NBC’s Robert Bazell: “People came in complaining of shortness of breath or chest pain, so the doctors put them into the cauterization lab and examined their vessels, then told these patients they needed an angioplasty and did it knowing full well it was unnecessary.”
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What an idiot! Of course, Kevin will post this kind of garbage up because he is on a kick against specialists right now. Million dollar signing bonuses in a field where the AVERAGE INCOME is 330,000. Ha! Yes, don’t envy those YOUNG (4 years college, 4 years medical school, 3 years internal medicine, 3 years cardiology, 1 year interventional fellowship = 15 years higher education) cardiolgists too much because I know for a fact that their lives suck big time.
It’s less costly to do the angiplasty on a normal artery.
If we did things the right way, the patient would be admitted every week for “chest pain” until eventually they get the cath anyway.
If we just procedured everyone with psychosomatic disease (or people who don’t want to deal with their lives) once and then sent them home from the ER the next 30 times it would help keep costs and complications down.
Patients want answers, procedures and things done to them. They don’t want to be told to take care of themselves, get a life, quit smoking, loose weight and exercise.
I don’t blame the cardiologists. Someone asked for those caths.
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