In a word, no (unless you have cancer). So, let’s take cancer out of the picture and discuss hysterectomy for non-cancerous (benign) reasons.
First of all. A hysterectomy (removing the uterus) can be done via one of the 4 methods:
1. Vaginal, a small incision at the top of the vagina and the uterus is removed entirely through the vagina without any incision on the abdomen.
2. Laparoscopic surgery, where incisions are made ...
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Medical and surgical errors are very common in the hospital setting. They increase malpractice lawsuits, the cost of medical care, patients’ hospital stays, and morbidity and mortality. As an infectious diseases specialist for over forty years, I was not aware how common these errors are until I became a patient myself after being diagnosed with hypopharyngeal carcinoma. My initial cancer was successfully removed, but a local recurrence occurred twenty months ...
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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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A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
Recently, discussion about health care has reached a fever pitch, between changes in policy, adjustments to scope of practice and a multitude of other medical issues. As health care providers, it is our duty to provide the highest level of medical care to all patients to ...
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A woman’s mother dies at age 56. A blood test is done. The woman finds out she has a genetic pre-disposition to cancer. She takes what action she thinks she needs to take. A familiar story repeated over and over again every day. I’ve met many women who have made this choice. While not “normal”, it is a familiar situation. These women’s difficult choices go unheralded. But not Angelina. She ...
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We were instructed not to knock, that the examiners would invite us in when they were ready. Even under the bright lights and unforgiving atmosphere of an operating room emergency, I couldn't recall being this nervous. Yet today, in the dimly lit hallway of a three-star hotel, my hands trembled without a bleeding patient or sharp instrument anywhere nearby. I glanced left ...
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The real problem is not whether machines think, but whether men do.
- B. F. Skinner
When I was a relatively junior member of the surgical faculty, an even more junior member came to my office and announced that a general surgeon and gynecologist in Georgia had performed gallbladder surgery with a laparoscope.
“Stupid stunt,” I snorted, or something equally derisive and all-knowing.
Some weeks or months later he returned to the topic, telling ...
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Brought to you by MedPage Today.
1. Robotics No Help in Cystectomy. A randomized trial comparing robotic with open cystectomy ended early after an interim analysis showed the minimally invasive approach did not reduce complications.
2. Medicare Reveals Hospital Charge Information. The Obama administration made public on Wednesday previously unpublished hospital charges for the 100 most common inpatient treatments in 2011, saying a ...
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Am I safe surgeon, or merely a board certified one?
I usually spend Tuesdays fixing elective hernias. But the other day I was asked to clear a c-spine, handle an unexpected gynecologic finding, manage a pediatric trauma, resuscitate a septic ICU patient, and opine on a neck dissection. No, I wasn’t in Africa or 1985; I was sitting in front of a computer ...
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As an employee of the ABIM Foundation, I’ve batted around the phrase “medical professionalism” for several years but it didn’t really hit home for me until I encountered it – and the lack thereof – as a patient.
Over the past six months, I’ve logged a few miles in the frequent patient program. I underwent a 13-hour craniotomy to resect a meningioma and woke up from surgery with nerve ...
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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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