Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 180
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 180
Question 1
You are stuck in the wilderness and your friend has an anaphylactic reaction. You swiftly deploy his epipen into his thigh but there is limited effect after 5 minutes. His airway is becoming compromised. How do you get more adrenaline into him? Do you extract it from the adrenals of a passing grizzly bear?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
No crazy system like extracting it from another animal is needed. The epipen actually contains more adrenaline.
At least the commercial brand of epipen has a 2ml vial in the syringe. Only 0.3ml is given and hence if you can dismantle the device you have a few more doses you can give manually. [Reference]
Also see this youtube video on how to break open the EpiPen.
Question 2
On the FFFF we’ve commented that in the ’30s and ’40s, 7-Up included lithium citrate as a mood-booster. There were ‘‘lithia beers’’ and a lithium version of Coca-Cola. But where in the world would you find 50% of lithium stores?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Bolivia
The “Saudi Arabia of Lithium“
I suspect a few of you have travelled to the salt flats (Salar de Uyuni), who knew there was something else in the air that was making you happier, or at least combating the sickness you felt from the altitude.
Question 3
What childhood disease manifests the Comby sign?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Measles
Named after Jules Comby, a French Paediatrician, the Comby sign is whitish patches and inflammation seen in the mouth prior to the appearance of Koplik spots
Question 4
Which common virus was first identified in a town on the Hudson River in New York State?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Coxsackievirus
The coxsackieviruses were discovered in 1948–49 by Dr. Gilbert Dalldorf, a scientist working at the New York State Department of Health.
He had been searching for a cure for poliomyelitis. Earlier work Dalldorf had done in monkeys suggested that fluid collected from a nonpolio virus preparation could protect against the crippling effects of polio.
Dalldorf attempted to isolate such protective viruses from the faeces of polio patients. The virus family he discovered was eventually given the name Coxsackie, from Coxsackie, New York, a small town on the Hudson River where Dalldorf had obtained the first faecal specimens
Question 5
Describe the ‘muffin’ technique in the defence against malignant medical pimping.
Reveal the funtabulous answer
The ‘muffin’ is a technique that relies on a basic human aversion to seeing other people speak with their mouths full.
The position of the hand-held muffin should correlate with the product of the likelihood of being targeted by the pimper multiplied by the likelihood of the muffin-holder not knowing the answer.
If a question is about to be directed at the pimpee, and the pimpee does not know the answer, the muffin should be rapidly inserted into the pimpee’s mouth.
Detsky, clearly a physician of great wisdom, advises the pimpee to feign choking should the pimper be sufficiently inhuman (usually a surgeon) to still direct a question at a person with a muffin-filled mouth. If you then resuscitate yourself with a back slap — or even better, a precordial thump — bystanders will applaud you and you will never be pimped again.
- Detsky AS. The Art of Pimping. JAMA. 2009;301(13):1379-1381
FFFF
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five
Dr Neil Long BMBS FACEM FRCEM FRCPC. Emergency Physician at Kelowna hospital, British Columbia. Loves the misery of alpine climbing and working in austere environments (namely tertiary trauma centres). Supporter of FOAMed, lifelong education and trying to find that elusive peak performance.