Ebola and Flu Season – Dangerous Combination

The Ebola virus is present in blood, saliva, mucous, vomit, feces, sweat, tears, breast milk, urine, nasal secretions, and semen.  It can live for several hours on common services like door handles and clothing. It can survive for several days within body fluids such as blood. Ebola’s primary symptoms...

Refugee Medicine – Difficult Life and Death Choices

  November, 1983: Each day a new truck would arrive at the Catholic Relief Service’s hospital camp in southeast Thailand; a flatbed pickup filled with sick and dying refugees from the forest floor near the Cambodian border. The patients were primarily young mothers and children struggling to survive...

Status epilepticus in an 18-month-old child at 35,000 feet

Several years ago I was flying back from England to the U.S.  About halfway across the Atlantic the crew requested the aid of a physician for an emergency.  Despite it being a packed 747, no one answered the initial call. I decided to walk up to see what was going on and if I could provide assistance.  In...