It is well-documented that COVID-19-related mortality and morbidity has disproportionately affected elderly populations. However, despite being less studied, COVID-19 in young people can lead to severe symptoms or long-term effects.  A recent report showed that children accounted for approximately 19 percent of confirmed COVID-19 infections, although this number is likely an underestimate due to asymptomatic… Continue reading COVID-19 in Young People: Current Data 

Virtual reality (VR), the computer-generated creation of a complete immersive virtual environment, and augmented reality (AR), the computer-based augmentation of real-world scenes, have emerged in the last decade as leading technologies buoying many industries through different applications. VR and AR tools effectively help people train, solve problems, and carry out tasks in fully or semi-alternate… Continue reading Eye Health in the Context of VR/AR 

Pain is an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience, but the ability to feel pain is an adaptive trait that can help organisms respond to threatening stimuli. There are objective, sensory aspects of pain (called nociception), as well as subjective, emotional and psychological elements of perceiving pain. Understanding both is key to defining pain physiology and… Continue reading Pain Physiology for Analgesia 

According to the 2013 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, antidepressants are the third most frequently prescribed class of medications in outpatient clinics [1]. These medications are often prescribed for the treatment for depressive or anxiety disorders, such as major depressive disorder, phobias, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder [2]. However, they are also… Continue reading Anesthesia Considerations for Patients on Antidepressants 

As of March 15, 2022, there had been almost 458.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including more than six million deaths (WHO, 2022). Asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission seems to be one of the most important features of COVID-19 (Gao et al., 2021). Defined by the CDC as “when a person is infected with a… Continue reading Asymptomatic COVID-19: Data After 2 Years

Patients under 15 years old represent ~10% of the hospital inpatient population, yet clinical research on anesthesia in the developing brain remains limited [1]. Certain anesthetic agents are known to induce neurotoxicity in the developing brain of rodents and nonhuman primates; evidence in human children is less consistent but appears to support the animal model,… Continue reading Neuroprotection of Xenon in the Developing Brain

Nosocomial infections (those acquired or occurring in a hospital) are responsible for, respectively, 7% and 10% of infections in developed and developing countries 1. Airborne transmission specifically accounts for approximately 10% of all nosocomial infections. Historically, airborne transmission has been the main route of infection for tuberculosis and aspergillosis, and implicated in nosocomial outbreaks of Methicillin-resistant… Continue reading Air Purification to Reduce Healthcare-Associated Infections

Postoperative nausea causes significant discomfort in surgical patients, and while it is not directly implicated in an increased mortality, it is associated with increased risk of pulmonary embolism, longer hospital stays and complications to rehabilitation3. It is thus an important postoperative sequela to avoid3. Prior studies have shown that opioid administration during certain procedures may… Continue reading Opioid Associated Postoperative Nausea

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine was recently awarded to two scientists who advanced our understanding of how the nervous system senses and interprets our environment 1. In particular, they contributed to the dissection of the mechanisms underlying how temperature and mechanical stimuli are converted into electrical signals in the mammalian nervous system. First, David… Continue reading 2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine