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1. ER Visits Common After Hospital Stay. Nearly one-fifth of hospital patients returned for acute care within 30 days of discharge, with emergency room (ER) visits accounting for 40% of those encounters.
2. PET Scan Spots Brain Trauma in Ex-Athletes While Alive. A new imaging technique has allowed detection of tau protein abnormalities in the concussed brains ...
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Chatting with some med students, a good question was raised: how do we, as doctors, deal with the emotional baggage we encounter in our profession? It's high stress, we see disturbing things, and sometimes we make mistakes that can result in harm to patients. The pressure and responsibility can be very hard to handle.
These stresses, if unmanaged or poorly managed, can ...
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A friend was working an overnight shift in the ER for one of her mandatory rotations, so I popped in to observe. The ER was surprisingly quiet. A classmate was also observing that night, and like me, he was standing around, bored. We spotted an electrocardiogram (EKG) readout lying on a desk where a resident was working, and we asked him ...
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He used to be a boxer.
Those days were long-gone, though.
Now he was a shell of his former self.
The hands that formerly knocked opponents to the mat were now contracted and full of arthritis. Dementia had taken away his ability to tell the stories about his career. Metastatic lung cancer ravaged his body. Multiple bed sores ate away at his sacrum and ...
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Not long after posting a recent column which, admittedly, was somewhat critical of healthcare providers in and around New York City following Super Storm Sandy, I decided to get a clearer picture from someone intimately connected to the disaster – my own brother.
A few months ago, Ira Nash, MD, was appointed Medical Director for Physician and Ambulatory Network Services at North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System (NSHS), a ...
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How can hospitals and clinics deliver care that is patient and family centered? As an emergency physician, I’ve often pondered this question after my mother died of an untreated systemic infection in an out-of-state hospital. The experience, which I write about in the January 1 edition of the Washington Post as well as the December issue of Health Affairs, convinced me that healthcare still has room to grow ...
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A few months ago, when I thought I should throw it all away and go to law school, an acquaintance who is a lawyer said something unexpected. He said "law school is learning how to think like a lawyer and deal with the uncertainty within the law." Uncertainty? A law is a law right? Don’t speed. Don’t drink and drive. Write thank-you notes. Turns out the law often requires interpretation, ...
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When I heard in October that Superstorm Sandy was projected to make landfall somewhere in the vicinity of DC and Maryland, I prepared for the worst. I stocked up on non-perishable goods and evacuated to higher ground. (The rest of my family was already coincidentally out of town and harm's way.)
I put fresh batteries into two flashlights and installed a flashlight app on my smartphone for good measure. Although I ...
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I review a lot of cases in my professional life. Some of them are just ones that our QA group comes across in our practice. Some are cases related to our liability policy. Some are cases I'm sent for review, or educational cases I present. We see a lot of cases which could have been done better, or in which the ...
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I hope my patients are satisfied. This is everything. Improving the lives of people is why doctors do what they do. How much we help our patients is the metric. It’s the peg we hang our self-esteem on.
So yes, of course, patient satisfaction is really important.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to link it with dollars.
In fact, on a list of well-meaning but really dumb reform ...
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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