Improving Inpatient Experiences
As a hospitalist, I am pretty much always on the delivery side of healthcare: I help determine the treatment plan, write the orders, call in specialty services, and communicate the anticipated schedule for the day. This past week, a close family member was hospitalized, and I got to see how patients and families typically experience […]
Mentoring High School Students on a Research Project: Part 1
Just this past September 2020, we (PhysioQ https://physioq.org/stem ) worked with CustomED (another non-profit, https://customed.org/ ) to run the Data for a Difference nation-wide competition pilot, where students across the USA aged 13-18 used our LabFront For Schools platform and wearable wristband devices to collect and analyze data around a health problem in their communities over a 2-week period. Each team was partnered with an experienced researcher who served as mentors throughout the whole competition. I happened to mentor three very bright, motivated […]
COVID Chronicles: Part 1
Today marks the 1st anniversary of the very first COVID-19 patient being admitted to our hospital. It is hard to believe that it has been only a year since that date. So much has happened since then. But I certainly recall the deep foreboding that many of us in the medical field felt. It was […]
La Place Law in Medicine: Part 2
We will do “deep-dives”, going deeper than typical physiology courses and applying to real clinical cases. In this thread, we go deeper into Laplace’s Law. Last week, I had a patient with hydronephrosis. Looking at CT scans, have you noticed that the renal pelvis usually dilates out of proportion to the ureter? To me, the […]
La Place Law in Medicine: Part 1
In this thread, we will see how Laplace’s Law applies to medicine: From compression stockings to diverticulosis. Pierre Simon Laplace = quite the stud. In mathematics, known for the Laplace transform (diff calc), Laplacian (Vector calc), and Laplace distribution (prob theory). But easily mixed up with Lagrange and Legendre. Why all the French “L” mathematicians […]
Q & A: XPRIZE Tricorder
During the XPRIZE Tricorder Competition, we were asked by various press outlets to answer questions regarding our experiences and challenges. I wrote up our responses – and for posterity sake – am placing it here so people can read our answers. So here it is: _____________________________________________________________________________________ Q1. Can you tell us a little about your […]
Qualcomm Tricorder Experience
A little story about my experiences on the Qualcomm XPRIZE Tricorder Challenge: $10M comp to create a Star-Trek “Tricorder”. Goal: To create portable smart device weighing <5 lbs able to diagnose 13 medical dxs as well as panel of MDs collect 5 continuous vital signs Our team was composed of […]
Severe Asthma: Role for Positive Airway Pressures
If you haven’t seen @EM_RESUS recent thread on a scary asthma case, pls read it and see how such a situation should be handled. https://twitter.com/EM_RESUS/status/1193554173310226432?s=20… Here, my aim is to delve a bit more into the physiology of BiPAP/CPAP for asthma. During severe asthma, the rate of lung emptying is markedly slowed, and thus expiration is […]
Droplet Physics: Role of Relative Humidity in COVID
Relative humidity (RH) mediates a number of mechanisms through which viral infections such as COVID-19 can increase fatality rates during the fall/weather season. The night before last here in Boston (posted November 27, 2020), the temp dropped to 28 deg F (-2.2 C). The outside RH was ~ 40%. Meanwhile, the indoor temp is ~ […]
COVID & Superspreading Part 6: Causes of Overdispersion
In Part 5, we talked about epidemiological implications of overdispersion. In this section, we explore potential CAUSES of COVID-19 overdispersion. 1: VIRAL LOAD Based on nice system rev by Chen et al, https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.13.20212233…, the variability in Respiratory Viral Load for SARS-CoV-2 >> Influenza A across individuals. Interestingly, the mean viral load (VL) is actually […]