Surgery Without Wires

Surgery is messy... and I don't mean in terms of blood and guts... What I mean are wires, cables, tubing, etc. Let's take a routine tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy for example... Electric cord for the operating table Electric cord for the anesthesia machine Electric cord for the surgeon's headlight Light cord from the surgeon's headlight to the lightbox Breathing circuit tube from the patient to the anesthesia machine Carbon dioxide outflow tube from the patient t…

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Why Are You Looking in My Mouth When It's My Ear Hurting?

One June 20, 2011, NPR aired a great story about how a person may not "see" a person getting beat up on the side of a jogging path when they are focused on a task (pursuing another jogger)... even if they pass RIGHT BY THE FIGHT!!! In fact, only a third of the subjects reported seeing this mock fight when the experiment was conducted at night. Even more surprisingly, broad daylight didn't improve the statistics (only 40% noticed the fight). Though the situation and circumst…

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The Diane Rehm Show on NPR Examines the Human Voice

Diane Rehm who hosts an NPR show of her name, suffers from a voice disorder called Spasmodic Dysphonia . On April 18, 2011, she hosted a show on vocal issues with expert guests addressing what makes a healthy voice. The experts range from physician laryngologist Dr. Nazaneen Grant to voice coaches. Listen to the show here !

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How is Love Like Dizziness? Medically Speaking...

I watched this touching video of what it is like to fall in love... that very moment when you see the love of your life for the first time... and the world falls away. Time slows down. That feeling of elation, passion, love overwhelms. Time stands still. Everything else blurs out except for him/her... Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo . Now from a medical perspective, how can we test this? If "love" is considered a disease, how can we positively "diagnose" th…

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Can Placebo Be Used to Help People Instead of Drugs?

On my way to work On December 23, 2010, I heard a great story on NPR regarding how placebos can potentially be used to help people... EVEN if they know it's a placebo! Based on research done at Harvard, they found that a placebo helped patients with irritable bowel syndrome 59% of the time compared to a similar group that received nothing. Of greater significance... the treatment group with placebo KNEW they were getting a placebo. Given that many medications have similar (and even …

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NPR on Endoscopic Sinus Surgery

NPR published a story on Oct 4, 2010 describing endoscopic sinus surgery using image guidance . The NPR story is actually quite balanced with accurate portrayal of what sinus surgery can or can't do. Just like in the NPR story , our office performs the same high-definition endoscopic sinus surgery using BrainLAB image guidance (which provides the real-time 3-dimenstional guidance). Prior to sinus surgery, a patient must fail medical management first (unless nasal masses like polyps…

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