Surgery

Via Medical News Today:

Consumer Reports has named cesarean section number three on its list of "12 Surgeries You May Be Better Off Without." The recommendation, based on research at the non-profit Rand Corporation, encourages consumers to "check out safer alternatives" before having any of the 12 listed "invasive procedures." (link).

The number three ranking of cesarean surgery appears just above episiotomy (#4) and hysterectomy (#5) and below angiography ...

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From today's Wall Street Journal, Surgery Journal Threatens Ban for Authors' Hidden Conflicts (subscription required, emphases mine):

With conflicts of interest increasingly casting doubt on the credibility of medical research, a leading surgery journal is cracking down on authors who fail to disclose links to industry, threatening to temporarily blacklist them.

The surgical society that owns the journal approved the penalties for "future violations" after learning that researchers ...

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``As far as we can find out,'' Lavin said, ``she's the only person in the world who has had'' two procedures to treat fibroids ``and got pregnant -- at least the only reported case we have been able to find.''

When Claudette and Danny Hopkins, who live in West Akron, were married two decades ago, they were in their early 20s. Like many young couples, they dreamed of starting ...

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A centralized system to reduce orthopedic waiting times in Canada. "In Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer, everyone with serious hip or knee pain was referred to a central assessment clinic. No patient waited more than 17 days after a referral from a GP.

Patients who didn't need a hip or knee replacement were immediately triaged out. Those who did were assigned a care manager (a registered nurse) who guided ...

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Wave of the future? A clinic-hospital hybrid. "Like a hospital, it will have a surgery center, an emergency department, dining services and a gift shop. Physician offices and services such as imaging also will be part of the project.

But unlike a hospital, the Franklin facility won't have critical care operations such as intensive care units."

Doctor's office by day, brothel by night.

Common sense: Fee-for-service increases the rate of cataract surgery. "Both commercial and Medicare beneficiaries were approximately one half as likely to have cataract extraction under contact capitation as compared with fee-for-service. Professional reimbursement increased by 8 percent whereas facility fees for cataract procedures decreased by approximately 45 percent."

The face transplant patient signed a movie deal about her groundbreaking surgery.

The ethical concerns of the partial face transplant in France. "A French national ethics committee, which has approved partial face transplants but not full ones, has said that 'the very notion of informed consent is an illusion' in such surgery.

'The surgeon cannot make any promises regarding the results of his restorative efforts, which are always dubious,' the committee's report said, adding that 'authentic consent, therefore, will never ...

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