Frederick Gandolfo, MD

It just so happens that this interaction occurred during a particularly low point of my fellowship, and I blurted out "Do you have...

After removing a large polyp endoscopically, it is recommended to follow up the site about 3-6 months later to make sure the entire lesion was removed and prove there is no further adenomatous tissue to resect.

Sometimes repositioning the lesion is what it takes to get it done. A better angle between the snare and the polyp can be the difference between sliding over the top or capturing the lesion. In this case, retroflexing the scope in the ascending colon was the key maneuver needed to get the rest of the polyp out.

In keeping with the theme of women being smarter than men, the authors found no association between the happiness of the marriage or the degree of support from their husbands for women who chose to get a colonoscopy. Basically, women are just better at taking care of themselves independently without the need for their husbands approval, input, or coercion.

Now, I don't want to offend anyone with this post (it's already too late), but it seems these days that the only qualification that one needs to don a long white coat is to work in some patient care area of a hospital. The long white coat used to be the way patients, families, and other hospital medical staff could instantly tell who was a full-fledged attending physician. In fact, the emphasis on the white coat starts on the first day of medical school with something aptly called a "white coat ceremony."

With all this talk about bleeding, it should come as no surprise that "Should I stop my aspirin?" is one of the more common questions that I get asked by patients who are being seen to arrange screening colonoscopy. Luckily, this question has been answered already by several of the gastroenterology societies. For the average patient on aspirin...