Medical Maracas

For ten years I was one of Edinburgh's few medical maraca players. I hope that's clear: I was a medical player of maracas, not a player of medical maracas. A maraca is a Latin-American musical instrument constructed originally, I suppose, out of a coconut with beans inside. Little natural aptitude is required to shake one in time to the music, but because they come in pairs, two hands are needed. Thus Latin-American orchestras have a limited number of openings for musical illiterates who own their own dinner-jackets, which is why your intrepid correspondent eventually ended up shaking bean-filled coconuts at the revellers at ten consecutive Medical Faculty Balls.Our band, the Unbelievable Brass was born in the Physiology Library in 1968 in those days the library was equipped with high shelves, ladders and a variety of mini-skirted research workers, and we perspiring undergraduates were forced to sublimate by doing crosswords, writing songs and producing revues. To one such revue the class's own trumpet-player brought along half the brass section of the University Orchestra, and I found myself part of the ensemble, doubling as maraca-player and lady vocalist. M y debut involved rushing out to the tiny toilet to change into wig, balloons and dress, and tottering back to reveal myself to an appalled and largely silent audience

Medical Jargon - An Overview

"They do certainly give very strange and new-fangled names to diseases" — Plato (427-347BC)"The Patient's Ears remorseless he assails, Murthers with Jargon where his Med'cine fails" - Sir Samuel Garth (1661-1719)That's all very well, gentlemen, but only laymen called it Jargon. The correct medical term is Correct Medical Terminology. We doctors can't go around calling Familial Dysbetalipoproteinaemia "a touch of the nasties", now can we? Any more than we'd call Erysipelothrix rhuziopathia "a little bug". So just moderate your language, Sam; and as for you, Plato — run along and play with your friends.Precision is vital to good communication, and medical men use jargon only to define exactly what they mean. Or do they? Occasionally, perhaps, there may be the tiniest hint of Jargon For Jargon's Sake — our profession has few other status symbols left nowadays, and sometimes it is regrettably necessary to subdue an uppity patient by blinding him with science. But under normal circumstances the use of jargon purely to impress people is limited to students and paramedical personnel, showing off their phraseology like a lance-corporal's stripe. Tyro jargoneers hold forth only to the awe-struck laity, since they remain uncomfortably aware that one slip will reveal their bluff and cause cruel hilarity to the initiated. In one hospital where I worked nobody had the kindness to correct a pleasant old nurse who for years referred to "urea and electric lights". (Another fond memory of nursing jargon: a successful enema is always said to have been "given with good result" — a merciful phrase which spares passers-by the details — and I remember a nurse exclaiming after an incontinent patient developed diarrhoea, "There was result everywhere!"

Impact of risk factors on the timing of first postpartum venous thromboembolism: a population-based cohort study from England

For women with preeclampsia, BMI >30 kg/m2, infection, or those having cesarean delivery, VTE risk remained elevated for 6 weeks postpartum.For women with postpartum hemorrhage or preterm birth, the relative rate of VTE was only increased for the first 3 weeks postpartum.Impact on the timing of first postpartum venous thromboembolism (VTE) for women with specific risk factors is of crucial importance when planning the duration of thromboprophylaxis regimen. We observed this using a large linked primary and secondary care database containing 222 334 pregnancies resulting in live and stillbirth births between 1997 and 2010. We assessed the impact of risk factors on the timing of postpartum VTE in term of absolute rates (ARs) and incidence rate ratios (IRRs) using a Poisson regression model. Women with preeclampsia/eclampsia and postpartum acute systemic infection had the highest risk of VTE during the first 3 weeks postpartum (ARs ≥2263/100 000 person-years; IRR ≥2.5) and at 4-6 weeks postpartum (AR ≥1360; IRR ≥3.5). Women with body mass index (BMI) >30 kg/m2 or those having cesarean delivery also had elevated rates up to 6 weeks (AR ≥1425 at 1-3 weeks and ≥722 at 4-6 weeks). Women with postpartum hemorrhage or preterm birth, had significantly increased VTE rates only in the first 3 weeks (AR ≥1736; IRR ≥2). Our findings suggest that the duration of the increased VTE risk after childbirth varies based on the type of risk factors and can extend up to the first 3 to 6 weeks postpartum