Rue McClanahan, most famous for her role as Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, has undergone heart surgery.  Her heart problem was reportedly discovered when she was having a cardiac examination as part of routine testing prior to having knee surgery.  Unfortunately, instead of having the planned orthopedic surgery, she ended up having cardiac bypass surgery instead. 

According to reports, which did not name the facility where the procedure was performed, the surgery went well and McClanahan is on the road to recovery.

Bypass surgery, commonly known as a CABG, reroutes blood around arteries blocked by plaque, helping more blood to reach the heart muscle.  

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The pediatric hospital in my city has a new advertising campaign.  Now, each day when I leave the house, I see a billboard that says "We Know Ouchies."  This billboard is a great improvement on the previous one in the same location, which stated "We Know Snot."

Now I understand why this seems like a good idea, they are showing that they know about the realities of parenting, but it seems a bit, well, gross, or at the very least, childish.  That's the point I suppose, and the campaign must be working on some level if  someone who doesn't have children is blogging about it, but I'm not so sure how I feel about the whole thing.

What do you think?  

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Patients in India who signed up for a free cataract surgery clinic are facing the worst possible outcome: blindness.

Low-income patients signed up for free, or very inexpensive, cataract surgery to improve their vision.  Now an infection has affected 31 of them, with horrifying results.  At least five have already had the infected eye removed, 20 are hospitalized and a further 6 will never see again.

Initially, officials blamed the patients for not taking proper precautions to prevent infections after surgery, but are now promising an investigation to see if negligence was responsible, or possibly prescribed eye drops .

Preventing Infection After Surgery

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Rhode Island Hospital, located in Providence, has released information about the third wrong site surgery performed in the facility this year.

Wrong site surgery, where the correct surgery is performed on the wrong part of the body or the wrong patient, is supposed to be prevented by "time outs" and staff double checking the procedure and the patient.  In this case, the wrong finger was operated upon after the correct hand was marked before surgery, but the correct finger was not marked.

The wrong site surgery prior to this one was performed on a child who needed a cleft palate repair. In that case, the wrong side of the mouth was operated upon.  While the inside of the mouth cannot be marked, in this case, the wrong side of the mouth was indicated on the skin by the surgeon and staff did not catch the mistake.

The hospital has a history of wrong site surgeries, in the past, the center had three wrong site brain surgeries performed in one year. Those mistakes, coupled with the three surgeries this year, have led to a large fine and potentially further action against the hospital.

So, how do you as a patient prevent wrong site surgery from happening to you?  Insist that the doctor mark the surgery site while you are still awake and before any medications are given that relax you or make you sleepy.  

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