Medicine Newbie: January 2019

Sunday 27 January 2019

Bronchopneumonia

Air travel is more affordable today compared to the 1950s and 1960s. As more people travel, they can carry bacteria, fungi and viruses from one place to another, infecting almost everyone on their travel route. Longer flights (5 hours to 15 or 18 hours) will mean passengers will be in contact with carriers and breathing stale contaminated cabin air.

Aircrafts had the habit of spraying the entire cabin upon flight landing, leaving passengers on board to breathe whatever insecticide and bacteriocide they wish to spray cabin air with. Passengers have no choice accept to breath whatever it is they are spraying. It feels humiliating having arrived at a port of call and being sprayed upon without knowing what is being sprayed.

A more intriguing thing is why aren't sick passengers removed to sick bay at the port of arrival? Why are sick passengers allowed to travel which coughing terribly on board and in that way, contaminate everyone and especially susceptible passengers who are otherwise healthy?

Forehead touchless thermometers are available today. Even this is not used to detect sick travellers who are spreading air-borne infection in-flight, and on long flights.

Chest infection may take some time to develop. Travellers appear healthy and happy for 2 weeks at their destination, but soon develop some of the worst chest infections in human air travel. Some have have died, and some have survived the ordeal of such a horrible air-borne traveller's disease.

There are many unanswered questions about air-borne diseases contracted by travellers. Who will take the challenge to stop air-borne travel infections from spreading? Who will pay for hospitalisation and medicine costs? Who will attend to the patients' recuperation, which is long and painful? Some hospitals will advise travellers to return to their original country and seek treatment at home. Some travellers fall ill and have no time to return home, and end up in hospital of a foreign country, with huge unpaid bills. Many cases involved student travels to visit friends, family travels to visit students at overseas institutions, and other reasons for travelling.

Insurance schemes and plans are available, but many do not honour their T&C. As such, students, family members and travellers are stuck with not knowing what to do. It is very frightening not knowing how to proceed when being overseas and facing a life/death health problem.

Not everyone has good immunity against all chest infections. Some do, most don't. There are vaccines which can assist if taken at the correct time before a trip. They do help to allay severe infections. Despite taking such steps, some will still fall victim to a new infection which can be fatal within a short time if no emergency treatment is given.

Bronchopneumonia is one of the worst of chest infections which can be picked up by air-travel. Others are tuberculosis (TB) and the flu (H1N1, SARS).

Airport securities and health authorities are only interested to curb H1N1 and SARS, even though they should look into bronchopneumonia and TB among all travellers.

External links

What is bronchopneumonia
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323167.php

Review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4173892/pdf/crj-21-4-239.pdf

Wednesday 9 January 2019

Hematoma from phlebotomy

Some people have small visible veins from which the nurse can obtain a blood specimen. Sometimes elderly patients have collapsed veins, making blood sampling difficult. In both cases, blood sampling is painful, even when using a fine gauge butterfly needle.

Sometimes many scars from old pricks can be seen on the arm. This should make the nurse aware of previous difficulties with blood sampling.

Even when the nurse tries to find the best blood vessel to prick, she may not be able to locate a good visible sufficiently big blood vessel to prick, and thus a small blood vessel has to be pricked to obtain a blood specimen. This can result in a painful pricking and possible hematoma.

This superficial hematoma is a visible blue-black patch beneath a fair skin complexion. It is not instantly visible, but becomes visible an hour or two after pricking or blood sampling. It is itchy and painful, even a day after blood taking. It still prevails and becomes less painful with time.

Clearance of the blue-black patch will take some time, as the macrophages clear cell and blood debris under the skin. It will clear entirely and the pain will disappear without treatment.

However, if the blue-black patch is very painful, bulging and expanding, then it is better to return to hospital and seek treatment.