Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 071
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF, introducing the Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 071
Question 1
What condition may sound appealing to a dairy farmer, but makes afflicted patients cough up blood and pass ‘coca cola’ urine?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Goodpasture’s disease, an autoimmune disease characterized by hemorrhage of the lungs and glomerulonepheritis.
Named after Ernest William Goodpasture (1886 – 1960), this disease is caused by a type II hypersensitivity reaction to the Goodpasture antigen on the basement membrane of the glomerulus of the kidneys and the pulmonary alveolus.
First signs of the disease are vague such as nausea and fatigue or pallor. Most patients seek medical attention with the development of hemoptysis or hematuria.
Treatment includes plasmapheresis to remove the antibody, corticosteroids to suppress the immune system, and ACE inhibitors to slow kidney damage from hypertension.
Question 2
One of Brazil’s most famous medical doctors died recently, he was aged of 57 years and shared his name with an ancient philosopher. Who was he and what was he famous for?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Socrates, captain of ‘the greatest team to never win the World Cup’ — the 1982 Brazil side.
Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.
Socrates
Socrates was the slender 6ft 4in midfield maestro who, in the 1982 World Cup, conducted an orchestra of football geniuses that included the great Zico. Though they failed to win the cup, the team was immortalised by their brilliant football. They even over-shadowed the New Zealand All Whites in their first World Cup adventure…
Socrates achieved the rare feat of studying medicine and becoming a doctor while being a professional footballer. But he wasn’t ‘just’ a footballer, he was the Da Vinci of Brazilian football.
Socrates died on December 4th 2011 aged only 57 years. He succumbed to septic shock following a gastrointestinal infection. His obituary in the Economist is well worth reading (hat tip to Joe LEx).
Question 3
On June 29, 2011, the Wyoming Department of Health was notified of two laboratory-confirmed cases of Campylobacter jejuni enteritis among persons working at a local sheep ranch. What activity led to these people becoming infected?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
They used their teeth as ‘castration aids’
C. jejuni is frequently transmitted by fecal-oral contact or consuming contaminated food or water. Infections are commonly associated with eating poultry or unpasteurized dairy products. In this case, the two ‘victims’ were among a dozen people working at a at a Wyoming sheep ranch, castrating and docking the tails of 1,600 lambs. They were the only two who got sick, they were the only two who ‘used their teeth’.
According to the report in MMWR:
Ranch owners and employees were advised to use standardized, age-specific techniques for lamb castration (e.g., Burdizzo, rubber rings, or surgery) and to wash their hands thoroughly after contact with animals.
They were not advised to use their teeth.
- CDC — Campylobacter
- Notes from the Field: Campylobacter jejuni Infections Associated with Sheep Castration — Wyoming, 2011. MMWR. December 9, 2011 / 60(48);1654-1654 [fulltext]
- WSJ — Castrating lambs with your teeth may make you sick.
Question 4
What is ‘son et lumiere’ sign?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
A rare combination of ‘sound and light’ (in other words, a flaming burp) that may be caused by conditions such as pyloric stenosis.
Daniel’s described a case in the BMJ in 1973:
“The patient concerned had had a vagotomy and pyloroplasty a year previously and complained of increasing vomiting. On examination there was obvious splashing in the stomach, suggesting a diagnosis if pyloric stenosis. He was asked if he experienced foul eructations and replied that he certainly did. Then, rather diffidently, he said, “On one occasion I was lighting a cigarette when I belched and the explosion burnt my nose and hair.”
Other names proposed for this sign include: eluctation (eructation-to belch; lux-light), belch flambe, bangina oris, alight wind, pyloropyrotechnics, and the eructant dragon syndrome.
- Daniels HA. Letter: Son et lumière? Br Med J. 1973 Dec 1;4(5891):554. PMID: 4758508; PMCID: PMC1587500.
- Danzl DF. Flatology. J Emerg Med. 1992 Jan-Feb;10(1):79-88. Review. PMID: 1629596.
Question 5
What is ‘Sutton’s slip’?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
‘Sutton’s slip’ is a bias, or ‘cognitive predisposition to respond’, that occurs when possibilities other than the obvious are not given sufficient consideration.
It is also known as going for the obvious, going where the money is, Occam’s razor mistake, and KISS error.
It takes it name from the apocryphal story of the Brooklyn bank robber Willie Sutton who, when asked by the Judge why he robbed banks, is alleged to have replied, “Because that’s where the money is!”. The diagnostic strategy of going for the obvious is referred to as Sutton’s Law… Most of the time it works! But I suggest you follow the maxim “if you hear hoof beats, think horses…. but don’t forget about zebras completely (especially if you’re lost in the savanna)”.
- Croskerry P, Cosby KS, Schenkel SM, Wears RL. Patient Safety in Emergency Medicine. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2008
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Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne. He is also a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is a co-founder of the Australia and New Zealand Clinician Educator Network (ANZCEN) and is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme. He is on the Board of Directors for the Intensive Care Foundation and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.
After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia’s Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in both intensive care medicine and emergency medicine, as well as post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professional education.
He is actively involved in in using translational simulation to improve patient care and the design of processes and systems at Alfred Health. He coordinates the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website, INTENSIVE. He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.
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