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Showing posts from January, 2012

Endocrine Tissue - Lesson 298

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In human body, endocrine tissue like structures function as endocrine glands, but they are not true endocrine glands. In this post, we will learn about these endocrine tissues work like endocrine glands. First, our body cells secrete prostaglandins. This secretions helps to contract uterus. Prostaglandis also helps to lower blood pressure and to clump blood platelets. This also helps to lessen acid secretion in stomach. There are three secretions are from gastrointestinal tract or GI tract or in the alimentary canal. These three secretions are named as cholecystokinin, gastrin, and secretin. Cholecystokinin helps to contract gallbladder. Gastrin helps to stimulate gastric secretion. Secretin helps to stimulate pancreatic enzymes. Kidney secretes a secretion that is called as erythropoietin. This stimulates the production of erythrocytes or red blood cells or RBCs.  Other than endocrine tissue , we will now learn about true endocrine glands. Pineal gland secretes a material

Why did you choose Medical Transcription as a career?

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I had been dreaming for a good job all days along my teenage and had not been satisfied with anything that I had selected at that time.  I did choose MT as a career one good day after seeing an advertisement 10 years back in an English daily and the eligibility condition to that job matches to my educational background at that time (I was discontinued my B.Sc. Zoology at that time and so I had some reliability to choose MT as a career).  I could see the advertisement that it also provides a lucrative income to people with good typing skills and listening skills with a good medical terminological knowledge too. So I had a preference to join as a medical transcriptionist. Medical transcription nowadays is playing an important role in insurance field to claim our medical claims from the government, especially in the United States . So physicians must dictate every patient's report in a dictaphone to record it, and then an MT will type it in a computer to convert that voice dic

Hormones and Their Functions - Lesson 297

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Endocrine glands are ductless glands. We will now see hormones and their functions . Exocrine glands have ducts to secrete their secretions inside the bloodstream, such as sweat glands. Exocrine gland functions are different from endocrine glands. They secrete chemical compounds named as hormones into the bloodstream to maintain some important functions of the body. Human brain has two important endocrine glands, such as pituitary and pineal gland in the center portion of the brain. Thyroid and parathyroid glands are present in the neck portion. Thymus gland is present behind the sternum in the mediastinum. Pancreas is an endocrine gland that is present in the liver. Adrenal glands are present above each kidney. Ovaries are present in the female reproductive system and testes are the endocrine glands that are present in the male reproductive system. Now we will see what are the hormones they secrete to maintain important functions of the human body. In fact, the functions of two

Human Endocrine System - Lesson 296

From this lesson, we are going to start Human Endocrine System . We are going to cover what is endocrine system, what are the glands that has, medical terms related to endocrine system, endocrine disease conditions, lab tests related to it, clinical procedures related to it, and endocrine system abbreviations. You should know that endocrine system can be identified with its glands and the hormones they secrete to maintain important body functions. The functions of endocrine system and its hormones in our body are very important. Endocrine hormone deficiency or excessive secretion may lead to many abnormal disease conditions in our body. There are many lab tests and clinical procedures to maintain hormone balance in our body. Human Endocrine System - An introduction It consists of glands. These glands secrete different types of hormones that are important to our body functions. These hormone-secreting glands are situated in different parts of our body from head to hip. Hor

Tuning Fork Hearing Tests - Lesson 295

Tuning fork hearing tests are useful in evaluating a person's hearing ability. This test will be performed by a specialist who examines a patient is called as an audiologist. Every time an audiologist uses an instrument to perform this evaluation that is known as an audiometer. Different frequencies of sound waves are used to evaluate a person's hearing sensitivity by the audiologist. You might also hear about other hearing ability tests, such as Rinne test and Weber test. In this evaluation, a tuning fork is used as a source of vibration to test the patient. A tuning fork instrument is kept on the mastoid process of the patient. It is also kept in the external auditory meatus. The main aim of keeping the tuning fork in the above-said areas is to test the bone in these areas and also to test the air movement. This type of test is called as Weber test. To perform Weber or Rinne test, the person should be sit in a room with sound proof with a headset. The headphone will be con

Pneumatic Otoscopy - Lesson 294

Otoscopy procedure is a kind of visual examination to examine the ears. To perform this visual exam, a device is used named as otoscope. These otoscopes are used even in normal body check-ups to find out any diseases in the ears. Using otoscope device, the physician can test both the outer ear and the middle ear areas. It consists of a hand grip and a head portion to insert into the ears. A lens is attached to the head portion to magnify the ear portions during the visual examination. Earwax or cerumen is also removed using this called ear cleaning. There are two types of otoscope instruments. They are portable kind and other is mounted on walls of the clinic. This instrument is useful in finding out diseases like otitis media and otitis externa, and/or any other germ infections by bacteria in the external ear or in the middle ear. Otoscopy procedure is also used sometimes to check the nose and/or throat too with ears. Pneumatic otoscopy  is a procedure useful in evaluating the m

Cochlear Hearing Implants - Lesson 293

In this blog post, we are going to learn about cochlear hearing implants and their usage in persons with hearing difficulty.  Cochlear hearing implant is a machine that permits a person with hearing deficiency to hear the words of others who speak to him or her. Now, we will see the structure of the device. Cochlear hearing is made up of with a microphone, speech processor, sound transmitter, and a sound receiver. This useful device can be set near the mastoid process behind the ears. How does this work? This device transmits electrical indications to electrodes that are implanted inside the cochlear hearing implant that is held within the cochlea and those electrical indications or signals excite the hearing nerves that are attached to the brain. Microphone picks up the sound from the surroundings. Voice processor alters the sounds by selection from the microphone. Sound transmitter changes the sound waves into electrical signals. The receiver collects the electrical signals and

Audiometry Tests for Hearing Loss - Lesson 292

Audiometry tests are assessment processeses done to assess the hearing ability at different frequency level tolerance. These tests are useful in estimating hearing ability in patients with hearing difficulties. This procedure is also useful in diagnosing any diseases in the ear canal too. Sound threshold levels are calculated at different frequencies. The measurement unit of sound waves is decibels and it is termed in short as dB. Before undergoing an audiometry test, the patient will be asked about his past medical history and these queries will be helpful in detecting any sound exposures that lead the patient to get hearing difficulty. In some cases, the patient's eardrum may be affected and so the passage of sound waves to cochlea may be affected and so hearing loss might have occurred. Hearing Loss Audiogram:  A special instrument is used to diagnose the hearing ability and the instrument used to do this assessment is called as audiogram. The sound frequency threshold