IPPB still in use at hospitals; still ineffective

Upon coming back to work today I find we have a patient on IPPB. I haven't done an IPPB on a patient in at least four years, and I'm surprised those darn things still work. After all, they were used in the 1960s as a ventilator at this hospital.

In fact, if you watch that old show from the early 1970s called "Emergency," on one of the episodes you will see the IPPB being used as a ventilator. I used to love that show when I was a kid.

One of these days those things are simply going to break down and I don't know what our doctors are going to do when they think one will help a patient stay in the hospital longer. After all, all studies done since the late 1980s show that all IPPB is good for is over-inflating the good alveoli.

"The patient is complete white out on the left side," Dave said.

"So, who ordered IPPB?" I asked.

"Oh, Dr. Arse."

"Why? Isn't it contraindicated for pneumo?"

"Well, it's not a pneumo," chuckles, "it's crackles. But don't worry, it should only do minimal damage to the patient. As soon as you're done with the treatment his good alveoli should deflate to normal size and he should be fine. It should only prolong his stay here one to two days."

"Okay," I said, "at least there's a good reason behind it. I'd hate to be doing an ancient procedure for nothing."

"Yep."

"What's doctor Arse going to do when our IPPBs finally break down due to wear and tear, and the company no longer exists to send in replacement parts?"

"Well, those machines are made to last a lifetime, kind of like Duracel batteries; they keep going and going and going. Then again, if they do happen to break down, I guess Dr. Arse will just have to retire."

"I think we should have hiden those things in the basement with the mist tents and told the doctors that we don't have them anymore, then they'd be forced to use some more effective therapy."

Dave chuckled, "Well, then they'd just give continuous inflatolin treatments."

Okay, so that's how my night started. It must have been a rough week for him.

On a side note here, the IPPB machine we have is so old and outdated that I can't even find a picture of it to post for you here.