BehindTheMedspeak: 'The bleeding always stops'

Perhaps my favorite of the zillions of wonderful, pithy, often-harsh apothegms I've heard in my years in medicine.

Others that are right up there?
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"Try a Florsheim maneuver" [kick him to see if he's dead or faking]

"We won't know until the autopsy." [actually spoken on internal medicine rounds by a resident when I was in med school, in response to the question, "What's he have?"]

"The patient is the one with the disease." [said to oneself to calm yourself down when you start to get all worked up about how messed up someone is]

"The first thing to do at a Code Blue is take your own pulse." [helps to settle you down and let you think more clearly]

"You know you've become a good surgeon when, instead of saying "Oops," you say, "There."
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Back to the bleeding.

QR Powder is the new new thing to stop the bleeding when you don't feel like waiting for nature to take its course.

It's a powder made of a hydrophilic [water-loving] polymer and potassium salt.

You pour the stuff on a wound, blood activates it, and the whole mess hardens into scab.

They've even got a brand-name for the scab: Hematrix.

Like a generic scab, the Hematrix drops off after a few days.

QR also works as a disinfectant, so you don't have to use an antibacterial on the wound.

It doesn't damage the skin.

Supposed to be especially useful for hemophiliacs and others prone to excessive bleeding.

Eric Waters, the Washington Wizards [pro basketball] head trainer, was quoted in today's Washington Post as saying he likes it and uses it a lot.

Said Waters, "Game-time cuts can be treated all in one move - in 10 seconds, really. QR stuck to the sweat really well."

Sounds good to me.

Comes in four fomulations: Urgent, Nosebleed, Sports, and Kids.

Available without a prescription at CVS, Wal-Mart, Albertson's and the like for $5-$8 a pack.