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Last night I had a nightmare
In the dream I had an asymptomatic 5.7-cm juxtarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm. Like most of my patients I also had a 70% left internal carotid stenosis and nondisabling right leg claudication due to a superficial femoral artery stenosis. Having stood…
Point/Counterpoint: Is TEVAR required for all Type B aortic dissections?
Yes, TEVAR is clearly indicated. Aortic dissection is a devastating condition afflicting an estimated two to eight per 100,000 people annually and comprises a large portion of the clinical entity known as the acute aortic syndromes. Patients presenting with an…
Helping history come alive online in Vascular Specialist
Medical history is more than just the praise of great heroes and heroines and the nearly mythical stories of serendipitous discovery and invention. It is the means by which we learn to understand and appreciate the qualities and conditions that…
Pioneer Heart Surgeon, Dr. Michael DeBakey
Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey, pioneer heart surgeon and medical device innovator, died July 11, 2008 in Houston, about 2 months shy of his 100th birthday on Sept. 7. In his lifetime, Dr. DeBakey was renowned for his immense contributions to…
Pioneers of Heparin
The ready availability of nearly unlimited quantities of biologically-based drugs such as heparin is something that is taken for granted nowadays, such that massive accidental overdoses as recently reported in the news, are considered tragic but by no means incredible.…
Alexis Carrel, the “Father of Anastomoses”
In the first years of the 20th century, Dr. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) introduced three-point end-to-end vessel anastomosis, a technique that revolutionized vascular surgery. His method, still in common use today, helped earn him the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or…
Valentine Mott and the Innominate Artery
Well before the American Civil War, without benefit of anesthetics and without antiseptics, Dr. Valentine Mott performed some of the first successful operations on the large human arteries, becoming best known for performing the first successful ligation of the innominate…
Five reasons physicians will use mobile health for patient care
Mobile health technologies will become a part of the health care landscape for all stakeholders at some point. Other sectors of society currently cannot function without mobile; for example, retail and financial services consider mobile a vital component of their…
Steps to incorporate business knowledge into the medical school curriculum
Declining reimbursements, health care law changes, and increased costs means the modern physician needs to have knowledge in business, law, and medicine. In today’s health care environment business acumen is becoming a necessity few practices can survive without. A recent…
The ‘I’s have it: Ethics and the vascular community
Who in their right mind would organize the main event of a surgeons’ convention around the topic of unnecessary procedures? Surely this would almost certainly guarantee an empty auditorium. But Dr. Peter F. Lawrence, President of the Society for Vascular…