TimStauffer
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Padres pitcher uses iPhone to self-diagnose appendicitis
You're a young pitcher for the San Diego Padres, it's early in the morning, and you're not feeling good. In fact, you feel awful. So what do you do? Pick up your iPhone, point Safari at WebMD.com, punch in your symptoms, and self-diagnose yourself as having appendicitis. Next step? You call the team trainer at 3:15 AM, who does a quick examination and tells you to get to the hospital ASAP. A few hours later, your appendix is gone via a laparoscopic appendectomy, and you're on the DL for a month or so. It sounds like a script for a bad baseball movie, but it actually happened to Padres pitcher Tim Stauffer yesterday morning. He was able to take a taxi to a hospital in San Diego, where the staff confirmed his diagnosis and immediately scheduled him for surgery. This isn't the first time an iPhone has helped someone save their own life -- in January, a survivor of the Haiti earthquake used several medical apps to keep himself alive while awaiting rescue. It will be fun to see if Apple will be able to work this into an iPhone ad. "Self-diagnosing appendicitis? There's an app for that!"
