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 197
Question 1
What organisation celebrates 140 years, 70 years before the NHS?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Question 2
Who solved the problem of the “cafe coronary” by feeding beagles large chunks of meat to test his manoeuvre?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Dr Henry Heimlich, American Surgeon and also inventor of the Heimlich flutter valve for chest drains.
In 1972, the New York Times reported that more than 3,000 people in the U.S. choked to death that year, making it the sixth most common cause of accidental death.
Dr. Heimlich began by experimenting with beagle dogs and large chunks of meat. After several physical manoeuvres proved to be of no help, Heimlich was intrigued upon learning that by pressing upward on the dog’s diaphragm, the meat shot out. It was the flow of air “as in a small hurricane, not pressure that carried the object away.”
He published his informal findings, an essay entitled “Pop Goes the Café Coronary,” in the June 1974 issue of Emergency Medicine. The method announced in this paper is now universally known as “the Heimlich Manoeuvre.” [Reference]
He last practiced this procedure on a fellow nursing home resident in 2016 aged 96 [Reference]
Question 3
What is the most dangerous animal in Australia?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
The horse
According to the National Coronial Information System between July 2000 and November 2010 the horse was responsible for 77 deaths over this time period. The other animal kill rates are listed below:
- Cows = 33
- Dogs = 27
- Kangaroo = 18
- Bees and sharks = 16
- Snakes = 14
- Crocodiles = 9
Question 4
An elderly patient collapses in front of you on the street and you wonder the futility of starting CPR. While commencing CPR and humming “staying alive” you are reminded of the eldest person to complete an IRONMAN. Who are they and how old were they when they completed their last IRONMAN?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Sister Madonna Buder (aka the Iron Nun – see video)
Buder became the overall Ironman world record holder in age at age 82 by finishing the Subaru Ironman Canada on August 26, 2012, she completed the ironman in 16:32:00 minutes.
Question 5
Who first used a defibrillator successfully on a human?
Reveal the funtabulous answer
Dr Claude Beck (1894-1971) in 1947
Beck’s theory was that ventricular fibrillation often occurred in hearts which were fundamentally healthy, in his terms “Hearts that are too good to die”, and that there must be a way of saving them.
Beck first used the technique successfully on a 14-year-old boy who was being operated on for a congenital chest defect. The boy’s chest was surgically opened, and manual cardiac massage was undertaken for 45 minutes until the arrival of the defibrillator. The use of procainamide and defibrillation successfully reverted the boy into a sinus rhythm.
- Beck CS, Pritchard WH, Feil HS. Ventricular fibrillation of long duration abolished by electric shock. J Am Med Assoc. 1947 Dec 13;135(15):985.
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Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five
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