WFC: Medicine for Writers

[eimarra]

The second panel I attended, 3 p.m. on Thursday, was Medicine for Writers, with panelists Lisa Freitag (a pediatrician and program organizer for the con) and Angela Lathrop (a veterinarian). Their other title for the panel was "Maim 'em Right."

Lisa's pet peeve -- a movie, rather than a book -- was in LOTR. What really was wrong with Aragorn? Was it supposed to be a head injury? Makeup was all wrong, and he should've been experiencing symptoms for hours or days afterward unless he was mystically healed by Arwen -- in which case, why wasn't it instantaneous?

Angela's pet peeve involves anatomy and nomenclature. It's the carotid artery, not vein, and lots of other things would get in the way and get hurt too if you were cutting it.

There was some discussion of "flesh wound" being an undefined term.

Fighting with a dislocated shoulder: you can't. It's stuck, and the muscles won't be at the right angles to move.

Concussion: few seconds to a few minutes unconscious, some retrograde amnesia, nausea, headaches. (More discussion about Aragorn.)

They mentioned the existence of a Coma Scale, from 1 to 10. Angela commented it wasn't precisely the same because you can't ask animals questions like what the date is or who's president.

A question was asked about long-term memory loss and what triggers its return. "Weird stuff happens." No good answers. Joke about "trans-cranial magnetic waves"

How far can you fall and survive? Being feline helps. It depends on what you fall on, how you fall, whether there's something to absorb the shock, how limp you are, what the ratio of muscle to body size is . . . landing on the head is bad, though. They suggest trying for no more than 1-2 stories, though some kids have survived 3-4 story falls.

Recommendation for D. P. Lyle's Web site, where he answers questions on medicine/forensics (http://www.dplylemd.com).

Infection from a sword wound? Bacteria from the skin get pushed into the wound. Anything that pierces the gut allows the bacteria that are there to ooze out. How long to incubate? A couple hours for flesh-eating bacteria to several days. A person can pine away for a long time. Peeve of Lisa: sepsis. Sepsis is extreme condition that needs to be treated with long courses of antibiotics; don't have someone find the right herb in the wilderness, chew it once, and get immediately better.

Angela commented that chocolate really isn't as bad for dogs as they say -- more like having 5 cups of coffee. Arrhythmia, if bad enough, could kill. Can use this for not killing off an animal when would expect to. (Shucks! There goes my plan to get rid of werewolves by serving them mole!)

What about tetanus on swords? Tetanus has to come from somewhere. It's carried by spores, but they're not omnipresent. (Lisa comments that the best way to poison a sword is to poop on it -- and it has to be a deep wound, anaerobic.)

The Red Book, published by the CDC, describes illnesses, including incubation times. (Available on-line at http://aapredbook.aappublications.org)

Healing time for extensive second or third degree burns, if clothes on fire? First degree burns have red skin, no blisters, pain gone in a couple days. Second degree burns blister, peel off over a week, granulate from the edges, can take a couple weeks to heal -- need to keep covered to prevent infection and moisturized so the tissue doesn't dry out. Third degree burns ooze. If the skin is pink under the blister, it will grow back. If gray, need skin grafts. Watch for skin contractures -- need to keep pressure around joints to make sure skin grows right and joint can be moved later.

Catnip is effective on tigers. (They didn't say this, but from my grad school days, I know that catnip activates cat-specific serotonin receptors. Not all cats have tho same subtype of receptor, which is why not all cats are affected.)

Can treat wild animals at larger wet facilities. Angela told of a time they treated a mountain lion. They kept it in a horse stall that didn't go all the way to the ceiling. They realized the problem before it climbed up to get the horse put in the stall next door. They won't treat primates because they carry too many diseases humans are susceptible to, and they bite.

Adrenaline rush? Don't expect it to last too long, maybe a fraction of a minute. Lisa said she doesn't think there are any documented cases of mothers pulling cars off their children, etc. Can ignore injuries for a long time, though, unless bleeding too much.

"There is probably a reasonably medically accurate way to make what you want to happen, happen." (incapacitate, suffer, recover, etc.) Write it first, then get depth and detail by finding people it's happened to.

Comments

[chanphenglew.livejournal.com]

Great notes, Erin! I feel like I was there. I'm glad they addressed the issue of pet peeves - my suspension of disbrief does get suspended when there are simple medical bloopers in the text, especially if coming out of the mouth of a medical person. I would not want to go under the knife of one of Stephen Baxter's medical people!

In that light, they are probably talking about the Glascow Coma Scale, which goes up to 15. ( http://www.cdc.gov/doc.do/id/0900f3ec8006db3c ). One of my LJ communities is called little_details. They have a lot of medical questions and answers. One of the big problems I have with my research - both in researching medical questions for the doctors I work with, and in writing - is that it's easiest to get information on 'state o' da art' advances. Finding info on diseases and treatments for developing countries, which don't have the same level of infrastructure, is harder.

That's interesting about catnip. Lao cats don't seem to react to it like American cats. They do go nuts over fragrant cedar - I had received a gift of a tray carved out of this wood and had left it out. I found one of my cats lying on it, totally blissed out. Different stroke for different cats, I guess (I have a different story on how it affects cat fertility, but that's another journal entry).

Anyway, thanks for the update and welcome back!

[eimarra]

Believe it or not, my notes tend to get more detailed through the con, which is why I haven't posted the next panel yet; it's longer. But lots more to come.

Thanks for the pointer to the Glasgow Coma Scale. May come in handy at some undefined future point.

My one cat loves mint and banana peels. (Not together.) They're just odd creatures.

[chanphenglew.livejournal.com]

Mint and banana peels. I wonder what effect it would have on the feline Glascow Coma Scale. Maybe increase it.

Yes, there are odd creatures, though they share cross-cultural traits. My landlady complains that she trips over them all the time when she's trying to cook. She'd like to give them a good kick but since cats are the favored animal of the Lord Buddha, she can't!

[eimarra]

Oh, I forgot -- the Mining Other Cultures panel was great, and talked a lot more about Asian and other sources than it did Eastern European. I'll be getting that up in the next couple days, too.

A couple comments

[marfisk]

First of all, I tried to comment and "added a memory" instead. Have NO idea what that is :p.

Second of all, thanks for the notes. They're interesting.

To return the favor, I'll add some personal flavor.

Regarding the dislocated shoulder...it actually depends on the extent of the dislocation and whether the muscles are pulled out of place. As I'll explain below in the comment on falling, I dislocate my shoulder all the time. Once your shoulder dislocates, it's much easier for it to happen the next time. The pain can go from piercing/severe to an annoying twinge that ends up binding the related muscles depending on how it dislocated and whether it was nice enough to pinch a nerve on the way. Can I work with my shoulder out? Yes. Is it wise? No. The muscles tend to get tenser as the time passes and worse the more you use them, making it harder and harder to get it back in. No, I haven't found the secret slap point Mel Gibson used in Lethal Weapon, but I did find the "trick" plausible.

On falling, if you really need your character to suffer great falls with no broken bones, there is a genetic defect that can offer this glorious benefit. I have it, hence the random dislocation of shoulders, knees, hips, elbows etc. :p. If you think of an Indian Rubber Man from the old circus shows who can tie himself in knots or step from a box that has been thrust with knives unharmed, that's the farthest extent of the defect. Basically, the ligaments are elastic. This means where most people's bones are quasi-fixed, mine have twice as much give. If I dislocate something, there's no natural force pulling against the joint to put it back into place because that's the ligaments' job. The good news is I'll never strain a ligament and can fall from high cliffs (and have done so several times) without breaking a bone in my body. The bad side is that joints are unreliable things that can give way at the least excuse. I sleep funny and over the course of the day, my shoulder binds up. Luckily, my hubby knows how to pop it back into place if it hasn't bound too much and you can hear it pop like a chiropractor popping your spine only shoulders aren't supposed to do that :p.

Anyway, thought it might add an interesting element :).

Re: A couple comments

[eimarra]

Fascinating! Yes, Mel Gibson came up, basically in that it was deemed unreasonable that his shoulder was dislocated, he fought with it that way, and then he slapped it back into place. So you're saying that's not out of the question? Cool.

This definitely falls into the "depth and detail from people it's happned to." Thanks.

Oh--memories are sort of LJ-only bookmarks that you can access through your profile page. So if there are posts from your friends that you think you might want to refer to again (or even your own posts that you don't remember when they were), you can add them to memories.

Re: A couple comments

[marfisk]

Ah, thanks for the explanation :). Handy.

And as to his shoulder, it really depends on whether he damaged or stretched the muscles. I'm sure a doc could give you a better idea on feasibility, but I can tell you all through puberty that the docs decided it was all in my head when I would be walking along and collapse to the floor cause a knee gave way (bones growing faster than muscles can keep up. In most people, it's painful cause the ligaments hold everything together. In me, the ligaments were happy to stretch, leaving nothing to hold the joint together :p) but a joint specialist did some rotation on me and said I have hypermobility. It has a fancy name, but that's the part that was memorizable :).

However, this really speaks to plausibility and truth is stranger than fiction. That worked for me because I have the type of body where it would work and so saw it as plausible. Mine is a rare condition. Doesn't matter if it CAN happen, it matters if you set up the situation so the reader believes it DOES happen :).

Re: A couple comments

[eimarra]

I'd say most people watching Mel Gibson are plenty happy to believe it does happen. To get the same effect in a story, I think these other hints about joints being loose and ligaments not holding things together would have to be planted all over the place to make it believable. Which is only fair.

Re: A couple comments

[marfisk]

Exactly :).