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The 90 Percent Solution For Hemorrhoids
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

“Could I have prevented this problem?” a patient recently asked me. She had had surgery to treat hemorrhoids. But too much tissue had been removed by the scalpel. Now the rectal opening was too small causing difficult and painful bowel movements. A simple rubber©band could have prevented this complication.

Historians have speculated that Napoleon might have won the Battle of Waterloo if he hadn’t been suffering from hemorrhoids. But even when you’re not astride a horse it’s hard to concentrate if you have painful piles.

Do Male Gynecologists Need a Sex Change?
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

It’s not been a good week. I’ve had multiple problems in my medical office. One of my columns disappeared into eternity when my computer crashed. My son’s dog, Dawson, tried to bite me. Now a Friday headline in a prestigious U.S. newspaper claims I and other male gynecologists are about to become as extinct as the Dodo bird. If that’s the case I have some advice for women.

In The Wall Street Journal Andrea Gerlin describes Dr. Larry Kincheloe, a 43 year old obstetrician and gynecologist. He had applied for a position in an all©female practice in Kansas City.

Pigs May Save Thousands of Lives
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

Every eight hours a person waiting for a transplant dies in the U.S. because a human organ is not available. Last week I criticized Christians. The ones who refuse to donate an organ because they believe a person’s body should be intact at burial. I suggested that Ministers remind their congregations that you can still enter the Pearly Gates minus a heart or kidney. 

Don’t Worry If Your Surgeon Has A Personality Like Dracula’s
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

What’s the best way to have your ? Who should do it? Where should it be done? This year an estimated 700,000 North Americans will have this operation. But before you submit to the surgery make sure you’re an informed patient. Like the ad for Holiday Inns “There should be no surprises”.

Today the method of choice is laparoscopy. This procedure was initiated six years ago. It’s popular because its small incisions mean less pain and a faster recovery for patients.

Computers and “Funny Feeling Fingers”
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

Do you feel a burning, tingling and numbness sensation in your hand while working long hours at the computer? Does your hand go to sleep at night? Or have you dropped the coffee pot lately? If so, you may be developing the “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome” (CTS). If so, what is the best way to treat this disorder?

“Funny feeling fingers” has received increased publicity in recent years as injured workers begun to take employers to court. They charge that long hours of repetitive work at computers have triggered this condition. 

What A Pity Common Sense Is So Uncommon
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

What does this troubled world need most at the end of 1994? We have escalating medical costs, patients dying for want of donor organs, children who never receive a simple vaccination and cancer victims dying in needless pain. I often ask myself what one ingredient could solve these problems. Invariably I reach the same conclusion. Our children face horrendous problems unless we start putting plain common sense into the Christmas stocking.

This week, some medical examples of the lack of common sense. First, macho males are now succumbing to the theatrics of urological cosmetic surgeons. They are undergoing a penis lengthening operation! They would be wiser to seek psychiatric help. 

How A Greek Mother Solved a Researcher’s Problem
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

How would you behave if you were a Mother living in Greece and your son was a transplant surgeon in England? Possibly you’d worry that the foul English weather might him cause ill health. Maybe fret that he might marry an English woman and never return home. As we all know Mothers do lose sleep fussing about their children. But in this case a Mother’s anxiety helped to produce “Neoral”, a medication that will help transplant patients live a longer and better life.

Our immune system is a double©edged sword.It can be our salvation when fighting infections. But it can be our ruin when we have a failing heart, kidney or liver. When another person’s organ is transplanted into our body, the immune system destroys it as surely as it kills unwanted germs. For decades researchers tried to solve this problem.

Is It Prudent To Seek a Second Surgical Opinion?
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

When is a second surgical opinion an absolute necessity? And when should you accept your own doctor’s advice? These have always been thorny questions when people are stricken with disease. Today they are even more important when technology often takes precedence over good sense. And when health care funds are scarce.

Don’t get a second opinion when the problem is self-evident. Gallstones causing repeated attacks of pain require surgery. So do large fibroids associated with abnormal bleeding and pain. And if you have troublesome and visible varicose veins or hemorrhoids, you don’t need a second physician to confirm it.

This Hunter Wished He’d Gone Fishing
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

Have you ever considered breeding leeches as a way to fight this recession? It’s possibly the last thought in your mind even in these difficult financial times. But several years ago I suggested it would prove to be a sound investment. Time has proven me right. This week the story of how these slimy little worms helped to save a man’s scalp following a grizzly attack.

It was not a good day for this hunter. He was in a remote part of northeast British Columbia when charged by a sow grizzly bear in a rather ugly mood. During the bear’s vicious attack 75 per cent of the victim’s skull was torn off by her jaws. 

Laparoscopy Cholecystectomy And Common Bile Duct Injury
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

What is the best way to have your gallbladder removed? Two years ago I peered into my crystal ball and made a prediction about “laparoscopy cholecystectomy”, the new method of removing gallbladders. I prophesied that some patients would face dire complications after this procedure. How right was my crystal ball?

Á First, my first assumption was wrong? I believed that laparoscopy cholecystectomy would be used gradually as an alternate procedure in many cases. I failed to predict that within four short years 80 per cent of gallbladders in the U.S. would be removed by this technique. 

Nipple Discharge: Is it Cancer?
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

How ominous a sign is discharge from the nipple? A few weeks ago I received an anxious call from a business woman. A few days earlier she had noted a greenish discharge from one of her nipples. She was convinced she had a malignancy and was finding it impossible to keep her mind on her work.

One thing is certain. No woman ever has discharge from the breasts, except in pregnancy, without spending a sleepless night. But it is not an invariable sign of malignancy.

Why A Baboon Liver?
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

Why did Dr. Starzl transplant a baboon’s liver into a 35 year old man? How did this patient feel about receiving the animals organ? Did this particular liver offer advantages a human liver did not? And how has the drug cyclosporin taken organ transplantation from dream to reality? To find answers to these questions I interviewed Dr. Thomas E. Starzl in Paris, France, during the XIV International Congress of the Transplantation Society. 

Where Are All The Christians Hiding?
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

“Where are all the good Christians hiding?” I recently posed this question in Paris, France, where I was attending the XIV International Congress of the Transplantation Society. I was in Paris to interview Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, Director of the Transplant Institute of the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Starzl had just made headlines around the world for transplanting the first baboon liver into a human. But what’s the connection between a baboon’s liver, Christianity and Dr. Starzl? And how would a Professor of Law correct a gross human injustice?

How a hoover vacuum solved the riddle
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

How many readers would prefer to have a gallbladder or uterus removed through a hardly perceptible scar rather than an eight inch incision? To be able to leave hospital in 24 hours rather than a week? And endure much less pain? Few would say “no” to this offer. Today, laparoscopy provides the magic bullet of surgery. But how could surgeons remove a solid kidney through a button-hole incision? Could a Hoover vacuum provide the answer?

Gynecologists have used laparoscopy for years to sterilize women, diagnose tubal pregnancy and unexplained pelvic pain. But it caused little public notice. Only when general surgeons began wielding the laparoscope to remove gallbladders (cholecystectomy) did the procedure catapult to unparalleled levels of popularity. Today, thousands of surgeons in North America are enrolling in special courses to learn this technique.

Minor surgery and the holiday inn
 By Dr. Gifford Jones

Harvey Cushing, Harvard’s famous neurosurgeon once remarked, “There is no such thing as minor surgery, but there are a lot of minor surgeons”. It’s still true today. This why it pays to remember Harvey Cushing’s words when a doctor says, “Don’t worry it’s only a minor procedure”.

A patient writes, “I used to skip for exercise, but one morning while skipping, I landed on the edge of a rug and broke my little toe”. Several months later she discovered that the toe rode up a bit on her next toe. She consulted her doctor who said the problem was “a minor one”, easily corrected by a little “Mickey Mouse surgery”.

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