Sid Schawb on how his opinion has changed on the matter, and touches on surgical hospitalists in particular:
Taking acute consults and doing emergency operations, the surgical hospitalist makes the life of the rest of the surgeons far more pleasant, allowing them to see their patients, carry out their scheduled surgery without interruption. ORs run more efficiently because of the more ready availability of someone to fit in the ...
Read about this and other bizarre medical experiments.
Interested in an anatomically correct tattoo?
Stanley Feld explains why.
ERnursey wonders why narcotics are becoming first-line treatment for pain in some ERs:
And not just any old Norco, uh uh now we give a Norco 10mg all the time. For ankle sprain or lacerations. What about Motrin? It's my drug of choice.
When did we stop titrating Morphine? In our ER the standard used to be Morphine 2mg IV every 5 minutes up to ten milligrams. Now the ...
More great insights about working for Kaiser. A pediatrician tells all:
When I started here I had big ideas. As I spent more time here, I realized that the doctors were starting to lose their fire. Their life-force so to speak. The job became 'just a job.' Everyone clocked out on time...and only did enough to not get fired. Typical employee mentality.
What is said is important.
An patient calls 911 for an ambulance because the bus was too expensive:
So, basically, our uninsured patient will pay $1000 for an ambulance ride and $700 or $1000 for the ER bill to look at her 3-month-old problem because $2 for a bus was too expensive and, after all that, she didn't have the money to pay for the outpatient prescription anyway.
Self-serve kiosks are being used to cut down on ER waiting times.
Mississippi is reaping the benefits:
"We had hospitals closing their delivery rooms," said Barbour. "We had only one neurosurgeon between Jackson and Memphis."
Then came tort reform in 2004 and now doctors are coming back. Barbour announced the fifth decrease in medical liability rates in three years. Overall, that's a 45 percent decrease.
But more importantly, lawsuits against doctors for medical malpractice are down. Home grown doctors ...
They're possibly about to try in Washington.
A tattoo may not be enough.
He takes on Michael Moore head on with his WSJ op-ed:
Patients in countries with government-run health care can't get timely access to many basic medical treatments, never mind experimental treatments. That's why, if you suffer from cancer, you're better off in the U.S., which is home to the newest treatments and where patients have access to the best diagnostic equipment. People diagnosed with cancer in America have a ...
A Medscape editorial against the age-old practice:
Unfortunately, medical students who are mistreated often go on to become doctors who mistreat other medical students, creating a cycle of abuse. This pattern has continued despite "righteous declarations by the academic community." To break this cycle now, individual physicians will have to acknowledge these unhealthy behaviors. They must get beyond any mistreatment they suffered and demonstrate the compassionate behavior that colleagues, ...
Robert Centor suggests that the zeal to lower hemoglobin A1c's below 7 is partly responsible for the Avandia controversy:
His point, on which I concur, states that our efforts to lower HgbA1c stimulated our willingness to try another drug to reach the magic number. Perhaps the zeal for lowering HgbA1c to below 7 stimulates us to use a second or third drug. Perhaps if we had a more realistic ...
Thanks for the mention. A number of great blogs on his list.
How not to do it.
The Independent Urologist with some good tips.
keagirl on how patients' deaths affect her:
That is why I am just so shocked when I hear that some of the patients have passed on. Our office usually finds this out when we call the patient as a reminder of their appointment, and we are told by family or friends that they are no longer with us. I think our entire office staff gets a jolt as well. ...
How big is your "list"?
The good thing about The List is that once people know they are on the list, they don't visit the ED nearly as much.
The sad part about the list is that we have to have a List at all.
A version of this column was published on April 24, 2012 in USA Today. There has been a recent uptick of elderly men...
The following column was published on April 1, 2012 in USA Today. I recently saw a middle-age man in my primary care clinic...
The following column was published on March 25, 2012 in the Nashua Telegraph. Medical malpractice historically has been a contentious issue. Doctors...
The following column was published on April 11, 2012 in CNN. When you visit the doctor, chances are you are given a...
As a cardiac electrophysiologist, I have had to discuss bad news with patients and families more times than I would like during...
He looked dead. The paramedics brought him down the hall toward one of my critical care beds, and for a moment I...
I was recently appointed the Assistant Director of the Yale Cancer Center with the portfolio of Diversity/Disparities. While I’m not sure I’m...
How do you define a “good” doc? I was reading the patient responses to an article here on KevinMD.com and was saddened...
I was honored to be part of a beautiful experience in late January of 2011. It was the death of my mother-in-law...
Theirs is a lonely journey; to be moving towards the separation and end of all things known and loved. Being with a...
As a patient who was asked to speak at the Association of Health Care Journalists 2012 conference, I felt a bit covert....
Nothing will force you to live life on your own terms faster than almost losing it. In 2008, I was on fire....
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." So begins a story called A Tale of Two...
The nation’s “safety net” hospitals are designed to ensure that uninsured, lower income and indigent populations receive adequate medical care – a...
Technology to lower costs rather than accelerate them. Smart phones to increase physician and other providers’ productivity. Fewer primary care physicians but...
It is both conventional wisdom and factual truth that, unimpeded, American healthcare cost inflation will bankrupt the United States economically, educationally, socially,...
Every month, hundreds of thousands of people look for a doctor on Google. As an amazing practitioner, your site deserves to be...
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the physician’s office were the tall cabinets filled with manila folders, tabbed with...
This example of a disaster waiting to happen, in the form of an error-promoting CPOE, is a poster example of why the...
A guest column by the American Medical Association, exclusive to KevinMD.com. Continuing our efforts to move medicine forward while prioritizing patient care and minimizing...
Prior to 1794, farms across the world could only pick cotton as fast as humanly possible. In the late 18th century, Eli Whitney...
Social media in healthcare is all the rage these days. You can’t visit even one physician-oriented website without someone breathlessly advising you...
Want to understand social media? Physicians wanting to learn about social media must learn transparency. We must learn transparency on a personal...
It was my first ER shift in charge of the resuscitation area. Needless to say, my adrenaline and nerves were firing like...
