While I typically offer readers thoughts and commentary on the medical universe, or musings on politics, I am serving up some lighter fare today. Hopefully, unlike the patient highlighted below, you will be able to chew on, swallow and digest this post. If this blog had a category entitled, A Day in the Life of a Gastroenterologist, this piece would reside there. I was called to the emergency room yesterday to attend to an elderly woman who had steak lodged in her esophagus. While this sounds life threatening to ordinary folks, it poses no mortal danger. The airway is uninvolved and normal respirations proceed without interruption. These patients, while fully alive, are rather uncomfortable. This is one of the tasks that gastroenterologists are routinely called to undertake, often at inhospitable hours. Sometimes, these folks have known esophageal narrowed regions where food that is not masticated with enthusiasm can hold up. On other occasions, a person with a t
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.