Posts tagged as:

surgery

Doctors lose a part of their training when resident work-hours are capped

October 27, 2009

The restrictions on resident work-hours arguably most impacts the field of surgery.
I understand that fatigue increases the risk of medical errors, but in this excellent post, Jeffrey Parks notes some benefits of being immersed in the hospital. Something is lost as doctors are scuttled out of the hospital when the 81st hour starts.
Dr. Parks notes [...]

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Does robotic surgery for prostate cancer help patients?

October 19, 2009

Originally published in MedPage Today
by Peggy Peck, MedPage Today Executive Editor
Men who opt for minimally invasive prostate surgery — often with a helping hand from a robot — are twice as likely to have genitorurinary complications as men who have a traditional prostatectomy.
That finding is especially troubling because the use of robotic-assisted minimally invasive [...]

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Poll: How can we increase the supply of donor kidneys?

October 19, 2009

The United States has almost 60,000 patients with end-stage renal disease who need a kidney transplant. Every year, almost 4,000 people will die waiting for that transplant.
How can we increase the supply of donor kidneys?
Though some economists suggest a legal organ donation “marketplace,” where kidneys can be legally bought and sold, opponents envision the wealthy [...]

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When a health care professional gets diagnosed with breast cancer

October 9, 2009

A social worker at a Boston hospital, who counsels patients with cancer, discovers that she herself has breast cancer.
She tells her compelling story to Better Health’s Val Jones.

You can join Val and myself at Blog World Expo 2009 on October 15th in Las Vegas, where we will participate in panel discussions exploring the intersection between [...]

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Is incident reporting effective in reducing medical errors and increasing patient safety?

October 6, 2009

by Bob Wachter, MD
When the patient safety field began a decade ago with the publication of the IOM report on medical errors, one of its first thrusts was to import lessons from “safer” industries, particularly aviation. Most of these lessons – a focus on bad systems more than bad people, the importance of teamwork, the [...]

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How work-hour restrictions harms resident surgeon training

October 5, 2009

Controversy persists about limiting the work hours of resident physicians.
No where is it more prevalent than in surgery, where proficiency depends on the number of times a trainee physician performs a procedure. In a recent study from the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 43 percent of surgical residents want to work more [...]

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What was surgery like in the 1930s?

October 1, 2009

Some seriously cool silent videos showing what surgery was like in the 1930’s.
Removal of a tuberculoma from the brain:

Caesarean birth, in the pre-WWII era:

(via Wired and MedGadget)

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Reasons why doctors practice defensive medicine

September 28, 2009

Here’s a simple chart that sums it all up. Apologies for the small type.

As The Happy Hospitalist writes, “Some doctors and patients may be willing to experience some anxiety for the unknown. But most won’t, especially since neither party is directly paying for the testing. This selfish interest is rooted in moral hazard, at [...]

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Why suffering patients find their way to psychiatrists

September 24, 2009

“Psychiatrists may be the last batch of physicians who are still granted a luxurious amount of time with patients.”
So says Maria, a psychiatrist who blogs over at intueri.
And because time is so undervalued without our health system, some doctors relying on psychiatrists to counsel patients in the hospital. She cites an example with surgeons, [...]

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Is medical technology making doctors less relevant?

September 23, 2009

by Edwin Leap, MD
It happens over and over. I call a surgeon about a patient with abdominal pain.
‘Well, what’s the white count?’
‘Normal.’
‘Did you get a CT Scan?’
‘Yes, and it was normal. But they just look uncomfortable.’
‘Sounds like nothing for me to do. Call the hospitalist.’
It happens in other specialties. Cardiologists who [...]

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How to protect yourself from abdominal aortic aneurysms

September 22, 2009

by Mark Adelman, MD
While diseases like prostate cancer and heart disease have become household concerns, abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), the 10th leading cause of death in men age 55 and older, have been overshadowed by more prominent diseases for far too long. It’s time we pull back the curtain and take a closer look [...]

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How hospitals should deal with disruptive physician behavior

September 20, 2009

by Mark N. Simon, MD
What can hospital medical staff leaders learn from University of Oregon football coach Chip Kelly? In the morning of September 4th, Kelly had an opportunity to review video tape from the conclusion of his team’s game with Boise State University the night before. What he saw was his senior [...]

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A patient dies after doctors fail to communicate in the operating room

September 10, 2009

by Jerry I. Meyers, Esq.
Communication is essential between health care providers but sometimes communication fails because of the arrogance or carelessness of the persons involved in the needed medical communication.
Several years ago, a female client about to enjoy an important anniversary was admitted to a University affiliated hospital for the purpose of having a colostomy [...]

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Do resident work-hour restrictions increase surgical complications?

September 8, 2009

by Chris Emery, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today
Reductions in resident physician work-hours at teaching hospitals in 2003 were associated with an increase in complications related to surgery to repair hip fractures, a new study found.
The rates of pneumonia, hematoma, renal complications, and blood transfusions associated with hip surgery rose disproportionally at teaching hospitals compared to [...]

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What can health reform in the United States learn from Africa?

September 2, 2009

by Martin Young, MD
As an outside observer of the American health reform debate, I cannot help but notice the disparity of views, the fractured arguments, the protectionism and desperation. My country is in a similar struggle for health care reform, with the main difference being America is a rich nation, and we are poor [...]

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Treating Fournier gangrene, or necrotizing fasciitis of the male genitals

August 27, 2009

Fournier gangrene one of the nastiest infections you’ll ever see.
General surgeon Jeffery Parks details a case, complete with a vivid CT scan:

Dr. Parks takes us behind the scenes in treating the condition, which requires rapid surgical debridement. “There’s nothing fancy about this surgery,” he writes. “You cut and debride until all the necrotic [...]

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