The Danbury Medical Files
Hello, I am Christian Espana Schmidt, MD. During my 25 years of medical career, I have witnessed changes in the medical profession. Starting as a medical student in Guatemala, Central America, where after medical school I completed my internal medicine residency, and then I served in a rural community for 6 years with innovation that persists, I went to New York City, where I repeated another internal medicine residency and was chief resident. My joy for teaching took me to Pensilvania where I learned about Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) a revolutionary technique to enhance physical examinations. I proudly started the POCUS program at Danbury Hospital. Now, I am developing the POCUS program of CIFC Health, a program dedicated exclusively to teaching POCUS in the outpatient clinic. As you can see, I already said I teach POCUS; however, I am very interested in other topics in medicine.
Of course I will continue to discuss POCUS, however I hope to dive in new topics in medicine.
Welcome to my podcast. I hope you find something of value.
The content is not generated with AI; all content is curated, and I try to present the evidence behind my opinions.
The PodPodcast is mainly for entertainment purposes, and my recommendations need to be taken as such.
Welcome again
Episodes
20 episodes
The Enshittification of Healthcare. A reflection of Cory Doctorow's book.
Have you noticed that many systems and services no longer seem to work for you the way they once did? Have you noticed how social media has changed, becoming less about connecting people and more about something else entirely? These changes are...
The dream of defeating measles
In this new episode of the Danbury medical files, I share with you one of the many adventures I had with my dad Dr. Victor Espana Pinetta MD, MPH. I am trying to describe one of the multiple vaccination campaigns that he led in my home country ...
POCUS in the outpatient clinic, my first impressions.
In this ad-lib podcast, I explore my first impression of my experience in teaching and using POCUS in the outpatient world.I will try to tell you how this happened, how I feel the program is going, and whether I believe it is useful.&nbs...
The data breach of the century. How and why your health information is not secure anymore.
In our medical career, one of the things that we are thought since we start is importance of privacy in to keep the patience, privacy safe. We even have laws that penalize anyone who shares private information from patients.This is not true...
Hospital Mergers
In this episode I am discussing the effects of hospital and healthcare systems mergers. I have tried to place a vast amount of information in a few minutes. I hope this will be of your interest and will be good information. ...
Three cases in outpatient POCUS
In this episode of the Danbury Medial Files, I talk about three patients where POCUS was used successfully in the outpatient clinic. I also talk about lidocaine side effects, anxiety as a common side effect of procedures. A second...
Thoughts about the volume status assessment
Erratum: I called VExUS volume excess ultrasound, and is venous excess ultrasound. Also I said the flow of the portal vein should be 20 to 30 mmHg, however is 20 to 30 cm/sec. Happy new year! This is the first...
Lung Congestion and POCUS
I stopped podcasting early this year because of personal problems. I will try to keep up the next year, however, I wanted to do a final episode in 2023. Thank you to my residents for always bringing to my attention topics that could be of...
Is it safe to perform and teach lung ultrasound?
Hey everyone. This is a follow-up chapter from the prior one, exploring how safe it is to auscultate a patient. Also, how useful.This time I try to make the case that it is safe and also useful. Follow me in this POCUS...
Black History Month Special. An Interview with Dr. Brenda Ayers MD and her fascinating work towards equity.
Inequality in healthcare is a recognized problem. I had the privilege of interviewing Brenda Ayers, MD. The head of a task force to decrease and eliminate inequality in NUVANCE-HEALTH. I met Dr. Ayers as the Chief Ho...
Is auscultation safe?
This time I am exploring what is written about the efficacy of lung auscultation. I found this interesting meta-analysis and saw the difficulties that the authors went thru to find literature about lung auscultation. Is it safe?...
POCUS and Portal hypertension.
This is a follow-up from my prior episode; as I finished uploading and had a second look at that episode, I figured out that I was discussing the case of the patients like I was doing a small teaching, and everyone could see what I was saying. ...
POCUS in the daily life of a Hospitalist: Two patients with liver disease.
Welcome 2023! After a vacation I want to share this new Podcast with you. In todays episode I describe the decision making and the importance of POCUS in a couple of patients with liver disease. Is my conviction that PO...
Celebrating Women in Medicine, Interview with the Chief Residents.
In today´s episode, I have the three Chief Residents from Danbury Hospital, a program of Internal Medicine. I have Dr. Azadeh, Gassemi, Dr. Uneza Khawaja and Dr. Wendy Perdomo. We explore the topic of women in medicine and have ...
Pleural effusion, the black bag of the physician, the case for POCUS
Thank you for listening to the Danbury Medical Files!During this episode, we dive into the history of the diagnosis of pleural effusion since the term "succussion" to POCUS. We talk briefly about the invention of percussion and ho...
Everyday tips.
Today we don´t go to the room of the patient to greet the patients and figure out what brought them to the ED. As hospitalists, we are probably the third or fourth person they interact with. Check first the EMR. Assure the patient o...
Are gun deaths a matter of public health? Shall we have an opinion?
Mass shootings are sadly way too common in America. So far, there are more mass shootings than days during this year. More than 18000 people have died from a gun-inflicted injury in 2022 alone. We have more guns than pe...
Pulsus and pulsus paradoxus
Hello, this is Christian Espana Schmidt MD, POCUS associate director in Danbury Hospital. Today we explore a little bit of history of medicine, the pulsus paradoxus in cardiac tamponade with my special guest Dr. Ferdinand Visco FACC...
The Danbury Medical Files: COVID 19 and POCUS. The "Patricia Tiejen Academy"
Hello again, this is the second podcast. I am Christian Espana Schmidt MD, a hospitalist and a POCUS instructor and program developer and director. A bit of lung point-of-care ultrasound. COVID 19 normalize...
