Disqus - Latest Comments for raphaelf

Re: Money and credulity drive Duterte’s ‘keyboard army’

raphaelf — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 18:03:35 -0000

Rather than being swamped with fake news, I just unfollow or hide any post with a "Duterte bleh-bleh-bleh" title.

Re: VIRAL: Cardiologist shares 'worst experience at CDO Cebu Pacific'

raphaelf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 23:28:10 -0000

Sorry, anonymous, I don't have to experience it with my children because I've already experienced these same situations to so many patients in the airport. I sympathize with them but we try as much as possible to have them board the flight but sometimes rules and regulations have to be followed for the sake of the general public that they have to be denied boasting a flight.

Re: VIRAL: Cardiologist shares 'worst experience at CDO Cebu Pacific'

raphaelf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 22:17:35 -0000

Mam Erlina, do you have a PAF Hospital in Cagayan de Oro? Maybe the airlines operating in CDO should refer those sick passengers to that hospital if the airport doesn't have their own medical department and if they're not doing it yet. I'm not familiar with the CDO airport.

Re: VIRAL: Cardiologist shares 'worst experience at CDO Cebu Pacific'

raphaelf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:58:10 -0000

Yes, six days old...so within five days they were able to diagnose the baby as having a heart problem. So by that time they were able to call doctors based in Manila and was advised to bring the baby to Manila for surgery. Did they consider the intricacies of transporting a critical patient - that is, medical clearance from the airline medical department, special oxygen tank to be used during the flight? So when did they inform Cebu-Pacific that they have a special passenger on board? I think based on the story, the day of the flight. There is no doubt that the baby is in an emergency situation, but Cebu-Pacific is a commercial plane, not a medical evacuation plane. They mostly transport generally healthy people, not sick people. So they are not equipped with emergency equipment. If, God forbids, a patient dies during the journey, and the airline knew all along that the patient is in critical condition without a medical clearance, they're going to be blamed for that - it's a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't situation for that airline. What about a waiver? The IATA Medical Manual recommends not doing a waiver - but some would do it anyway I think for humanitarian reasons.

Re: VIRAL: Cardiologist shares 'worst experience at CDO Cebu Pacific'

raphaelf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:23:39 -0000

Ah, yes, I didn't consider those flight medics - the only people I was thinking about were the flight surgeons and they're totally different from those doctors and nurses who work in medical evacuation. For me, I can't remember meeting or coordinating with a doctor or nurse who work in air medevacs, like Airgurus, here in Cebu. Maybe it's a regional thing and the cost...and just right now, I read of the Philippine Air Force nurses/doctors who can give Pre-flight clearances. I'm not sure of their availability...

Re: VIRAL: Cardiologist shares 'worst experience at CDO Cebu Pacific'

raphaelf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:02:43 -0000

You got me there, @Sheila Dumayas and @dnaughty.
Totally that would be my mistake by not reading the whole thing properly...but whatever info I gave up there still holds water for any potential passenger-patient - whether it would be a baby or an adult...unfortunately, as a medical doctor working in the airport, who is privy to these kind of cases, ie. medical clearances of passengers, not all doctors outside the airport know which passengers are cleared to fly and not fly. Even ground crew of an airline don't know the indications for medical clearances. In Cebu, except for PAL, most air carriers don't have their own medical doctor, so they go to us in the airport clinic - who are not really connected to any airline - to give clearances. And for the most part, unless they are really unstable and/or critical and/or infectious, and for humanitarian reasons, we give them clearances considering the journey to Manila is less than 2 hours and the patient is stable. If the passenger is taking an international flight, that is another story, especially connecting passengers. For now, we are not anymore interacting with passengers since the airport terminal is now run by a private company (GMR) but before this is the case...Thank you for that heads up...

Re: VIRAL: Cardiologist shares 'worst experience at CDO Cebu Pacific'

raphaelf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 06:38:39 -0000

Sorry, argz, as far as I know, I can only give you two fingers on the number of flight medics here in the Philippines, one is already retired and the other one practicing but on the verge of retirement as well. Taking a Flight Surgeon training is a very expensive training and you have to go to the States to train for it. A pediatric cardiologist can attend to a passenger but this doctor didn't pass through the process. I know of a Korean neurologist who attended a Filipino passenger from Inchon to Cebu and there's no problem with that as long as they go through the protocols.

Re: VIRAL: Cardiologist shares 'worst experience at CDO Cebu Pacific'

raphaelf — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 06:30:31 -0000

I agree. I work in an airport and the problem is that there should be prior information at least a week to the airline company that a passenger needs to have an oxygen and such and such needs. There is a MEDIF form provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and is being used by all airlines. Per IATA Medical Manual (2013): "Medical clearance is required by the airline‘s medical department if the passenger:
(a) suffers from any disease which is believed to be actively contagious and communicable;
(b) is likely to be a hazard or cause discomfort to other passengers because of the physical or behavioural condition,
(c) is considered to be a potential hazard to the safety or punctuality of the flight including the possibility of diversion of the flight or an unscheduled landing;
(d) is incapable of caring for himself and requires special assistance;
(e) has a medical condition which may be adversely affected by the flight environment.
Passengers not falling into the above categories normally do not need medical clearance, however, if in doubt, medical advice should be obtained."
Also, on incapacitated passengers: "The carriage of incapacitated, handicapped or disabled passengers is an important aspect of air travel.
Acceptance of the incapacitated passenger for travel requires input from the airline medical department, coordinating, where appropriate, with the passenger‘s medical advisor and the airlines‘ reservations, ticketing and operational departments." I doubt there was coordination between the attending doctor and the airline's medical department prior to the flight.

Re: [Update: Winners] Tell Us How You'd Make The ASUS ZenFone 2 Even Better, And You Could Win One Of Five 64GB Models

raphaelf — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 05:31:35 -0000

Have the navigation icons (back/home/recent) on the screen or have them backlighted if they're still fixed as the previous versions.

Re: Girl drops plan to sue priest

raphaelf — Sat, 25 Jul 2015 21:23:18 -0000

There will be people who's already set their minds on what they think is the truth, that is what you call "prejudice". Only time will tell what is behind the real story. If that is what the investigation found out, then let it be. Unless someone has the evidence to contradict what has been found, then shut up and move forward. That is my sober thought.

Re: 'Godzilla' 2014: SFX pioneer Jim Rygiel on remaking Japan's most famous monster

raphaelf — Fri, 16 May 2014 03:42:11 -0000

My kids saw the movie Wednesday (Philippines) and they loved it especially one of my sons who's a Godzilla fan.

Re: The MyPhone Iceberg Mini Feature Gets Teased with a Release Date!

raphaelf — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 00:24:14 -0000

Octacore plus an LTE chip - MTK 6592 - next year :)

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:10:22 -0000

Steve, did some changes on your transcript, you can go to my skydrive account to look at it. I used the Track changes feature of Word so you can see the changes I made. Have you used that feature before in terms of accepting and rejecting the changes I made?

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 06:37:11 -0000

Steve, just email me at: raphfern@gmail.com for any comments or suggestions regarding the transcripts...

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:46:53 -0000

Steve, two suggestions; maybe we can setup an account from a free cloud-based service like skydrive or dropbox, so we can put all the transcripts there, finished and unfinished. Other suggestion, how about a common transcript format?

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 19:22:54 -0000

Thanks. We'll just split that in two equal halves. I've already started on the first 10 mins of the audio. You can take the second half, ie. 40:01 up to the end, if you're okay with it then we can decide later how to present it...

Re: RH law is unchristian: Rama

raphaelf — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 12:24:55 -0000

I'm sorry to say to those who think that the Catholic Church is backward thinking - maybe you ought to look first at why they are against RH - because of overpopulation? No. It's what you call morality. I don't think the Church would argue and be opposed to a bill if they're just "backward-thinking." They're not stupid enough to tell the whole world they're backward-minded. The Catholic Church has a Pontifical Academy of Sciences which have both Catholic and non-Catholic scientists as their members. One thing I learned about lowering the birth rate is to educate people. Maybe because we think more of politics and our insecurities comparing to our Asian neighbors rather than putting more effort to education. Consider this link: http://www.earth-policy.org....

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:30:36 -0000

Or I'll just send to you a link of the transcript from my skydrive account so that you can download it and check it out later...I'll just put the link here first...

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:27:12 -0000

Steve, am almost finished with my TWiM part, where should I send the transcript? I can send you my transcript to your email if you want to...

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 22:14:02 -0000

Has anyone started transcribing the Dr. Firestein interview? I'm planning to start transcribing it on December 31 unless someone is working on it already. - Raphael

Re: Do it Yourself TB Test

raphaelf — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 18:31:14 -0000

As a physician in an environment where pulmonary TB is frequently diagnosed, my pet peeves in diagnosing this disease are in symptomatology and chest x-rays. I get individuals who are asymptomatic but when they undergo chest x-ray for another reason like annual physical exam, they present with one of several vague findings: "chronic inflammatory process," "fibronodular densities," and so on. In terms of x-rays, I've observed there is one PTB diagnosis out of ten vague reports. I feel that radiologists try to be particularly careful in diagnosing PTB, which, on my part, have to try and squeeze out from the patient if he or she does have TB - so a 3-day sputum exam, a lordotic chest x-ray and a patient's trip to a public health center. Having a Do-It-Yourself-TB or an in-office test would be a welcome for me since it only takes 10 minutes to process everything.

Re: TWiV 197: Cloning HeLa cells with Professor Philip I Marcus

raphaelf — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:56:52 -0000

While doing the transcribing and researching for the many names that Drs. Racaniello and Marcus were mentioning during their conversation, I chanced upon a PDF document of the life and work of another distinguished scientist whose name was mentioned in the interview - Dr. Bill Joklik. The article, entitled "The Adventures of a Biochemist in Virology" was written by no other than Dr. Joklik in 2005. Link:
http://mgm.duke.edu/faculty...

Re: Transcripts

raphaelf — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:57:36 -0000

Transcript for Episode 197 is ongoing...

Re: Switched On: The netbook legacy

raphaelf — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:40:34 -0000

thank you for the info, will keep that in mind. I'm still looking around for one. I might already get one end of this month or early next.

Re: Switched On: The netbook legacy

raphaelf — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:29:50 -0000

Yes,you're right, peterfares, I do think they're already "notebooks" than "netbooks" but then that's why I'm switching from one to the other because when I checked the benchmarks between AMD and Intel, AMD's 1.65 CPU tops the performance versus N2800's 1.86 though it takes up a lot more power than Atom. After having the MSI Wind for 3 years using it for my transcription work occasionally when I'm out of the house, I think I need a bigger screen now and with better performance and features with a low price tag.