There's this old saying that we do the best with the wisdom of today, and when we learn better we do better. Yet in the medical field the saying should go like this: "We do the best we can with what we know today, and when we're proven wrong we continue to do it the old way."
This is nothing new. The medical profession has historically been slow to adapt change. For example, in 1847 Ignaz Semmelweis observed that moms whose babies were delivered by medical students were far more likely to die of child bed fever compared to moms whose babies were delivered by midwives.
Semmelweis proved the midwives were cleaner because the midwives washed their hands between patients. Semmelweis made it mandatory for doctors to wash their hands in chlorinated lime solutions just like the midwives did. In the months that followed moms dying of child bed fever plummeted. Yet Semmelweis was hated and treated like a nut.
How dare he tell the well established medical community what to do? You see, back then medical status was determined by how much blood you had on your hands and apron. Since Semmelweis could offer no scientific proof why handwashing did any good, Semmelweis was laughed out of town.
Of course later Semmelweis was proven right.
Here's an even better example. Galen lived 129-199 AD, and in in the 16th century (1500 years later) his books were still taught in school as though Galen were a medical god.
Around 1543, however, Andreas Vesalius made observations that were pretty much rejected by the medical community. While an assistant was dissecting a corpse, the professor was reading Galen's description of what was being dissected.
Vesalius noted what many other students noted yet refused to accept: that what he was seeing was not the same as what Galen wrote. For example, Galen described the sternum as having eight parts, yet the human sternum had only three parts.
Later, when dissecting an ape, Vesalius learned it was the ape that had an eight part sternum. Galen had made his writings based on dissections of apes. This made sense considering in Galen's day it was illegal to dissect a human corpse.
In the 16th century artists like Michelangelo knew more about the human anatomy than physicians, so Vesalius hired Johannes Oporinus to draw accurate pictures of human anatomy, and Vesalius published the first ever book on human anatomy:
De humani corporus fabrica.
Yet Galen could nary be wrong, and Vesalius was laughed out of town. Of course he is now considered the father of human anatomy.
So physician are known to be stubborn, and to hold onto old myths for centuries. You can consider these old myths when reading about the 5 biggest
modern myths about respiratory therapy.
1.
Giving oxygen to COPD patients will knock out their respiratory drive: This was the myth created by respiratory therapists to justify their existence back in the 1930s. It's a myth that some COPDers have CO2 levels so high that their bodies no longer use CO2 as the drive to breath. Instead they rely on oxygen. So, if oxygen is set too high, they will stop breathing.
The truth. Even COPD patients use CO2 as a drive to breath. I have given many COPD patients 100% oxygen and never have I ever seen any COPD patient drop dead. In fact, in my hospital every breathing treatment is given with oxygen, and not one of these patients has ever dropped dead during a treatment.
It is true on an unstable COPD patient in respiratory distress the added oxygen may knock out their drive to breath, yet it has nothing to do with the hypoxic drive, it has to do with ventilatory failure, pooping out, the haldane effect, and stuff like that. Yet it has nothing to do with the hypoxic drive.
So, based on a myth, many COPD patients continue to be starved of the oxygen they need, and many lives have been cut short as a result. And many more lives will continue to be cut short in the future.
To read read more about the hypoxic drive myth click
here.
2.
Giving oxygen to anemic patients will benefit them. If you work in a hospital you probably have a policy whereby if the hemoglobin is below 10 you automatically place that patient on oxygen. The idea is that since hemoglobin is low, more oxygen will be needed to feed the brain.
The truth is that giving more oxygen to these patients is useless. If oxygen carrying hemoglobin are not in the blood, then all the extra oxygen molecules are just going to float around. Look at it this way, if an airplane normally has 100 seats and 50 seats are missing, you can book 500 people on that plane, yet still only 50 will be able to find a seat.
Think about that the next time you're placing a nasal cannula on an anemic patient.
3.
All that wheezes must be treated with a bronchodilator. Since the advent of time a wheeze has been associated with asthma. If someone is wheezing they must have narrowing of the air passages in the lungs.
The truth is that many things can cause a wheeze, and a bronchodilator has no effect on most of them. Swelling of the throat, cancer, forced exhalation, collapsed lungs, heart failure, dry throats, increased secretions and pulmonary fibrosis are some examples. Truth is, a wheeze is perhaps the #1 most reported lung sound, and most wheezes probably aren't even real wheezes, they're rhonchi -- the sound of air moving through air passages --or even stridor or a rub.
Yet to make themselves feel like they are doing something, a respiratory therapist is called to "give a breathing treatment" every time a nurse or doctor thinks he hears a wheeze. It's silly, yet I don't see it ending any time soon.
4.
All lung ailments must be treated as asthma: You heard that right. In the hospital if you're diagnosed with any lung ailment a bronchodilator is ordered. Doctors are taught that every lung disorder will cause the air passages to spasm.
The truth is, the only lung disorder that benefits from a bronchodilator is one that causes the muscles surrounding the air passages (bronchioles) to spasm. Bronchodilators like Albuterol and Xopenex relax these muscles, dilating the air passages, and making breathing easier.
If there is no bronchospasm -- if the air passages are already open -- they will not become more open no matter how much Ventolin you pump into that person's lungs.
5.
Bronchodilators increase sputum production. Many times an RT has given a Ventolin treatment to a patient to obtain a sputum sample. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
The truth is, while Ventolin has been proven by some studies to increase sputum production, the amount produced is so small it will generate to gob of phlegm unless the patient is already sick and ailing. That's right, if a COPD patient already has phlegm inside, the Ventolin may relax the airways enough to help that patient bring up a gob.
This has many doctors thinking Ventolin will produce this effect even in patients with dry, non-productive coughs. The truth is, it's a myth. Ventolin is not an expectorant.
6.
Chest physiotherapy will speed up time to discharge. Many doctors order post operative CPT on all their post operative patients because some study 300 years ago said it would help move secretions. The truth is, 300 studies done on CPT have never proven this. If there's no secretions being produced, you can pound on the patient until the cows come home and the patient isn't going to bring up anything. Patients given CPT will be discharged eventually just like those not given CPT. They all survive.
7.
Ventolin causes inert bronchospasm. Sure studies may show Albuterol causes inert bronchospasm, yet I've never once heard of an ashtmatic complain that Ventolin made his asthma worse. To believe this is to believe that Chicken Noodle Soup will cure the common cold.
In fact, it's myths like this that prevent some patients from getting the treatment they need to feel better.
The neat thing about this myth is that it's the only one doctors ignore in leu of myth #3 or #4 above.
8.
Breathing treatments are better than inhalers: Once admitted to the hospital doctors stop ordering metered dose inhalers and order nebulizer treatments instead. They believe nebulizers work better to treat and prevent bronchospasm than inhalers.
The truth is most every study completed on this subject has proven that when an inhaler is used properly with a spacer it is just as effective (if not more effective) than a nebulizer treatment. When if comes to infants, studies have shown inhalers work much better than nebulizers. I wrote about this
here and
here.
9.
Aerosolized breathing treatments help you cough up pneumonia: It is true ventolin has been proven to increase sputum production, although the effect is minimal (see myth #5 above).
The truth is that even if sputum production does increase, this has nothing to do with pneumonia. Pneumonia is inflammation of the lung parychema (terminal bronchioles and alveoli).
Not only does Ventolin not treat inflammation, these particles are only 0.5 microns in size, too large to make it down to the parychema. And even if they did, there is no bronchiole smooth muscles and no beta adrenergic receptors in the lung parynchema for them to sit on.
This myth is so overblown that the Centers for Medicair and Medicaide (CMS) won't reimburse for pneumonia patients unless a breathing treatment is given, and it has resulted in ventolin automatically being ordered via order sets at many hospitals.
This myth has given the Federal government an excuse to pay less at the expense of hospitals and patients paying more. Likewise, it's resulted in burnout of respiratory therapists, loss of morale, and apathy.
10.
Ventolin prevents asthma. Ventolin is ordered for many patients with a history of asthma, COPD, ARDS, intubation, BiPAP, trachs, somnolent, sedated, receiving blood, atelectasis, lung cancer, fever, and rickets to prevent these ailments from turning into asthma.
The truth is that Ventolin is a simple drug that is hailed by asthmatics for bronchospasm and it doesn't do much else. It does not prevent one from getting asthma. If the goal is to prevent bronchospasm, Advair, Symbicort and Dulera are better options.
11.
Levalbuterol is stronger and safer than Albuterol: Early studies, free meals and alcohol convinced doctors and RTs that absense of the S-isomer made levalbuterol (Xopenex) stronger, made it last longer, and gave it fewer side effects.
More recent studies and practical observations have given us a more clear picture of this Xopenex, and we've learned it's nothing more than a more expensive option.
12.
Newborns need 100 percent oxygen with positive pressure breaths to stimulate breathing: In the 10 percent of cases where a newborn doesn't start breathing after birth, positive pressure breaths with 100 percent oxygen are believed to stimulate breathing.
The truth is most studies show oxygen does not stimulate breathing in newborns, that the positive breaths alone do that. Baby's have a low PO2 before birth -- often in the 40s, and studies have found increasing that PO2 too fast can cause severe consequences to that baby. In fact, studies have shown giving 100 percent oxygen even to term infants greatly increases their risk for all sorts of different cancers later in life.
The Neonatal Resuscitation Program amazingly now accepts these studies and now recommends physicians start at 40 percent and even 21 percent oxygen, with oxygen saturations in the high 80s as acceptable. Slowly but surely doctors seem to be coming along here. I wrote more about this
here.
In conclusion: So while science has proven the above myths wrong, many in the medical profession continue to treat their patients the way they were taught back in the 1980s. Until these debunked myths are rejected by the medical community, it's the patients who suffers.
These myths have resulted in poor patient care, respiratory therapist burnout, and increased costs.
