Puswhisperer: A Year in the Life of an Infectious Disease Doctor

Puswhisperer: A Year in the Life of an Infectious Disease Doctor
Author: Mark Crislip
Publisher: Bitingduck Press LLC
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2015-01-31
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1938463633

H1N1. Staph aureus. Traveler’s diarrhea. All examples of human interaction with the microbial world, which counts viruses, bacteria, and parasites too numerous to mention. Infectious Disease doctor Mark Crislip has a strange relationship with this world—he spends most of his time trying to kill it, even as he appreciates the vital role microorganisms play in the Earth’s ecosystems. Puswhisperer is a collection of infectious disease anecdotes created from a year’s worth of clinical blog posts from the Medscape blog Rubor, Dolor, Calor, Tumor. Originally intended for residents and fellows, the posts have been compiled, edited, and revised for a non-specialist audience. The tales cover a wide range of diagnostic dilemmas and treatment quandaries. Which infection smells like buttered popcorn? Are some antibiotics “stronger” than others? Is it OK to eat the oysters? Along with clinical insight, the book provides a good dose of humor and insightful, microbe-centered philosophy. The author speculates on what the Earth might look like in five billion years, when animals and plants are gone, but bacteria remain. He also draws attention to the staggering rate of evolution in bacteria, made possible by short generation times and passing of genetic material from one bug to another. Finding a 60-year-old Staph strain in an old wound, Crislip tells us, is like looking out your window and seeing a Neanderthal shuffle by. Recommended for anyone interested in infectious disease and the microorganisms that run our planet.

Puswhisperer

Puswhisperer
Author: Mark Crislip
Publisher: Puswhisperer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781938463624

A year in the life of an Oregon infectious disease specialist. A collection essays and anecdotes that illustrate nearly all the reasons physicians call for an infectious disease consult, from tapeworms and lice to MRSA and the flu.

Puswhisperer 4

Puswhisperer 4
Author: Mark Crislip
Publisher: Puswhisperer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2020-04
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781938463808

In his 30 years of practice he's seen rare bacteria, common bacteria, common bacteria in rare places, complications you can't name, and stories that will make you scrub your hands until they're raw and char your food until it's in cinders. Mycobacteria that cause skin infections can grow in old bomb craters left over from World War II. Acute HIV infection can present as meningoencephalitis. If it's got a flagellum, the Puswhisperer has seen it and tried to kill it. He shares his fourth volume of pearls with anyone who loves infectious disease and the organisms that infect us.

Puswhisperer II: Another Year of Pus

Puswhisperer II: Another Year of Pus
Author: Crislip, Mark
Publisher: Bitingduck Press LLC
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2016-02-17
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 193846365X

A second year of clinical tales from the Puswhisperer, Mark Crislip, an infectious disease specialist from Portland, OR. Dr. Crislip kills strep and staph, fights flu, and is always on the lookout for "zebras"?those unusual infections (and sometimes non-infections) that leave all the doctors guessing. Originally intended as a guide for studying for the Boards, these tales have been edited for a lay audience and provide hours of educational entertainment for anyone interested in infectious disease.

Puswhisperer III

Puswhisperer III
Author: Mark Crislip
Publisher:
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2018-11
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781938463327

A third year of clinical gems from the Puswhisperer, Mark Crislip, an infectious disease specialist from Portland, OR. Clinical pearls, diagnostic dilemmas, and zebras abound in these real-life cases from eight different hospitals in the Portland area. Edited for a lay audience, these tales will make you think twice before eating anything undercooked, turn you off kissing your pets, and make you run not walk to your nearest flu shot clinic. For the experts, the book includes tips on passing the Boards and on what to present at this year's Infectious Diseases Society of America conference. A real in-the-trenches look at infectious disease from a popular blogger and podcaster who mixes a dose of humor (read: terrible microbiology puns) into his stories.

Flies in the Ointment

Flies in the Ointment
Author: Mark Crislip
Publisher:
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2017-12-04
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781938463686

The best of Dr. Mark Crislip's science-based medicine essays dealing with supplements, complementary and alternative medicine (SCAM). This book explains the harm--why SCAM is bad for people, animals, and the environment. It also explains why our powers of logic are often powerless against SCAM. It then covers selected aspects of SCAM in detail: probiotics, herbs and supplements, chiropractic, homeopathy, acupuncture, and vaccine denial. A final section on miscellaneous therapies exposes some unusual treatments, from moxbustion to cranialsacral therapy.

Puswhisperer III

Puswhisperer III
Author: Mark Crislip
Publisher: Bitingduck Press LLC
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2019-11-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1938463595

An entirely new compendium of clinical tales from Mark Crislip, MD, the “Puswhisperer.” As in his previous collections, Puswhisperer I and II, Puswhisperer III provides clinical gems from a decades-long practice in infectious disease. From flu to staph to Legionnaire’s to tuberculosis, HIV, and a few zebras, Puswhisperer will test your diagnostic acumen and ensure that you never miss an endocarditis or a Lyme disease. If you’re a physician, this is a fun way to help you pass what Crislip consistently refers to as the Boreds. If you’re not a clinician, but simply have a fondness for our bacterial and fungal overlords, then read the Puswhisperer and learn about microorganisms you’ve never heard of before (or ones whose names have been changed by pesky microbiologists at their annual meeting).

Skeptics in the Pub: Cholera

Skeptics in the Pub: Cholera
Author: Mark Crislip
Publisher: Skeptics in the Pub
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2022-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781685530006

Mark Crislip's alternative history novel explores what the present day might look like if the purveyors of patent medicines had managed to suppress the germ theory. Conflicting models of disease and cure, ranging from balancing humors to homeopathy, form the basis of powerful guilds that control public discourse and stifle discovery. Cholera breaks out in 2017 Portland, Oregon, and all of the medical guilds rush to own a piece of the cure. But an unlikely team of skeptics have heard rumors from Europe that disease is caused by animalcules invisible to the naked eye. With a smuggled microscope and a gradually evolving hypothesis, the skeptics take histories, sample, and examine whatever they can. When the guild leaders find out, the skeptics must race against time and the vagaries of the cholera bacillus itself to keep the outbreak from decimating the city.

Women Aren't Supposed to Fly

Women Aren't Supposed to Fly
Author: Harriet Hall
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2008-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0595499589

This irreverent romp through the worlds of medicine and the military is part autobiography, part social history, and part laugh-out-loud comedy. When the author graduated from medical school in 1970, only 7% of America's doctors were women, and very few of those joined the military. She was the second woman ever to do an Air Force internship, the only woman doctor at David Grant USAF Medical Center, and the only female military doctor in Spain. She had to fight for acceptance: even the 3 year old daughter of a patient told her father, "Oh, Daddy! That¿s not a doctor, that's a lady." She was refused a radiology residency because they subtracted points for women. She couldn¿t have dependents: she was paid less than her male counterparts, she couldn't live on base, and her civilian husband was not even covered for medical care or allowed to shop on base. After spending six years as a General Medical Officer in Franco's Spain, she became a family practice specialist and a flight surgeon, doing everything from delivering babies to flying a B-52. Along the way, she found time to buy her own airplane and learn to fly it (in that order) and to have two babies of her own. She retired as a full colonel. As a rare woman in a male-dominated field, she encountered prejudice, silliness, and even frank disbelief. Her sense of humor kept her afloat; she enlivened the solemnity of her job with antics like admitting a spider to the hospital and singing "The Mickey Mouse Club March" on a field exercise. This book describes her education and career. She tells an entertaining story of what it was like to be a female doctor, flight surgeon, pilot, and military officer in a world that wasn't quite ready for her yet. The title is taken from her first cross-country solo flight: when she closed out her flight plan, the man at the desk said, "Didn't anybody ever tell you women aren't supposed to fly?"

The Trajectory of Dreams

The Trajectory of Dreams
Author: Nicole Wolverton
Publisher: Bitingduck Press LLC
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2014-06-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1938463455

For Lela White, a Houston sleep lab technician, sleep doesn't come easy-there's a price to be paid for a poor night's sleep, and she's the judge, jury, and executioner. Everyone around Lela considers her a private woman with a passion for her lab work. But nighttime reveals her for what she is: a woman on a critical secret mission. Lela lives in the grip of a mental disorder that compels her to break into astronauts' homes to ensure they can sleep well and believes that by doing so, she keeps the revitalized U.S. space program safe from fatal accidents. What began at the age of ten when her mother confessed to blowing up the space shuttle has evolved into Lela's life's work. She dreads the day when an astronaut doesn't pass her testing, but she's prepared to kill for the greater good. When Zory Korchagin, a Russian cosmonaut on loan to the U.S. shuttle program, finds himself drawn to Lela, he puts her carefully-constructed world at risk of an explosion as surely as he does his own upcoming launch. As Lela's universe unravels, no one is safe. PRAISE FOR THE TRAJECTORY OF DREAMS: The Trajectory of Dreams is unsettling, beautifully written, and truly original. In Lela White, Nicole Wolverton has created one of the most haunting characters in contemporary fiction. This is a remarkable debut. - Emily St. John Mandel, author of THE LOLA QUARTET, THE SINGER'S GUN, and LAST NIGHT IN MONTREAL. This novel is a free dive into the bottomless ocean of insanity. With every chapter, every kick of the fins, you're sucked in deeper as the darkness mounts and the pressure builds. And like the ocean, The Trajectory of Dreams gives up its secrets grudgingly, so you'll continually be stunned as the protagonist, Lela, falls to her inevitable implosion.- Mike Mullin, author of ASHFALL and ASHEN WINTER.