Tragic:
An American family stood vigil for weeks at the hospital bedside of a severely injured woman they thought was their daughter before realising she was really the girl's classmate and that their own child was dead and already buried.
May 2006
All Stories
What’s the average length of stay in the ER?
3.7 hours, according the a recent survey.
Duke closes its family practice residency
This may be start of a trend as medical students, heavily in debt, realize that family medicine is a dead end.
Stories from a single payer world
The next in a continuing series:
A herniated disc kept Thomas Dobson flat on his back all winter and now he can't find a doctor to sign his application for disability benefits.
"The problem is I need a doctor," said Dobson. "I've called every number in the book."
Dobson had no success because there are no physicians taking new patients and no walk-in clinics in the city.
Flights are introducing on-board telemedicine
I wonder if this will catch on:
Tempus uses the satellite technology that operates Virgin Atlantic's onboard telephone system to transmit medical information such as pulse rate and blood pressure readings as well as video images to medical experts at the MedAire Centre in Phoenix, Arizona. The ground-based doctors can then diagnose the problem and advise the crew on the next course of action, enabling crew to use their medical ...
Using Google to beat bird flu
US poultry experts are using Google Earth:
Since the beginning of the year, experts have also been using Google Earth, which combines satellite imagery, maps and the company's search engine to span the globe. It gives extra details including the location of buildings, schools and roads near large chicken and turkey farms and production facilities.
"Twenty years ago we had to drive around the countryside and find the ...
How a blood draw can lead to debilitating injury
The NY Times profiles an unusual case.
Some interesting data about the uninsured
Here's one tidbit:
Nearly 60 percent of uninsured hospital stays originated in the emergency department, compared with 31.8 percent for the privately insured and 39.3 percent for Medicaid patients.
When normal people become patients
The Washington Post looks at disease-mongering:
Shy people have "social phobia," requiring psychotropic drugs. High-strung boys have attention deficit disorder and need amphetamines. Baby boomers with slightly elevated blood pressure have "pre-hypertension" and line up for beta blockers. A few nights of restlessness calls for sleeping pills.
"The ordinary experiences of life become a diagnosis, which makes healthy people feel like they're sick," Schwartz said.
The controversies of pill splitting
Expect drug companies to adjust pricing as this practice becomes widespread.
How does a baby grow three arms?
ABC News takes a look.
Problems at Medlogs?
GruntDoc and others can't get their feed published at Medlogs. As it gets fixed, one option to stay up to date would be to use the feeds page here.
I'd like to keep it as updated as possible (i.e. including only regularly updated blogs), since I use it to steal find the links I blog about throughout the day. Contact me if you want your blog ...
EMRs: Where more is less
Doctor comments on JAMA's recent EMR commentary:
Moreover, EMR encourages everyone to copy-and-paste the notes of everyone else so that notes become the same from author to author as well as from day to day. Even consultants are assimilated into the oneness of the EMR Borg. A cardiology consultant recently copied-and-pasted the intern's note into his own, even including "consult cardiology in AM" in his recommendations. Perhaps he meant ...
Is the food police going too far?
This NY Times article thinks so:
I fear there's something else at work -— a fear borne out by a flier my fifth grader brought home saying that at the monthly pizza hot lunch, no child would be allowed to buy a second slice of pizza. The district says the new ruling is to avoid bad feelings caused by "inequities": if everyone can't have extra helpings, no one can.
Brilliant anti-smoking marketing
From the Singapore Cancer Society.
Chris Rangel wonders about fast-food outpatient medicine
Welcome to primary care in the USA:
To use the same fast food analogy, imagine a situation where price was no longer an issue (because of insurance) and the hungry masses started demanding the best burgers in the world . . . . but they wanted to wait no longer than they did for the regular "McDonaldized" burger. The problem is that the amount of money that the restaurant gets ...
On-call, 24-style
Orac takes us through a call night of an academic surgeon.
UnitedHealth again shows why it is so profitable
It shirks its payments and now picks on hospitals serving the poor:
The trouble began in 2004 when Oxford agreed to a new contract that increased the rates it paid the hospital, then continued to pay the old rates for more than a year, according to both Jamaica and the New York State Department Center.
That cost the hospital tens of millions of dollars, but the loss is ...
A doctor sues his own hospital
This must put him in an awkward position:
According to the lawsuit, Patty Phillips went to the hospital's emergency room March 19 with extreme abdominal pain. Her husband said he was certain it indicated a serious intestinal problem that required immediate surgery.
Instead, he asserted in the lawsuit, she spent hours in a bed without standard monitoring machines in a storage area outside the hospital's radiology unit before she ...
The baby with three arms
Having such as fully-developed third arm is rare:
Neither of the boy's two left arms is fully functional and tests have so far been unable to determine which was more developed, said Dr. Chen Bochang, head of the orthopedics department at Shanghai Children's Medical Center.
Kevin Pho, MD
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How I approach ovarian cancer screening with patients
Ovarian cancer screening clearly touches a nerve. No one doubts that ovarian cancer is a devastating diagnosis, often found when the disease...
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Why more primary care doctors are referring patients to specialists
According to a recent study from the Archives of Internal Medicine, primary care physicians are referring more patients to specialists than ever...
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Should Google censor anti-vaccine claims?
One of the reasons there is such a movement against vaccines is the democratization of information, perpetuated by search engines like Google....
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Radiologists who cheat on their board exams: Who’s to blame?
In a widely circulated CNN article, many radiologists have been found to cheat on their board exams: "Doctors around the country taking an...
Physician
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Why an anesthesiologist would be needed for organ donation
I've only had to declare death a couple of times. Once in a three-year-old and once in an adult. In each case...
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5 ways to avoid a misdiagnosis
Billionaire Teddy Forstmann had been diagnosed with a serious form of brain cancer. There’s a tragic twist to the story: according to...
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Benefits of the Medicare Adult Wellness Visit
One of the things I love about family medicine is that I get to care for people of all ages. I almost...
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Cancer has a way of teaching us poignant life lessons
I just finished reading George’s recent post on Evelyn Lauder, who recently passed away from ovarian cancer, and am still stirred by...
Patient
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In love there is a life giving force
Here is a toast to the miracle of love. Not to the romantic, chocolate, dance club nightlife type of love. Not warm...
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How to get ready for death
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet...
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The long term cost of a pain in the neck
One morning this May, I woke up with a stiff neck. I applied hot and cold therapy all day and took an...
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Preparing for your visit with someone in hospice care
Visiting someone who is dying or critically ill is an experience many of us will have in the course of our lives....
Policy
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AMA: Advocating for Medicare, military and fiscal responsibility
A guest column by the American Medical Association, exclusive to KevinMD.com. This week, I’m joining hundreds of physicians and medical students in Washington, DC...
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A critical look at value driven health care
Everyone in the world is talking about “value-driven health care.” Or so it might seem if you pick up a medical journal...
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Surviving the new landscape of physician reimbursement
CNN recently posted an article titled "Doctors Going Broke." It described several cases of independent physicians who are near bankruptcy although they once...
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Doctors lobby Congress to repeal the SGR
One of the things that I like most about my job is engaging with ACP’s physician leadership—the internal medicine doctors who dedicate...
Tech
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There is a patient attached to that implantable defibrillator
As a follow-up to my post on why patients with implantable defibrillators should have access to their device’s data, I am going...
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The pitfalls of email communication with patients
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reviewed the emerging role of email in healthcare, arguing that doctors should more aggressively...
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Why adoption of EHRs is a transformational event for physicians
Paul Conslato, MD, director of clinical affairs for Lancaster General Medical Group, recently was quoted in the PAMED Better Health Network eZine...
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Why EMR is a dirty word to many doctors
Don’t get me wrong, EMRs (electronic medical records) are inevitable. Over the long-run they are almost certainly good for physicians, patients and...
Social Media
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Using Twitter to deliver health improvement messages
I have decided to spam for public health. Phone calls, text messaging, and even apps have been shown to help improve health...
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Addressing comments on your medical practice’s Facebook page
Does your medical practice allow anybody to post links and comments on your Facebook page? The short answer is yes. We do....
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The Internet is where patients go for pre-visit consultations
As a physician, technology cannot replace you, but it can make you more efficient and effective. This was the message from Richard...
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5 ways doctors can benefit from professional connections
Looking ahead to the next several months, I’ve found myself frequently wondering how many physicians will make this their year to take...
