The initial trocar placement at the time of laparoscopic surgery is the most important step: 50% of complications that occur during laparoscopic surgery occur with the initial laparoscopic puncture. Here are four tips to reduce the risk of injury when making the initial entry. 1. Use a direct entry optical trocar, preferably one that insufflates…
Continue reading →Postpartum sterilization is a relatively low-cost and convenient option for many women, but it is too often under-utilized because many obstetricians struggle with the technique. A postpartum tubal ligation should take about ten minutes, but for many surgeons it turns into an unnecessarily longer procedure as they struggle to locate the fallopian tubes. Here are…
Continue reading →Ever get an air knot? I bet you do, especially if you are a resident or early in surgical training. Air knots can cause major complications, particularly bleeding. They are sign of looser knots in general, and looser knots are more prone to delayed bleeding and knot failure, resulting sometimes in catastrophes like fascial dehiscence or even…
Continue reading →Have you ever heard a weight loss plan like this? Start eating clean. Avoid gluten, salt, and sugar. Use cinnamon and apple cider vinegar. Detox with natural antioxidants. Make sure you eat fat-burning pineapple every day. Eat only organic food. Make sure most of your diet comes from good calories, from whole foods and not…
Continue reading →I’ve been thinking about making a fact-checking page that lists common medical-related myths and fact-checks them. There are tons of resources around the Internet that already do this type of thing. People like to read about information that most other people get wrong. I think it makes them feel special that they know something that no…
Continue reading →A man’s life is what his thoughts make it. – Marcus Aurelius Anyone who is a regular on Reddit has probably read the “zero days” post. A redditor posted a comment about his lack of success in life and accompanied despondence, to which redditor ryans01 posted his now famous reply. Ryan’s four step plan to…
Continue reading →Have you ever tried to convince someone that she should vaccinate her children? Or that she should have a vaginal birth after cesarean in the hospital rather than at home? Have you ever tried to convince someone to vote a different way? Or to take a prescribed medicine rather than an alternative medicine? Have you ever tried to convince…
Continue reading →How do we lose weight? Yes, I know, diet and exercise. But where does the weight actually go? This was a question asked in a short article in 2014 in the BMJ, which you can read here. The authors point out that many people have misconceptions about this question, believing perhaps that fat is “converted…
Continue reading →A patient of mine moved out of state after her last pregnancy. She’s pregnant again and doing fine at about 12 weeks. Yes, I’m sad that she left me. But she e-mailed me recently wondering why I didn’t do a bunch of antenatal testing that her new doc says she must have. Specifically, the new doctor…
Continue reading →Should we perform prophylactic salpingectomy whenever possible to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer? Over the last five years, many gynecologists have made it routine practice to perform bilateral salpingectomies at the time of hysterectomy whenever possible to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, and some have extended this to making bilateral salpingectomies their method…
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