Word: doctoral
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...with even vaguely funny lines. They were doubtless too busy helping invent the film's visual effects, which most prominently include the gigantic mechanical tarantula with which Loveless hopes to induce a post-Civil War U.S. to surrender its sovereignty to him. But like men in frocks or the doctor's steam-driven wheelchair, it is just a sight gag--a one-shot deal out of which you cannot build intricately sustained comedy. The movie is loaded with this junk, but it has no authentic momentum or satirical viewpoint--and is finally lost to its own desperate, unavailing search...
...drama begins with a noise you can't hear. Your doctor places a stethoscope over your chest and detects a faint murmur or a distinctive clicking sound whenever your heart contracts. "There may be something wrong with one of your valves," he says. "I'd like you to get some ultrasound tests." Seven days and several hundred dollars later, you learn you have mitral-valve prolapse, a condition in which the tiny flaps of tissue that keep blood from flowing backward between the chambers on the left side of the heart don't close completely. Even though you feel fine...
...been told you have mitral-valve prolapse, it makes sense to ask your doctor to check again, particularly if it was diagnosed several years ago. That may be as simple as reviewing the tapes of your last ultrasound exam. If you do have mitral-valve prolapse but no thickening of the valves or backflow of blood into the left atrium, you probably don't need to take antibiotics before most dental procedures, according to the latest guidelines. Still, be sure to alert your doctor if you experience shortness of breath, a racing heartbeat or light-headedness...
...medical reporter, so I knew what that meant. Guided by X-ray images, a doctor inserts a wire into the breast to target the calcifications. Then a breast surgeon cuts through the skin, finds the wire and fishes out a sample of tissue large enough to capture the problem spot. It needn't be that bad. If I was lucky, the amount of tissue removed would be the size of a large grape...
Mammotomes are not for everyone. If a woman's breasts are very small or if her problem area is near the chest wall, the procedure may be impossible. Also, some doctors prefer to take out a larger sample of tissue if an area appears very suspicious. But the lesson for the 1 million women who face biopsies each year is that even specialists can disagree. In the end you mustn't be embarrassed to ask another doctor--or two or three--to help you get the information you need to make an informed decision...