"You will not find a group less in favor of automatically aggressive, invasive medical care than intensive care nurses, because we see the pointless suffering it often causes in patients and families. Intensive care is at best a temporary detour during which a patient’s instability is monitored, analyzed, and corrected, but it is at worst a high tech torture chamber,
a taste of hell during a person’s last days on earth."
posted by Baron Kriminel
on Nov 26, 2012 -
45 comments
Dr. Justin O. Schmidt likes insects of the persuasive sort, the ones that bite, sting or
squirt venom in your eyes. In the course of his entomological studies all over the world,
he has met the defenses of about 150 different insects, and he has rated them, creating the
Schmidt Sting Pain Index. On the low end: sweat bees, whose sting is "light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm." On the high end: Bullet ants, whose venomous bites cause "pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel." And it can last for hours, leaving you "quivering and still screaming from these peristaltic waves" [of pain].
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 4, 2011 -
49 comments
Pain Pack — Ze Frank posted a phone number and asked that anyone experiencing emotional pain leave him a message. He received a number of very distraught messages. From those, DJs and musicians created 138 samples for him—and those samples have since been made into songs—and the collaborative process continues.
posted by netbros
on Feb 1, 2010 -
26 comments
"'I am going to get rid of everything, including mosquitoes, that bothers me, anywhere in the world, and then I will be a very happy, content person.' We're laughing, but it's what we all do." SLYT: A wry two-minute teaching about avoiding pain by Buddhist nun
Pema Chodron, based on
these writings of the 8th century scholar
Shantideva. For those who don't like video, here's a
transcript (scroll down.) For those who
really like video, here's
55 minutes of Chodron with Bill Moyers. (This too has
a partial transcript.)
posted by escabeche
on Jan 11, 2010 -
81 comments
The day pain died. "The date of the first operation under anesthetic, Oct. 16, 1846, ranks among the most iconic in the history of medicine. It was the moment when Boston, and indeed the United States, first emerged as a world-class center of medical innovation. The room at the heart of Massachusetts General Hospital where the operation took place has been known ever since as the Ether Dome, and the word 'anesthesia' itself was coined by the Boston physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes to denote the strange new state of suspended consciousness that the city's physicians had witnessed. The news from Boston swept around the world, and it was recognized within weeks as a moment that had changed medicine forever."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Jun 9, 2009 -
46 comments
At the Toronto Humane Society, veterinarians say animals die suffering unnecessarily in their cages while pleas to euthanize them are dismissed. Dozens of staff, volunteers and veterinarians have quit in protest. ... A note written by a staff member or volunteer on the medical chart of a cat, animal ID A127495, admitted last fall, reads: "Died Oct 19 3:15 am. Gasped and jerked and cried last breaths, because there was no one in shelter to euthanize or treat. This is not humane." ... [THS president] Mr. Trow says he strives to keep euthanasia rates low for ethical reasons. “How can anyone suggest that, because he might be here longer than anyone would want, that it's better to put [a dog] down?” Mr. Trow asked. “I think that's a strange suggestion, don't you? You live here as long as you can.”
Images (yes, they're disturbing.) Video of a puppy adopted out with a broken leg. The THS web site. [more inside]
posted by maudlin
on May 30, 2009 -
63 comments
When the working poor turn to addictive drugs to manage pain so they can keep working, that's
"moral weakness, not a public health problem.":
Every morning before sunup, Trapp drives 120 miles.... "This methadone makes you feel like a human being again," Trapp says. With disability rates as high as 37 percent in coal-mining areas such as Buchanan County, the region has many people with long-term pain management needs. As is the case with lots of aging miners, Trapp's addiction to pills began in a doctor's office, not a back-alley drug deal.... The clinic's counseling staff members say that many patients need to be on some sort of drug to cope with severe, long-term pain and that methadone has made them functional. And for those who lack insurance or access to more personalized care, it is often the only affordable option.
[more inside]
posted by orthogonality
on Jan 15, 2008 -
44 comments
"Doctor, it hurts when I do that." Doctors and patients agree - doctors are lousy when it comes to recognizing, diagnosing and treating pain. The AMA developed this free Continuing Medical Education tool (requires Flash) to help docs learn and understand how to deal with pain - but other folks, folks who are now in pain or might someday be in pain, might find it quite interesting as well. All docs in California have to complete this seminar or a similar one by the end of 2006 to get relicensed; the hope is that this will help the docs and the patients who have to deal with pain on a daily basis.
posted by ikkyu2
on Jul 1, 2006 -
24 comments
Some British nurses want patients who are intent on
harming themselves to be provided with clean blades so that they can cut themselves more safely.
posted by daksya
on Feb 5, 2006 -
51 comments
You got owned ... an entertaining study of life's little mishaps on video. Some you've seen, some you may not have. (wmv)
posted by crunchland
on May 27, 2005 -
33 comments
The Painful Truth. "The Iraq war is a new kind of hell, with more survivors - but more maimed, shattered limbs - than ever. A revolution in battlefield medicine is helping them conquer the pain."
posted by homunculus
on Feb 4, 2005 -
17 comments
No pain, no gain, they say, and when it comes to real pain, the
inverse is true as well.
"
We
now have research indicating there's a memory of chronic pain,"
said Dr. Doris K. Cope, director of chronic and cancer pain for the
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. It changes the genic code
sometimes, it changes the biochemistry, and it causes new proteins to
be formed." Or in other words, the more pain you have, the more pain you have. (
More on this.) It's no wonder, then, that more money is spent on pain relief than any other medical problem, and that there has been so much
pain research and so many
clinical trials revealing such painful facts as
redheads feel more pain,
men feel less pain, and that there's a
genetic difference between tough guys and wimps. (Much more pain inside.)
posted by taz
on Sep 20, 2004 -
31 comments
...implants a device in his body that delivers agonizing pain at the push of a button, and over the course of many days attempts to wear him down through a disturbingly simple process of psychological warfare. He is seated in a chair with four bright lights shining in his face, and the captor attempts through painful coercion to make him say that there are, in fact, five lights. Every time he refuses to say there are five lights, he is drilled with pain. In essence, he is expected to deny the reality described by his own eyes, and surrender the will of his mind to the definition of reality offered by his captor.
Four Lights, a thesis [
2]
posted by holloway
on Mar 31, 2003 -
39 comments
Inside the JFK medical files. Very interesting article from Sunday's NY Times (reg. req'd) about the long-term health of John F. Kennedy, from World War II to his death. Corresponding Yahoo News item
here also. [more inside...]
posted by PeteyStock
on Nov 19, 2002 -
11 comments
