Even before the fateful Apollo 13 mission, Houston already had a problem. Astronaut Ken Mattingly was exposed to highly contagious rubella. The disease’s time frame might have him incapacitated with illness when his crewmates…
When I need a cavity filled and get that lidocaine shot in the mouth, I break out in a sweat and get faint, nauseated and pale. It's purely in my head, not a medication reaction, ever since anatomy class in medical school. It's…
OCHSNER Health Announces Employee Vaccination Mandate to Enhance Patient and Community Safety
Vaccination requirement follows FDA’s full approval of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine
New Orleans, La. (August 24, 2021) – Following full…
With the Pandemic, no one's wanted to be in tight spaces with others who might be shedding deadly Coronavirus. California's Disneyland has been closed because of that concern. Being squeezed into lines and rooms at Disney is…
My feisty little dog Milou hates squirrels. They're harmless, but you wouldn't know it the way he barks and barks when they're running around the yard. When we let him out a high speed chase ensues, him nipping just behind the…
How epidemics happen: first, a vulnerable population. Then bring into that population a highly contagious infection. Recently that's measles. Unvaccinated kids are often in clusters where not vaccinating is culturally popular-…
This week's guest columnist is Dr. Rati Venkatesh, a Family Practice resident at University Hospital and Clinics here in Lafayette. This winter we've seen nearby outbreaks of Mumps in Arkansas and Texas. Last week a mother…
It was 1990, my second year of residency. I was in Emergency seeing a boy with swollen left eyelids. I explained to his mom that he could have an infection that sometimes spreads into the eye socket, and the boy "might need a CT…
It was 5 o'clock, July 2, 1991. I know the date and time because it was the end of my first 36 hour shift as Chief Resident. And it was a true 36 hour shift, not a wink of sleep, with sick kids piling into the hospital like we…
