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I caught a few segments of it last night. I thought it was pretty funny.

Glad to see you guys back!

For those of you who follow medicine, an important and controversial trial was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine this month (actually gets published in print tomorrow). This is one of those landmark studies that will be talked about for years in the medical community, particularly amongst cardiologists and internists.

 

Rosuvastatin to Prevent Vascular Events in Men and Women with Elevated C-Reactive Protein N Engl J Med 2008 359: 2195-220, available online free from the NEJM.

 

The NEJM has also opened up a comment section titled "The JUPITER Trial: Will You Change Your Practice?" available until Nov. 26th online here. There are some insightful comments posted.

Bro.

If you haven't seen it, then why are you commenting?

 

Didn't you do that with Wall-E?

 

Also, the film has been extremely well-received by religious people. What's the problem again?

Pangloss didn't comment on the film, he asked what sets it apart from other documentaries that "the other side" puts out.

 

Also, the film has been extremely well-received by religious people.

Can you show me a few examples?

Thank you for the clarification...

 

This scares me... Ive seen some mold grow in my house. I never expected it to be Extraordinarly dangerous, becuase there are many non-dangerous cultures, and Ive been around it alot and never felt a symptom....

 

1) What is the progression of fungul lung infections?

2) How good are modern-day Anti-fungal treatments?, major side-effects?.

 

Dont worry about it if i went outside you realm... you sound atleast an RT.

The progression of fungal pneumonia varies depending on the organism. Organisms like histoplasmosis and blastomycosis are endemic to certain regions (ohio river valley and lower mississippi river respectively), but infection with these organisms is relatively rare. Often times infections are subclinical and self-limiting. Asymptomatic non-immunocompromised patients aren't even treated usually. If the infection is systemic or the patient is experiencing symptoms, the infection is usually treated with an oral antifungal -- itraconazole and amphotericin B are typical examples. Itraconazole is tolerated pretty well, sometimes patients have a bit of diarrhea. It's also slightly hepatotoxic, so you might see a bump in the liver enzymes. Amphotericin B has a bigger side-effect profile which you can look up if you're interested. There are different formulations that try and minimize the side-effects. Generally the medications work very well. Usually the only time you see a fungus really someone a lot of trouble is in the immunocompromised (cryptococcus and aspergillis especially). For the record I'm a 4th year medical student.

Not sure if this belongs in the maths forum, so one of the mods will have to clean up after me if it doesn't. On another forum I'm involved with a discussion of random functions. One poster is arguing that if you take any random process or function and add it to a non-random process or function, that your end result is still random. Is this true? If not, can it be shown in some sort of proof that this is not the case?

Forgive me for not researching, but to my understanding MRSA is a staff infection resisitant to anti-biotics... How would this not constitute a chronic deasese? Acutley presenting can be to anything (other than prolonged enviormental exposer as someone mentioned).

You are correct in your understanding that MRSA is resistent to some antibiotics. It's actually a misnomer that MRSA is resistant to all antibiotics, or even most antibiotics. MRSA stands for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus (short "staph") areus. Thus, any staphylococcus aureus culture which is resistant to methicillin is classified as MRSA. However, many MRSA strains are susceptible to doxycycline, clindamycin, linezolid, TMP-SMZ, and even flouroquinolones. The susceptibilities often depend on whether or not the MRSA is community acquired or hospital acquired.

 

In medicine we often use the word chronic as an adjective to describe a disease that is slow to develop. Patients who develop MRSA pneumonia will develop symptoms very quickly because MRSA is evokes such a strong immune response. It is not considered a chronic disease because the disease has a rapid onset and patients will get sick enough to present to the hospital (or their primary care physician) seeking treatment. Patients don't walk around in the community with a MRSA abscess in their lungs.

 

However, the fungal organisms I mentioned earlier often do have a slow onset of disease and a longer clinical course. Patients can walk around in the community with these pneumonias and have very minor or even absent symptoms.

Work hard and apply broadly. Don't overestimate yourself, but don't underestimate yourself either. Remember to have a life, too. Your activities will certainly be much more limited in medical school and you'll wish you had spent more time doing the things you love. Admissions committees are looking for people who have balanced a life and academics. And don't knock DOs -- same classes, same work, same rotations, same practice rights, same legal standard of practice. If it's not your thing it's not your thing, but no need to be disrespectful.

 

Good luck to you!

One of my biggest problems with pathology is been able to describe a histology slide. I have tried several approaches to tackling these issues but have not succeeded in getting it right. So i am hoping that someone in this forum will point me in the right direction I.E, give a link to a site that shows this, or a book i can purchase (at a reasonable price) that will teach me how to describe histological slides. Cheers

 

On the other hand, here is a typical example... of what i cant do

 

http://www.microscopyu.com/galleries/pathology/chronicpneumonialarge.html

I have two questions based on what is shown in that link...

 

1 - Can anyone of you describe the histological slide displayed on that website?

2 - Secondly, the slide talks about causative agents, does anyone know of the causative agents associated with Chronic Pneumonia? at least 4

 

This carries too many questions, so any one answer you can conjure up will do. Dont worry about answering everything... Thanks in advance

As to your specific questions:

 

#1 - It's hard to give a very detailed description without a more macro and micro picture. What you're seeing in that picture looks like some sort of suppurative chronic pneumonia. The alveolar walls are thickened and the alveolar space, which should normally be filled with air, is filled with neutrophils. What you see in the upper left corner of the picture is most likely an arteriole filled with RBCs, however without a closer picture I can't be certain.

 

#2 One poster above mentioned MRSA as a chronic pneumonia -- this is not correct. MRSA will almost certainly present acutely. M. tuberculosis is the classic bacterial cause of chronic pneumonia, however other bacteria such as Actinomyces israelii, and Nocardia can also cause a chronic pneumonia. Fungi can also cause chronic pneumonia -- blastomycosis and coccidiomycosis are the typical examples.

There's also the delayed choice quantum eraser.

I can move part of this discussion to another thread, if you guys would prefer. Just let me know via PM.

..works for me

Test

it was all down to spin gravity.

WINNAR - A+ would read again.

lols.... If you guys just read basic anatomy and histology you can just simply conclude that these are just fragments of cells from parts of the eye that are left floating in your vitrous or aqeous humor of your eye.

 

its just stuck there... so when light hits the dead cell or a you try to focus on it .... it appears like a tiny flash of light.

 

by the way.. its normal. So dont think your kinda special or sick.

 

-MDdan21

Could also be retinal detachment, which is an opthalmologic emergency and can lead to permanent blindness.

 

But hey, you're the expert.

A big thanks to dave and cap'n refsmmat -- they worked hard today getting it set up so fast. This was probably the smoothest transition we've ever had.

A draw now that's never happened before!

Classic Klaynos.

All the medical syndromes that are named after their discoverer really get on my nerves. I'd much rather they stick to the traditional the latin naming scheme. Maybe it's because as a student it's very tedious to try and remember which disease is which person. There is actually a push to prefer the latin names in medical education, but the problem is that the older generation of physicians know and reference many syndromes by their colloquial name. For example, Von Hippel-Lindau (often shortened to VHL) is more appropriately named cerebelloretinal hemangioblastomatosis. That could be shortened to CRHB or something, and it makes far more sense and is much easier to remember than trying to remember which disease Von Hippel-Lindau is.

<MotorDaddy> So define distance, then. It shouldn;t be a problem.

<ajb> ds^{2} = g_{\mu \nu}(x)dx^{\mu}dx^{\nu}

<ajb> point being we need to define the metric g_{\nu \mu}(x)

<ajb> it does not usually come for free

<ajb> for example, consider just R^{2} and give it the Euclidean metric

<ajb> then ds^{2} = dx^{2} + dy^{2} with g_{a b} = \delta_{ab}

<MotorDaddy> Where is X=0

<ajb> so we get just Pythagora's rule

<ajb> what is X?

<MotorDaddy> I don't know.

Couldn't resist.

Biochemistry by a long shot. MedGen, how did you take biochem without organic chemistry? At my university, organic chem 1&2 are prerequisites for biochemistry -- and if I recall correctly they were used in biochemistry. Biochemistry made organic chemistry look like child's play

Yes. In the UK we would call that a disproportionate response. You don't need to kill some one to defend yourself.

You and I both can imagine scenarios in which this is clearly not the case.

 

If I'm attacked, should I have to risk my life to defend myself?

SkepticLance,

 

While it may be true that you are a very responsible adult' date=' it is also true that lots of people out there are not.

 

If banning hand-guns from personal possession will save thousands of lives each year, should we not do that? The suicide statistics suggest that a big saving in this tragic loss of life would follow.[/quote']Why don't we just ban fast food. Or maybe the government can come by and take the foods out of your cabinet which aren't good for you. Obesity-related comorbidities kill tens of thousands of people a year and costs the healthcare system billions and billions of dollars (no matter what healthcare system you live under). The statistics suggest that if the government were to tightly control what you eat, a big saving in this tragic loss of life would result. Not only that, the government would save billions and billions of dollars.

 

I really like the fact that I live in a society where I don't need guns to protect my family, and because criminals know nobody have guns in their home, they also don't feel the need to have guns (and, no, we don't robbed all the time, actually I'm pretty sure robbery is much lower here).

To each his own, I guess. The rate of property crime in Canada and the US is about equal, but the rate of violent crime is much higher in the US.

 

I also believe that if you are are responsible' date=' law abiding adult then you would by your own choice not want to own a gun legal or otherwise.

 

Guns are for killing people full stop...I see no logic in a person and especially a family to have guns in their possession.[/quote']Are you suggesting that there is no situation in which a law-abiding logical adult would need to kill someone full stop?

 

Of course, I understand that most Americans do not accept the existence of free nations outside their borders......

Stop generalizing. It makes you come off as a pompous asshat.