Aria Medical Equipment is now offering a special discount just for members of Texas Public Radio. TPR members can receive a 5 percent discount (up to a maximum discount of $500) on all medical equipment and medical supplies.

Texas doctors, if you love TPR as much as we do, consider joining the 180 Group. This is a group organized specifically for physicians, whose roster includes “doctors in private practice, retired, serving with the U.S. Military, employed at state agencies and on the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio faculty.”

This innovative chest drain simulator not only simulates realistic body tissue, but provides an alternative to the use of animals. The design is unique in having a replaceable chest wall, with ribs that are encased into the realistic simulated flesh that forms the torso.

This fleshy part is replaceable and can be used for up to 25 incisions. It is housed in a white plastic torso-shaped box that is firmly secured and has strong suction feet to ensure non-slip use on smooth table-top surfaces. The torso presents as a patient lying on his back.

Trainer also includes a replaceable pericardiocentesis where fluid can be drawn into a syringe and a realistic tension pneumothorax where air can clearly be heard and felt exhaling between the second and third ribs.

Venezuelan medical examiners knew something had gone wrong when the “corpse” they were beginning to autopsy began to bleed. As they quickly worked to stitch up his face, 33-year-old Carlos Camejo woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain.

“I woke up because the pain was unbearable,” Camejo told a local newspaper.

Camejo had been declared dead after an accident on the highway. His grieving wife, who arrived at the morgue to identify her husband’s body, was shocked to find him alive in the corridor.

Read the full story.

Starting next year, British doctors will be dressing more casually in an effort to stop the spread of deadly infections. U.K. hospitals are banning neckties and long-sleeved clothing, including the traditional doctors’ white lab coat. Also out: wristwatches, fake nails and jewelry worn on the hands or wrists.

“Ties are rarely laundered but worn daily,” the U.K. Department of Health said in a statement Monday. “They perform no beneficial function in patient care and have been shown to be colonized by pathogens.”

The primary target of the new regulations is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a deadly bacteria resistant to nearly every available antibiotic. This “superbug” accounts for more than 40 percent of hospital blood infections in Britain.

Read the full story here.

by Gabriel Doss

Last September, a high school football player in Austin, Texas, collapsed during a game when the lower chambers of his heart suddenly stopped pumping blood. Luckily, the team kept an automated external defibrillator (AED) on hand, and his heart was quickly jolted back to life.

Now, one year later, Governor Rick Perry has signed legislation requiring every public school in Texas to have an AED on campus and at every athletic event.

The American Heart Association estimates that early use of an AED can more than double a heart attack victim’s chances of survival. The AHA also estimates that each minute treatment is not administered reduces the chance of survival by 10 percent.

Many AEDs on the market today require no medical training whatsoever to use (though if installed at a place of business, it’s best that some staff are trained in CPR and identifying cardiac arrest conditions). The devices can detect whether or not a patient is having heart problems and administer an appropriate shock. Basic AEDs typically cost between $1,200 and $2,000.

While AEDs are now required in Texas schools, they are needed in any public place, such as malls, airports and restaurants. The fitness industry could also benefit greatly from keeping AEDs in gyms and health clubs, as people predisposed to a heart attack often go into cardiac arrest during exercise.

Here at Aria Medical Equipment, we have a Defibtech Lifeline AED in our office, and many staff members are trained to use the device.

Gabriel Doss is the IT Manager at Aria Medical Equipment. You can reach him by e-mailing gdoss [at] ariamedical [dot] com or calling (800) 330-3591, ext. 104.