MEDICAL NEWS ROUND-UP

This dude's bark is worse than his bite

Medical stories for your reading pleasure:

• One Man's Roots: Check out this story about a poor Indonesian fisherman whose body has been hijacked by tree-like growths. (See photo above.) His bark-like sprouts are actually warts caused by HPV. The article link includes video to satisfy those, like me, who suspect some sort of sci-fi-inspired, Photoshop-created practical joke. Sadly, the man's wife left him, effectively cutting herself off from the family tree. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
  

• "Which side is it? Left?" "Right." "Right?" "Your right": Rhode Island Hospital was fined $50,000 and reprimanded after the -- not once, not twice, but -- third time one of its doctors performed brain surgery on the wrong side of a patient's head. The state has ordered a major investigation to determine how to prevent this from happening again. Doesn't the solution lie in buying a few good Sharpies?

• Trichophagia link of the day: Doctors in Illinois found a 10-pound "bezoar" in an 18-year-old woman's stomach. What's a bezoar? It's a term for swallowed foreign material. What was the foreign material? Hair. Why was there hair in her stomach? Apparently, she suffered from trichophagia, which is the habit of eating one's own hair. Doctors discovered that her stomach pains were caused by the giant schnitzel of her hair, which measured an astonishing 15" x 7" x 7". What's that, reader? You wish you could see a photo of the hair? Well, Happy Hanukkah, then.
  

(Credit: H-Town 537)

--Junichi