“See one, do one, teach one” doesn’t cut it in today’s malpractice environment. The (rightly) low tolerance for complications stemming from procedures is creating this new field, which focuses on procedures that everybody used to do:
Awaiting both kidney and liver transplants last year, Larry Pritchard suffered from fluid build-up so severe it sometimes leaked from the skin on his stomach. The condition required a procedure known as paracentesis to drain the fluid, but at the first hospital where he was treated, he says, emergency-room doctors didn’t even know about the procedure and tried to seal the leaks with medical glue. After switching to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, he found something he hadn’t heard of before: a dedicated Procedure Center, where doctors were expert at inserting a needle deep into the abdominal wall to drain fluid.
As an aside, I find it hard to believe that the ER doctors in the case above didn’t know what a paracentesis was.
