by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 13, 2022 | Don't Miss This, Fight the Good Fight
My friend and colleague, Dr. Heather Hettrick, is a clinician and scientist whose boundless intellectual curiosity may be unraveling a mystery in the field of marine biology. Her work with green sea turtles represents “translational science,” this time from humans to...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 20, 2022 | Don't Miss This, Fight the Good Fight, Lymphatic Imaging & Lymphedema
For many years I was the director of a very large lymphedema clinic at the Texas Medical Center. I worked with 6 fabulous manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) therapists. The therapists and the patients taught me nearly everything I know about lymphedema because for many...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 2, 2021 | Don't Miss This
This patient has a serious neurological condition and was hospitalized for pneumonia. He developed what may have been a pressure injury on his left trochanter, but I think you can see from the appearance of this lesion that it’s not a simple pressure injury. Pressure...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 26, 2021 | Don't Miss This
This is a 37 yo man with a non-healing wound at the site of a left chest catheter port. He has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the port for his chemotherapy was removed 4 weeks after it was put in because it looked infected. He has had an extensive region of erythema and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 25, 2021 | Don't Miss This
Axillary web syndrome (AWS), also known as cording, can occur as side effect of breast cancer surgery – usually when surgery has been performed on the lymph nodes of the axilla (armpit). The cord is a thick, rope-like structure under the skin that can limit the...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 24, 2021 | Don't Miss This, Fight the Good Fight
A 44 year old woman presented with left arm and right lower leg ulcers that had been present for over 3 years. She has been seen by many specialists and treated with multiple courses of oral antibiotics, oral steroids, topical steroids, and advanced dressings. She...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 18, 2021 | Don't Miss This
I thought I saw this tendon sort of quivering. I am only sorry that I wasn’t able to film while I worked. When I opened up the bloated end of this tendon, I found the motherlode of maggots. This video shows the little explorer who alerted me to the problem. You can...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 17, 2021 | Don't Miss This
Wounds often form over tendons (particularly the Achilles and the lateral ankle). It’s important to ask the patient to move whatever the tendon might attach to – to see if the wound “moves” with the tendon. For example, if the wound is over the Achilles, ask the...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 14, 2021 | Don't Miss This
My initial reaction was, “What the heck is THAT? I don’t want to be the Sigourney Weaver of wound care!” The patient is a 30+ year survivor of high-dose radiation for a sarcoma over her right hip and thigh. She has terrible late effects of radiation, and the tissue...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 17, 2020 | Don't Miss This, Uncategorized, US Wound Registry
Wound Clinic Leaders: Please Take This Survey The US Wound Registry is focused on improving the quality of care and outcomes of patients with chronic wounds and ulcers. As a CMS-recognized Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR), we are trying to understand real-world...
