Washington Post Offers Grey's Reality Check

The Washington Post has a great story on interns and docs at Howard University Hospital watching Grey's and wondering: why isn't MY life like this?

Take a gander (registration required) at how they feel about Meredith and Dr. McDreamy's relationship, how the interns talk-back to their superiors, and how the medical story lines seem to get.. um.. creative during sweeps.

Howard's docs specifically mentioned story lines such as interns getting to do major surgeries, or Meredith's lack of brain damage after being dead for what seemed like hours.

How do you feel about how doctors are portrayed on Grey's? All in good fun or distracting?


technorati tags: greys, greysanatomy, drmcdreamy

Grey's: We Must Amputate Diabetes

While there are many wonderful things to focus on about this episode of Grey's Anatomy -- other than the aftermath of Izzy and George -- I am a good WebMDer and I am going to take this opportunity to highlight the diabetes/amputation storyline.

First, let's layout some plain not-in-the-episode-but-vital-to-your-understanding facts about diabetes in today's America.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of 2005 there were 20.8 million people with diabetes. What does that mean? Seven percent of the population has it. Of that number, it's estimated that 6.2 million are undiagnosed -- meaning they don't know they have diabetes.

Okay so what is diabetes exactly? It's a metabolic disorder affecting how our bodies digest food. The body turns food to glucose and produces insulin to use the glucose correctly. Diabetes affects how we produce insulin -- either too little or none at all. You can't metabolize the glucose and it builds up. As the body loses its building blocks to work properly things begin to stop working altogether.

The thing is, diabetes doesn't kill folks. It's the complications from diabetes that get you.

About 65 percent of deaths in people with diabetes are due to heart disease. About 73 percent have high blood pressure, leading to strokes. Still others suffer through blindness, kidney disease, dental issues, complications when pregnant, and nervous system disease.

Which leads us to Grey's and Cristina's construction worker. He had his leg amputated because, basically, he has diabetes, says Melissa Conrad Stoppler, MD.

"Diabetes causes problems with both the transmission of nerve signals from the lower extremities (feet) and with the circulation of blood. A person who has nerve damage from diabetes may not feel the pain from a blister or minor injury to the foot, resulting in inadequate treatment and protection of the sore area. This allows the injury to become further inflamed and infected. High blood glucose levels can promote the infection, and the decreased blood flow impedes the wound healing process. In severe cases, the injury can progress to the point of tissue death, known as gangrene. An amputation may then be necessary since healing can no longer occur."

Also touching on the subject "things interns shouldn't do", Dr. Stoppler has a few words of caution. Obviously George and Izzie shouldn't commit adultery, but that is more a "things people shouldn't do" more than interns.

"But also medically, Meredith harvesting bone from someone's orbital (eye socket) area?! Cristina performing an amputation???!!! These are advanced procedures that would not, under any circumstances, be performed by interns fresh out of med school. Interns would only observe these things."

Again, just goes to show you, medicine at Seattle Grace is way above par.

technorati tags: greys, greysanatomy, diabetes, amputation, drmcdreamy, drmcsteamy

Related Links:

• New Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Options
• Diabetes Management Slowly Improving

Grey's How To Save A Life.. sorta

Those docs on Grey's are really on top of their game.

I'm not talking about the fact that they seem to have more issues than a cricket at a lizard convention (OK, I confess I stole that one from Jeff Foxworthy. And I'm proud to say I can hold my own against a fifth grader). Or the fact that they can down an entire bottle of whiskey and still have the energy to go at it with their best friend -- who conveniently happens to be a tall, gorgeous blonde.

What I'm talking about is a neurosurgeon breaking out the rib spreader, cracking open a patient's chest and miraculously knowing exactly what's causing his patient to crash on the operating table. I wish saving lives were really that easy.

It sure made for great TV as long as you didn't understand what was going on. If you didn't get what was happening, be thankful. You probably enjoyed the experience more than I did.

Those surgeons were making all kinds of decisions that potentially put patients 'lives at risk --all, it appeared, to try to get the chief of surgery job. Thankfully most doctors feel that patients' lives are bit more important than that.

Can you imagine the cat fight that's going to ensue if an outsider gets the gig?

Sit back and enjoy! And I promise I'll try to do the same.

Related Links:

• Is Alcohol a Truth Serum?
• CPR: Mouth-to-Mouth Not the Best

Madonna to Get Nipped/Tucked

It's a match made in TV heaven. Hollywood gossips report that pop culture provocateur Madonna will appear in the most provocative show on television, Nip/Tuck. Apparently, she's a big fan of the show.

Madonna joins a sweet list of A-listers rumored for the fifth season that includes Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, and the return of Rosie O'Donnell. I suppose we can expect to see a lot more celebrity sightings, not to mention outrageous cosmetic procedures, now that the boys of McNamara/Troy have moved to Hollywood.

This bit of casting news has left me wondering what sort of storyline they have in mind for Madonna. Will she be a patient? Or a romantic interest? In the world of Nip/Tuck, she'll probably be both. Will she play herself? Or a fictional role? My guess is she'll play a mysterious new patient in for routine plastic surgery, who has a one-night stand with Dr. Christian Troy but gives him a healthy dose of his own medicine.

So just what procedure will she have done? Maybe Madonna will get a facelift. She's over 40 and in good overall physical health, so she qualifies. Or maybe she'll get something a bit more exotic like mesotherapy, a weight-loss technique imported from France that involves injecting small amounts of medication under the skin. There's no evidence it works, and many experts don't approve. But she's Madonna, she lives on the edge.

She most likely won't be there for liposuction since Madonna barely has any body fat. The superstar maintains an aggressive fitness routine. She'd be a good candidate for a character so obsessed with youth that she becomes addicted to plastic surgery, a symptom of body dysmorphic disorder. Alas, they've already done that character. RIP Mrs. Grubman. Perhaps Madonna, a noted yoga enthusiast, will suffer from a freak yoga accident, and she'll need the boys to unhinge her Downward-Facing Dog. Or any one of the popular yoga poses found here.

Or just maybe the docs will open up her larynx and give Madonna a Linguistic Augmentation to improve her faux-British accent. (Note: I just made that up. There's no such procedure. Err, at least I don't think there is.)

What do you think Nip/Tuck has in store for Madonna?

Technorati tags: niptuck, madonna

Related Links:

• Stay Young the Madonna Way
• Beginner's Guide to Yoga
• Plastic Surgery Guide
  

Coma Sci-Fi? MCS Sci-Fact

House fans remember "Son of Coma Guy?"

CBS News and AP wire reports tell us a woman in a minimally conscious state awoke mysteriously and could immediately eat (including my first choice -- cake), talk, and interact with her family, then fell back into unconsciousness state only three days later.

She had previously been in her minimal conscious state for six years, after succumbing to brain damage following a heart attack. Wire reports state the patient's neurologist is baffled as to why she awoke and was so alert, saying medicine just can't explain these brief visits right now.

So what does this have to do with poor Coma Guy? Definitions are everything.

Fellow blogger Melissa Conrad Stoppler, MD told us earlier this year that in a persistent vegetative state, (the next step after comas), the patient usually sufferers significant debilitating changes including muscular atrophy, so instant recover is near impossible.

MCS is different, thought. The American Academy of Neurology says MCS patients are a subgroup of folks who are not exactly conscious, but don't meet the diagnostic criteria for coma or vegetative state.

"These patients demonstrate inconsistent but discernible evidence of consciousness. It is important to distinguish patients in MCS from those in coma and VS because preliminary findings suggest that there are meaningful differences in outcome."

So, maybe Coma Guy should really have been named "Minimally Conscious State" Guy?


Related Links: Where's Best Place To Have a Comma? A Soap.



Technorati Tags: vegetativestate, coma, House, HouseMD

House: Night of the Living Brain (Half) Dead

Remember that episode of Star Trek the hottie alien woman beamed onto the Enterprise and stole the Spock's brain to run her people's underground air conditioning system?

An autoimmune disease and House stole half a patient's brain this week. And the patient was singer Dave Matthews, by the way. Tell me, what you say!

Again with the autoimmune diseases. This time it's Takayasus Arteritis, which normally affects mostly women, but let's just let this one go.

The procedure is called a Functional Hemispherectomy , when surgeons remove a portion or half a hemisphere of the brain, and then disconnect the tissue that connects the two sides.

Taking out half a brain? Think it's just crazy medical fiction? Dr. Michael Smith WebMD's Chief Medical Editor, says think again.

"Well it's really not. Technically, a hemispherectomy means removing half of the brain as House did in this week's episode. Years ago this was done -- although rarely -- for people whose seizures could not be controlled with medication.

Today the surgery -- still only done in rare cases due to uncontrolled seizures -- usually involves cutting connections between the two haves of the brain instead of actually removing half the brain.

Half the brain isn't typically dead as in Patrick's case but it's often severely damaged due to injury or repeated seizures and that's why they don't lose much function when the connections are cut."

So, I guess House is saying sometimes you have to lose half your mind to gain a more whole life.



Related Topics:

• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
• Epilepsy Surgery

Technorati tags: HouseMD, House, TBI, seizures, brainremoval, brainsurgery, savant

Poll: What Medical Show Can We Diagnose for You?

If you're a regular reader of our WebMD TV Checkup blog, then you know that we most often post about Grey's Anatomy, ER, House, and Scrubs.

Now, it's your turn to tell us if there are other shows out there on the tube that you'd like to see our docs diagnose for accuracy. Or, maybe you've seen a whacky disease diagnosed on one of your favorite shows and want to know if it's for real? Post your suggestions here in our comments section, and we'll do our best to use as many of them as possible.

Remember, if you don't see it on this blog, you can always do your own research right here at WebMD. Try our new and improved Search, easy Symptom Checker, or find information on one of our many Health Centers.

Can't wait to hear from you!

Technorati Tags: TV Checkup, medical shows, Grey's Anatomy, House, ER, Scrubs