In a better setting than the animation of the ER patient faking a seizure (which was inexplicably set in what appeared to be a convenience store), this one at least looks medical. But I’m a little concerned about the red blood infusion just hanging in the background, not connected to anything. I’m pretty sure the Joint Commission wouldn’t approve of that.
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
The ER is not an easy place to come to these realizations or assess their consequences. A handful of physicians are trying to change that. Doctors like Tammie Quest, board-certified in both palliative and emergency medicine, hope to bring the deliberative goal-setting, symptom-controlling ethos of palliative care into the adrenaline-charged, “tube ’em and move ’em” ER. Palliative/emergency medicine collaboration remains rare, but it’s growing as both fields seek to create a more “patient-centered” approach to emergency care for the seriously ill or the dying, to improve symptom management, enhance family support, and ensure that the patient understands the likely outcomes once they get on that high-tech conveyor belt of 21st-century emergency medicine.
Emergency medicine and palliative care-certified? That’s an interesting mix. We have a great palliative care service where I work (in fact, it just won the national “Circle of Life” award.) It makes a lot of sense to have a palliative care nurse stationed in (or routinely rounding) the ER, though. I think I’m going to suggest this to our hospice folks.
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
I don’t know what’s going on with American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) lately, but it’s disheartening. Their abdication of responsibility and engagement during the healthcare reform debate was depressing. Then there was a rigged poll designed to elicit a predetermined result. Now I see a bizarre op-ed piece in USA Today entitled “Opposing view on drug addiction: Don’t make us ‘pain police'” and authored by ACEP President Angela Gardener. An excerpt:
The patient-physician relationship is sacrosanct, demanding candor and trust. In the emergency department, trust is built in nanoseconds because patients and doctors do not have prior relationships. Knowing that any pain prescription will be entered into a large, public database might prevent patients from being truthful, or in the worst case, from seeking needed care. … As an emergency physician, I can assure you that the drug abusers who use the emergency room simply to get a prescription drug fix represent a micropopulation of the 120 million patients who seek emergency care every year in the USA. … Put bluntly, if legislators have money to spend, they should spend it where it will do the most good for our patients, and that is not on drug databases.
I really don’t know what to say, other than to wonder whether Dr. Gardner and I practice in the same United States in which abuse of prescription drugs is growing exponentially and in which “drug-seeking” patients are a part of each and every shift worked in the ER, where deaths due to overdoses of prescription medications are on the rise, and where diversion of narcotics is a serious and growing problem. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
Here’s a wonderful cartoon primer by Darryl Cunningham on the fundamentals of homeopathic “medicine”:
To see the entire 19-page cartoon strip, click here.
Well worth the read, especially for anyone who might be considering homeopathic treatment. This author also put together a nice explication of the Wakefield Autism Vaccine Fraud.
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
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