by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 19, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight
My beautiful 96 year old mother is cooking Thanksgiving dinner for our small family, and even drove herself to the grocery store to do the shopping. Although she is likely to be around another decade, she’s given us all very specific instructions on how to refer to...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 19, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Shin Radiation Madness
For years I have been talking about the complications of shin radiation in elderly patients. The patients all underwent radiation for skin cancer having been told that since they were old and had “circulation issues”, radiation was a better option than undergoing a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 18, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Shin Radiation Madness
For years I have been talking about the complications of shin radiation in elderly patients. The patients all underwent radiation for skin cancer having been told that since they were old and had “circulation issues”, radiation was a better option than undergoing a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 21, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight
In this blog preview of my upcoming WoundCon Fall 2021 presentation, I propose the angiosome concept as a mechanism for “inside-out” pressure injury development. — Caroline Most clinicians know that some pressure injuries happen from the inside out because...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 29, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight
This is the left foot of a 34-year-old African American woman who spent 21 days in the intensive care unit, hypotensive from sepsis and on vasopressors with disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC). She lost all the toes on her right foot from ischemic necrosis....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 28, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Shin Radiation Madness
If you have shin radiation wound cases you have treated (successfully or not), use the form below to tell your story and I will post them. Do NOT send protected health information, and that means no initials or dates in the photos! At the very least we can make a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 28, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Pyoderma Gangrenosum
An adult patient with severe cerebral palsy developed several pressure ulcers after hospital admission for pneumonia. This one has persisted for many months. While it’s possible that the trauma that initiated it was a pressure injury, this is pyoderma gangrenosum....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 27, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Pyoderma Gangrenosum
39 y.o. woman with a non-healing left anterior shin ulcer which had been present for a year after minor trauma. Her father and her daughter have autoimmune diseases but she has no such diagnosis, nor does she have joint pain or bowel problems. The wound began as a red...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 23, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Pyoderma Gangrenosum
I have an entire clinic full of patients with pyoderma gangrenosum. Nearly all of them were missed at other wound centers. I am going to post a series of PG cases in hopes that the information will help clinicians and patients identify this disease which is not so...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 20, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Shin Radiation Madness
Please, if you are a patient with a bad skin cancer on the shin and have been recommended to have radiation instead of surgery, get a second opinion. The shin is very unforgiving when it comes to radiation. I posted a blog about this in 2017, but the cases keep coming...