Tinnitus refers to a sound in one or both of the ears, usually a ringing or buzzing noise, that happens without external sound stimulus. Tinnitus is fairly common-- About one in five people aged 55 to 65 years old suffer from this condition.

Tinnitus isn’t a disease. Instead, it’s a symptom that can arise from many different causes, including ear infections and other diseases, certain drugs, blocked auditory canals, foreign objects, and wax buildup. Still, the single most common cause of tinnitus is noise-induced hearing loss.

One of the common root causes of tinnitus is damage to the cells of the inner ear. These small, sensitive, hair-like cells respond to changes in air pressure generated by sound waves entering your ear. This stimulation spurs the cells to send a nerve impulse from your ear to your brain; the brain then interprets these impulses as sound. If these cells become damaged or broken, they can transmit random “static” noise, which you may hear as an annoying buzzing or ringing sound in your ears.

Common causes of tinnitus

In my practice, I often treat patients whose tinnitus resulted from the following frequent causes—

Age-related loss of hearing. As with the other senses, beginning at about 60 years of age hearing usually worsens; the medical term is presbycusis. In general, loss of hearing often leads to tinnitus.

Noise-induced hearing loss. Over time, exposure to loud noise can cause hearing loss and result in tinnitus. Industrial machinery, loud saws and firearms are often blamed for noise-induced hearing loss. And, music consistently played at loud volumes over long periods of time can also cause hearing loss and tinnitus.

Although most problems of “ringing in the ears” caused by short-term exposure to loud music, concerts or noise usually disappear quickly on their own, still I recommend a certain tinnitus treatment that works well with many patients whose tinnitus has resulted from long-term exposure to loud music or noise.

Ear canals blocked by earwax. Earwax is naturally produced by the body to help clean and protect the ear canal; it serves to trap dirt and inhibit the growth of bacteria. Yet, when it accumulates and hardens into a cerumen impaction, earwax can cause hearing loss or irritation leading to tinnitus.

Changes in the ear bones. Some people suffer a problem from stiffening of the bones of the inner ear as a result of abnormal bone growth, called otosclerosis; this seems to be a family trait.

Other, less-common causes of tinnitus abound, but none are a standard as the ones listed above.

Medical photographer is a professional job. The photography unit usually available as a part of medical imaging or special photography and documentation/illustration departments. The job description are to capture clinical and nonclinical images or situation for use in treatment, hospital/medical records, education, presentations, and publication. Medical photographers may shoot patients on the wards, clinics, operating room during surgery, or post mortem environment as a forensic and medico-legal purposes. Their pictures are also published on scientific journals, books, and any other medical publications. Each of medical department will need special photography technique such as micro or macrophotography, endoscopy, and another spectrum.

The job needs academic qualification in basic photography and certification from medical illustration or medical photography institute. They must know the basic of anatomy, physiology, disease, and other medical photographic aspects.

Some special notes in medical photography are confidentiality, legal, copyright, and ethics. In this situation, informed consent is a must. Institute of Medical Illustrators (IMI) in UK has a Code of Responsible Practice as a guideline for clinical photography. Medical images are covered by Data Protection Act.

With availability of professional photographers in medical departments, physicians and specialists may focus on their services. But as a medical professional/specialty, a dermatology, dentist, and plastic surgeon for example, basic photography knowledge is needed to produce good clinical photos.

This is only a short content. Further readings:

Review - Medical photography: ethics, consent and the intersex patient. Creighton, S., Alderson, J., Brown, S., and Minto, C.L. Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University College London Hospitals, University College, London, and Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Leeds, Yorkshire. BJU International (2002 January), 89(1), 67-72, discussion 71-2.
Medical photographer and Forensic photographer on skillset.org.

You are free to share (copy, distribute, transmit) & adapt this blog post under the similar license (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported; CCA-NC-SA 3.0 Unported). Please put theis link on your copy:
Taken from: Medical photography in a short by Dani Iswara at http://www.daniiswara.net.

Doctor is the expert. Patient accept all treatment and medication passively. Still in that traditional concept? With the penetration of the Internet, patient-doctor relationship is changing. Surfing the Web looking for trusted health-medical information is challenging for some patient, and doctor itself.

As a patient, you have a chance to find more information related to the body's problem. Empower yourself. Inform yourself with disease's symptoms and signs will help doctor's job. Become a doctor's partner. And save your life then.

Do you believe that your doctor will always practicing the best evidence-based medicine today? Do you realize that many e-patient and e-doctor telling the story and sharing on the Web recently? Start Googling now. Use Yahoo and Bing also. Find trusted health/medical Websites.

You are free to share (copy, distribute, transmit) & adapt this blog post under the similar license (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported; CCA-NC-SA 3.0 Unported). Please put theis link on your copy:
Taken from: Medical photography in a short by Dani Iswara at http://www.daniiswara.net.

Physicians should declare conflict of interest on their blog clearly. The disclosure is important. Physician point of view must be in a context. Theoretically, transparency and ethicality must be available in collaborative relationships between physicians, industries, patients, and other consumers. The conflict of interest policies try to avoid impropriety or unethical behavior cases. Imagine these real things. Physician:

• talks about search engine optimization (SEO) in their blogs,
  
• relationship with pharmaceutical company or influence,
  
• blogging for money/financial oriented,
  
• blogs only for traffic,
  
• targeting on blog ranking,
  
• tricks to get more comment,
  
• blogs sponsorship/advertorial content,
  
• using "hidden business" method on shortURL.
  

No, those are not a false. Hidden motivation behind their blog content? "Lip service only" to gain more readers/visitors? Are all marketer-physicians liar? They have the rights to do that. But will it affect quality of health-related information that consumers received? Should patients trust your blog content? Should patients know the physician conflict of interest?

You are free to share (copy, distribute, transmit) & adapt this blog post under the similar license (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported; CCA-NC-SA 3.0 Unported). Please put theis link on your copy:
Taken from: Medical photography in a short by Dani Iswara at http://www.daniiswara.net.

Should doctors track their online reputation? Should they learn to know some e-physician (electronic-physician) code of ethics also? If they find some patient's complaint against their health/medical services, what can they do? Does e-complaint (electronic-complaint) matter? Your e-patients (electronic patients) go online. Consumers googling you, Doc. They do exist on the Internet. Bad news spreads faster, than good thing. The e-complaint should probably be traced back to doctor's site/blog via trackback feature. Or Doc, you may use Google-Alert-like technique for your online reputation management easily.

You are free to share (copy, distribute, transmit) & adapt this blog post under the similar license (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported; CCA-NC-SA 3.0 Unported). Please put theis link on your copy:
Taken from: Medical photography in a short by Dani Iswara at http://www.daniiswara.net.