If you’ve read my reviews of the new medical TV show Monday Mornings, you’ll know I’ve been critical of many things about it. I was particularly disappointed with the way the show handled one of its central themes: the morbidity and mortality (M&M) conference.
I thought it might be useful to tell you how most real M&M conferences are run. M&M conferences generally take place at hospitals with residency training ...
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New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), which runs 11 hospitals in four of the five boroughs of New York, is negotiating a new deal with the union representing some 3,300 salaried physicians. The corporation wants to base MD pay raises on 13 quality indicators.
The New York Times article that broke the story does not list all of the indicators but mentioned the following: how well patients ...
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Despite the fact that many papers have identified the problem, inappropriate blood transfusions continue in hospitals across the nation.
This topic was featured at the recent Patient Safety Science and Technology Summit that was held in Orange County, California.
Transfusion of packed red blood cells is very common. Over 2 million patients or 5.8% to 10% of inpatients are transfused every year with some ...
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I'm involved in a protracted and good-natured (I hope) debate about the merits of robotic surgery with a University of Pittsburgh urologist named Ben Davies. Today he tweeted the following (with translation for the Twitter averse):
“I would love for a $ISRG [stock symbol for Intuitive, makers of the robot] MD hater (like @Skepticscalpel) to actually watch 10 open RRPs [radical retropubic prostatectomies] ...
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Not long ago, I blogged about a plastic surgeon who aggressively pursues patients who refuse to pay her bills. The state is suing her to make her stop and also considering lifting her medical license. The central theme is that she makes patients who she sees in the ED to sign a form stating that they will pay her. It is unlikely that the patients are aware of ...
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The September 2012 issue of the AARP Bulletin has a story about a woman who sued an elder-law attorney for legal malpractice. Bear with me. It’s an interesting tale.
In 2004, a man consulted an elder-law attorney to set up a trust that would distribute his assets fairly. He had a daughter from his previous marriage and his wife had five children from her previous marriage. The story is ...
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The recent hurricane in New York City and the closures of some hospitals requiring the transfer of a large number of patients reminded me of something that happened on 9/11/2001.
I was working at a hospital near New York. You may recall that among the many problems that day was a breakdown in communications. Reliable information on the number of casualties and extent of injuries was hard to determine.
Late on the ...
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As predictable as the leaves falling this time of year, another paper on the subject of unnecessary preoperative laboratory testing has appeared.
A group from the University of Texas Medical Branch looked at more than 73,000 elective hernia repairs in the National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (NSQIP) database. Almost 2/3 of the patients had preoperative laboratory tests. Of that group, 58.6% had a CBC, 53.5% had electrolytes, 23.7% had ...
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Amid the mounting concern about radiation exposure and future increases in cancer rates comes a report from Washington State describing the benefits of imaging, particularly CT scanning, for the diagnosis of appendicitis.
The authors collected data from some 55 hospitals of all types and sizes over a six-year period for more than 19,300 patients older than age 15; 91% of patients underwent one or more imaging studies. There were ...
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I told you so.
Three months ago, I blogged about the Medicare (CMS) “never events” list, diagnoses that Medicare will no longer reimburse hospitals for. In Medicare’s eyes, these diagnoses are totally preventable, should never happen and will not be reimbursed. I pointed out that several were in fact not 100% preventable despite any institution’s best efforts, and the rates of many of these occurrences would not fall to zero.
Now ...
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"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
Dear lawmakers: This is what it’s like to be a doctor today
Matthew Moeller, MD | PhysicianA gun owner responds to Sandy Hook
Edwin Leap, MD | PhysicianIs Chris Christie too obese to run for president?
Jeffrey Parks, MD | PhysicianIf I’m wrong about guns, can you please explain why?
Claire McCarthy, MD | PhysicianPrimary care doctors may no longer be needed
Doug Olson, MD | PhysicianWalgreens moves into primary care, and it’s our own damn fault
Kevin Pho, MD | Kevin's Take