Dr. Clare Baker was head of cardiovascular surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital.
San Grewal
Dr. Clare Baker certainly lived up to the name of the town where he was raised: Biggar, Sask. From his early days in the once-bustling Prairie town, it was clear Baker was going to do big things.
By the time he retired in 1990, Baker had stablished himself as a pioneer in the field of cardiovascular surgery. He died Aug. 10 at the age of 87. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 5%
A surgical team performs a minimally invasive mitral valve replacement at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. Blood lost by the patient during surgery is held in the cell-saver reservoir below. Instead of being discarded, the blood will be cleaned and returned to the patient. This practice of conserving the patient's own blood and minimizing transfusions reduces infection and illness and improves recovery.
Cutting back on blood use could halt infections, illness — and even death
By JoNel Aleccia
SEATTLE — As a doctor and a patient, Dale Reisner knows the value of donated blood. But when the Seattle obstetrician had to have heart surgery four years ago, she did everything possible not to get a single drop.
“I don’t have any religious problems with it. If I was near death, I definitely would have taken blood, no question,” said Reisner, who is fine now at age 62. “But if I could avoid a transfusion by better pre-op preparation, then I was interested.”
Long dominated by Jehovah’s Witnesses — whose faith forbids blood transfusions — bloodless surgeries and blood conservation programs are now attracting mainstream patients worried about what some experts say are clear risks, including more infections, longer recuperation, increased illness and even death. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 4%
You can trust the doc to sometimes do even the impossible. Doctors at Fortis Hospital in the city, have successfully repaired a hole in the heart of a one-year-old-girl from Nigeria, whose religious belief forbids her from accepting a blood transfusion or blood products. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 5%
by Leonardo Oliveira Reis, MD, MSc, et al.
Monday, 09 August 2010
BERKELEY, CA (UroToday.com) – Radical retropubic prostatectomy is associated historically with considerable potential of blood loss requiring transfusion. (1, 2) The rate of blood transfusion as a result of surgical treatment varies widely in the literature and transfusion is underutilized in patients who do not accept transfusion based on religious grounds. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 4%
Members of AFSCME Local 3145 in Connecticut demonstrate for a fair contract with the Red Cross last October.
by James Parks
The federal government must step up enforcement of rules protecting the nation’s blood supply and force the Red Cross to drastically improve its blood safety practices, several groups said today.
During a press conference in Washington, D.C., this morning, leaders of the AFL-CIO, the Workers Committee for Blood Safety, the National Consumers League, the Committee of Ten Thousand and the Hemophilia Federation of America called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to increase enforcement action with the Red Cross and ensure the safety of the nation’s blood supply. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 10%
Public health officials are battling a host of new infectious threats to the nation’s blood supply.
Blood centers, which have long tested for risks like hepatitis C and AIDS, have added a number of new tests on donated blood in recent years, including checks for West Nile virus and Chagas, a tropical parasitic disease. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 11%
By KENNETH OFGANG
A juvenile court judge cannot order medical treatment for a minor when no dependency proceeding is pending, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.
The court reversed an order requiring a teenager—one of Jehovah’s Witnesses—with sickle cell anemia to undergo periodic blood transfusions, over religious objections.
While the order expired last year, rendering the appeal technically moot, Presiding Justice Arthur Scotland explained in a footnote, the panel exercised its discretion to consider the case on its merits because it “poses issues of broad public interest that are likely to recur.” Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 11%
Doctors treating the cancer sufferer at the centre of the extraordinary medical case went to court as they believed it was the only way to save her life.
They wanted permission to sedate the 55 year-old woman in her home with a drug hidden in a glass of Ribena, so they could get around her phobia of hospitals and needles to take her for desperately needed surgery.
Her ordeal, disclosed by the normally secretive Court of Protection, is one of a small number of cases where judges have been asked to decide on the fate of patients. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 10%
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Having surgery is always scary, no matter how low the risk for complications. But for one pair of siblings, the stakes of surgery were even higher because of their faith, and it’s that very faith that pulled them through.
Angie Nieto, 19, and her brother Osbaldo share an incredible bond. It all started two years ago when Angie, who had always been healthy, was given a shocking diagnosis.
“It was kidney failure, and by the next day I was on dialysis,” Angie said.
Angie had a choice: either live for the rest of her life on dialysis, or have a kidney transplant. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 13%
Bloodless surgery is both safe and effective, with a lower mortality rate and higher recovery rate than conventional medicine. Photo: National Cancer Institute
Bloodless medicine and surgery was first developed in the 1960s when Dr. Denton Cooley, a pioneering American heart surgeon who graduated from the University of Texas, first successfully performed “bloodless” heart surgery in 1962. [11] He continued his work with bloodless surgery, performing intricate heart operations and vascular surgery without blood on both adults and children. He felt that the risks involved in surgery without blood were no greater than the risks with blood, at that time. [2]
The history of blood transfusions as a general practice in the field of medicine goes back to World War II. However, there have always been risks associated with blood transfusions. [10] Some of those risks include the spread of diseases such as Hepatitis C and AIDS, both of which can be deadly. [9,10] The mortality rate for those who contract Hepatitis C is 11-37% higher for those who have the disease, and the risk of contracting the disease from a blood transfusion in the United States is approximately 1 in 900. [10] This could mean as many as 900 deaths a year attributed to contaminated blood through Hepatitis C. So while the U.S. remains one of the safest countries in the world in terms of its blood supply, there still remains a high risk of contracting various diseases through a blood transfusion. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 31%
San Grewal
Dr. Clare Baker certainly lived up to the name of the town where he was raised: Biggar, Sask. [...]
Cutting back on blood use could halt infections, illness — and even death
By JoNel Aleccia
SEATTLE — As a doctor and [...]
You can trust the doc to sometimes do even the impossible. Doctors at Fortis Hospital in the city, have successfully [...]
by Leonardo Oliveira Reis, MD, MSc, et al.
Monday, 09 August 2010
BERKELEY, CA (UroToday.com) – Radical retropubic prostatectomy is associated historically [...]
