Mass. General Hospital on the Hot Seat
October was not a good month for Massachusetts General Hospital. A group of MGH anesthesiologists...
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Skeptical Scalpel
Baffling Deficiency of New ICD-10 Codes
Many years in the creation and tens of thousands more codes than ICD-9, yet the new ICD-10 list may be inadequate. An actor was hospitalized after his foot became caught an elevator raising the stage during a performance of the...
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Two Ways to Deal with ED "Frequent Flyers"
A hospital in Maryland has come up with a novel solution for patients who are “frequent...
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Surgeon Scorecard Thoroughly Dismantled
Back in July, an organization called ProPublica released its Surgeon Scorecard, which attempted to...
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Is there a Nursing Shortage or Not?
Google “nursing shortage,” and the number of hits describing the current shortage will convince...
Read MoreState Medical Boards’ Questionable Behavior
A family physician was sanctioned by her state’s Board of Medicine for prescribing an antibiotic over the telephone in 2012. The incident occurred while the doctor was working for a telemedicine company. At that time,...
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After Poor Outcomes, Neurosurgeon Arrested for Assault
It’s time to catch up with America’s most notorious neurosurgeon, Dr. Christopher...
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Is the Surgeon Still “Captain of the Ship”?
A Kentucky appeals court recently ruled that a surgeon was not responsible for a burn caused by an...
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Woman Refuses Episiotomy, Gets One Anyway
A woman in California is suing her obstetrician because he performed an episiotomy that she had...
Read MoreThe Doctor Will Saw You Now
One of the biggest medical stories of last week involved an unusual case from Scotland. During the course of a leg amputation at Ayr Hospital in Scotland, the surgeon discovered a metal plate in the patient’s leg. Lacking the...
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Surgeons Who Can’t Perform Open Surgery
Now I’m really worried about surgical education. Here’s why: A friend told me that a...
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Alternative Medicine Docs Confused About Oxygen
An article called “Simple ‘4-7-8’ breathing trick can induce sleep in 60 seconds”...
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Journal Publishers’ Exorbitant Profit Margins
Many have written about who is making money in healthcare. Sure doctors do very well, but not as...
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Wisconsin Bill: Cameras in the OR
A legislator in Wisconsin is proposing a bill that would require facilities to record both video...
Read MoreDo OR Checklists Improve Outcomes?
“Implementation of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist was associated with robust reduction in morbidity and length of in-hospital stay and some reduction in mortality,” says the conclusion of a paper in the May 2015...
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Do I Need an Annual Physical?
Let’s see what the New York Times has to say. Last Friday, this question appeared in its...
Read MoreShould Radiologists Give Test Results to Patients?
Radiologists discussing test results with patients, a subject that has been lurking under the radar for a while, came to light a while ago because of an article in the New York Times. The idea is that patient anxiety while...
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Obesity: A Disease, Disability, Both or Neither?
In 2013, the American Medical Association recognized obesity as a disease. Dr. Peter Ubel, writing...
Read MoreShould You Wear a Hazmat Suit When Operating an Elevator?
In their quest to culture every object on planet Earth, researchers have found that hospital elevator buttons are more contaminated with bacteria than restroom surfaces. Of 120 randomly cultured elevator buttons, 73 (61%) grew...
Read MoreDistracting Electronic Devices Don’t Affect Learning. Really?
After listening to a lecture, third-year dental students at Harvard were surveyed about distractions by electronic devices and given a 12-question quiz. Although 65% of the students admitted to having been distracted by emails,...
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