what 56 year old South African banker has the time to walk 20km a week!? God is in the details after all. Turns out the answer was easy. Prescribe Lumiracoxib . (PS. That's why doctors are so smart... you can only prescribe Lumirac...