MRI sometimes uses a non-radioactive contrast depending on what you’re trying to get images of. MRI is probably the safest imaging modality, but it’s very expensive, kind of difficult sometimes due to how long it takes, and isn’t useful for every kind of imaging that needs to be done.

It takes years for a donor’s remaining liver to grow back, and the recipient is unlikely to grow out more of the donated liver depending on comorbidities and severity of illness.

This is the mindset I have to keep myself in while working in medicine. I can’t save every patient. Some of them will die in my care, but that won’t stop me from trying to help the next one.

These are incredibly important reports to publish and spread awareness of…but I kind of wish I hadn’t read them today.

As a Minnesotan, I’m disappointed to be losing our governor. He’s done great things for our state, but I’m hopeful that the Lt. Governor who will be taking his place will be a good replacement.

Walz’s ascension to the ticket leaves questions for Minnesota. Under the state Constitution, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan would become governor if Walz resigns, but he’s not on the ballot in Minnesota this fall, meaning he could wait until after the November election to step down. Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Nation, would become Minnesota’s first woman and first Native American governor.

And as long as CPR machines are obscenely expensive and difficult to obtain and maintain for a lot of smaller hospitals and EMS systems.

Here’s the problem with that: it relies on things like the LUCAS CPR assist machine which doesn’t fit on a lot of people. I’ve done CPR on a lot of people, and only a handful of them would have even fit in a LUCAS in the first place.

When I was working as an ER tech, I had a patient that was in the early stages of DTs in the lobby because he lied and told the medics in the ambulance that he was having a panic attack. We were up to 8 hour waits in the lobby and non-critical ambulances were being brought out to the lobby. He was perfectly lovely the entire time, but around the 5 hour mark when the valium was wearing off, he started sweating and shaking profusely. I had to have our registration folks distract his dad so I could ask him privately if he was withdrawing from alcohol. When he said yes to that question, that bought him a ticket to the front of the triage line and we got him into the next available room.

I will remember that incident for the rest of my career, because if I hadn’t looked at his medical record to see that he had previously had a consultation regarding alcohol cessation and known what the symptoms of withdrawal looked like, I wouldn’t have pulled him aside to get the truth of the situation and things could have gone extremely badly for him. I can’t imagine what he was feeling, devolving into DTs in front of his dad who was so judgemental that he had to lie to the medics about what he needed help for.

Withdrawal from many drugs is miserable to go through, but because of the chemical mechanism of the dependency formed in alcohol use disorder, withdrawal from alcohol can lead to death without other comorbidities or complications. Some of the symptoms of acute withdrawal include delirium tremens and seizures which, while awful, are just the harbingers of the later stages of acute alcohol withdrawal that lead to death. This is also ignoring the plethora of other health problems that can develop as a result of long term alcohol use disorder, many of which can be fatal all on their own.

It’s also one of the most dangerous drugs to try to quit. Going cold turkey on alcohol can very well be lethal.