in the news —
The David Blaine holding-his-breath stunt is pretty amazing, and rather scary. It looks like he pulled it off with rigorous training, and lots of medical supervision. Time has a good wrap up in How David Blaine Held His Breath:
With or without pure oxygen, holding your breath is a difficult and dangerous pasttime even for elite [...]
Don’t do this please! Smoker, 90, critically burned as oxygen tank ignites
A 90-year-old Ypsilanti woman was criticially injured Thursday when the oxygen system she was using to breathe caught on fire while she was smoking.
Firefighters responded to the 400 block of West Michigan Avenue around 11:30 p.m. to find the woman and her couch on [...]
Tracing Lung Ailments That Rose With 9/11 Dust - New York Times
After nearly five years, it is still too early for these doctors, scientists and forensic pathologists to say with certainty whether any long-term cancer threat came with exposure to the toxic cloud unleashed by the trade center collapse. But there are already clear signs [...]
This is a horrible, horrible story out of San Diego. It hurts me to even post about it on this blog, but the fact is it’s the story of an RT. This man’s conduct violates just about every code of professional conduct, hospital policy, law, and moral and ethical truth possible. The story makes me [...]
This is all the talk of the AARC disaster preparedness mailing lists. Even I, so many years out of practice in the RT game feel like I could provide help with mechanical ventilation if bird flu hits in earnest. This is assuming of course, I myself am not put down by the flu!
Hospitals Short on [...]
File this under famous RT’s: Terry Schiavo’s widow, Michael Schiavo, is a registered nurse and an RT. This article is about him catching heat for omissions on some job applications:
Oh, Oh, Schiavo—Another State Criminalizes Lying On Resume
Schiavo is licensed in Florida as a registered nurse and respiratory therapist.
Former President Gerald Ford is getting some RT care for his pneumonia:
thedesertsun.com | Doctors to decide if Ford can go home
Doctors are “currently in the process of assessing” former President Gerald Ford to see if the 92-year-old can leave Eisenhower Medical Center, his chief of staff said this morning.
Ford has been in the Rancho Mirage [...]