House: She's Dead, House
There are two things about this episode that you may think are odd:
House and his ducklings missed a simple but systemic staph infection looking for some grander disease, again favoring either an autoimmune flavor or cancer.
Staph, or its full name staphylococcus, comes in many forms, including infections in your skin, hair follicles and body. Some have names you know: boils, toxic shock syndrome, and impetigo.
Staph infections are caused by bacteria, and those with compromised immune systems are most at risk of death. Lupe, our patient this week, nicked her back with a bra hook and the sore got infected. It spread inside her body, attacked her organs, and she became very sick.
But it was the dose of radiation that really sealed her fate. Usually staph infections are treated with antibiotics, which work in conjunction with your body's immune system to beat the infection. Radiation suppresses white blood cell count, the soldiers in your body that fight sickness.
So if you kill your body's natural defense system, or suppress it, or if the disease is resistant to antibiotics that can help your immune system, you can die from a simple staph infection - especially if your doctor doesn't think its staff, but cancer, and gives you radiation.
Now, here is the second thing that may shock you: doctors don't always get training on how to tell folks they'e doing to die, well sooner than they expected.
Setting aside that maybe your actions hastened a patient's death, (because frankly I don't see how anyone could be prepared for such a situation) I personally was surprised to find out that interns don't take a course, or at least get a few lessons, in how to deliver such a devastating blow to someone they are caring for.
"In general, doctors aren't trained to deal with dying," says Dr. Brunilda Nazario, one of our medical editors. "Residency programs do not have this listed as part of the core curriculum. However, there are ongoing developmental courses that are taken to help communication skills to address end-of-life to patients and family members. These usually deal with death and dying, and deal with the psychological, social, cultural and religious issues."
Tell us your experiences in getting bad news from your docs. How did they handle it?
Related Topics: Technorati Tags: House, HouseMD, endoflife, staph
- people die from staph infections
- very few doctors get training in how to deliver bad news
House and his ducklings missed a simple but systemic staph infection looking for some grander disease, again favoring either an autoimmune flavor or cancer.
Staph, or its full name staphylococcus, comes in many forms, including infections in your skin, hair follicles and body. Some have names you know: boils, toxic shock syndrome, and impetigo.
Staph infections are caused by bacteria, and those with compromised immune systems are most at risk of death. Lupe, our patient this week, nicked her back with a bra hook and the sore got infected. It spread inside her body, attacked her organs, and she became very sick.
But it was the dose of radiation that really sealed her fate. Usually staph infections are treated with antibiotics, which work in conjunction with your body's immune system to beat the infection. Radiation suppresses white blood cell count, the soldiers in your body that fight sickness.
So if you kill your body's natural defense system, or suppress it, or if the disease is resistant to antibiotics that can help your immune system, you can die from a simple staph infection - especially if your doctor doesn't think its staff, but cancer, and gives you radiation.
Now, here is the second thing that may shock you: doctors don't always get training on how to tell folks they'e doing to die, well sooner than they expected.
Setting aside that maybe your actions hastened a patient's death, (because frankly I don't see how anyone could be prepared for such a situation) I personally was surprised to find out that interns don't take a course, or at least get a few lessons, in how to deliver such a devastating blow to someone they are caring for.
"In general, doctors aren't trained to deal with dying," says Dr. Brunilda Nazario, one of our medical editors. "Residency programs do not have this listed as part of the core curriculum. However, there are ongoing developmental courses that are taken to help communication skills to address end-of-life to patients and family members. These usually deal with death and dying, and deal with the psychological, social, cultural and religious issues."
Tell us your experiences in getting bad news from your docs. How did they handle it?
Related Topics: Technorati Tags: House, HouseMD, endoflife, staph
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