Antibiotics for Appendicitis? I’m Still Not Convinced
Two recent papers have added more fuel to the debate about whether appendicitis can be managed...
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Skeptical Scalpel
Anesthesiologists Are Having a Bad Year
Let’s start with an American anesthesiologist now living in Australia has admitted that he...
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Live Broadcast Surgery: Would You Be the Patient?
“Defibrillation, defibrillation, where is the defibrillator? We made a mistake while...
Read MoreFollowing Guidelines Will Not Create Safe Harbor
At the end of May, Physician’s Weekly featured an article describing a bill that was introduced into the House of Representatives called HR 1406 The Saving Lives, Saving Costs Act. It would create a “safe...
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Should We Expand Surgical Residency Training Programs?
A Physician’s Weekly post I wrote last December was on the subject of surgeons possible...
Read MoreNew Missouri Law: Practicing Without Residency Training
Everyone knows there’s a shortage of primary care physicians, especially in rural areas. The state of Missouri has decided to alleviate this problem with a bill, signed into law by the governor this month, authorizing...
Read MoreDo More Hospital Resources Equal Better Care?
It would appear that this is true for surgical patients. A study from England found that mortality rates for patients admitted with high-risk general surgery diagnoses were significantly lower in National Health Service Trust...
Read MoreExpelling a Med Student for Unprofessional Behavior?
A few weeks before graduation, a medical school tried to expel one of its students on the basis of unprofessional behavior. What happened? According to Cleveland.com, a US District Court judge ruled that the student could not be...
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Is Your iPad Really a “Mobile Germ Warehouse”?
As I have written before, there is a veritable cottage industry of papers identifying bacterial...
Read MoreThe UK 48-hour Trainee Work Week Is a Sham
“NHS junior doctors have little time to eat or sleep.” Said the headline of an article from the Herald in Edinburgh, Scotland. It described a NHS (National Health Service) manual—no longer posted on the...
Read More1 in 20 Americans Are Misdiagnosed Every Year
Really? A paper published in April found that about 12 million Americans, or 5% of adults in this country, are being misdiagnosed every year. This news exploded all over Twitter. Anxious reports from media outlets such as NBC...
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Is it Possible to Live a Full Life as a Surgeon?
Not too long ago, a fourth-year medical student asked me that question. Here’s what I told...
Read MoreInterventional Nephrologists — What Specialty is Next?
A recent article on MedPage Today opened my eyes to a new and apparently growing subspecialty—interventional nephrology. In case you haven’t heard, nephrologists are apparently dissatisfied with the service they are...
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Study shows paying people to lose weight works. Or does it?
A recent study looked at the effect of paying people to lose weight. The authors randomized 100...
Read MoreLiving Near Foreclosed Properties Raises Blood Pressure?
Straying out of one’s area of expertise can be dangerous, but Danger is my middle name [Not to be confused with Carlos Danger]. A paper, published online in the journal Circulation, says that every home foreclosure within...
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Show Me the Evidence
A Twitter follower wrote me this: “hospital making me use ‘safety scalpel’...
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Doc’s Defamation Lawsuit: The Patient’s Side
Are you familiar with a case in Minnesota where a doctor sued a patient’s son for defamation...
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Media Flub: Squeezing Breasts Prevents Cancer?
The media often takes a research study’s findings completely out of context and confuses the...
Read MorePitfalls of Online Outcomes Data for Surgeons
Risk-adjusted 30- to 90-day outcome data for selected types of operations done by specific surgeons and hospitals are now being publicly posted online by England’s National Health Service. According to the site, “Any...
Read MorePatient Falls Off OR Table: System Error?
An anesthetized patient fell to the floor headfirst from an operating room (OR) table during a laparoscopic appendectomy in Scotland. The table had been tilted into an extreme head-down position to facilitate the operation....
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