August 28th, 2011 by Michael Kirsch, M.D. in Opinion, Research
Tags: Cardiac Surgeons, Cost, Defensive Medicine, Efficiency, Fairness, Lawyers, Malpractice, Medical Errors, Medical Liability, Medical Malpractice Reform, Negligence, NEJM, Neurosurgeons, New England Journal of Medicine, Plantiff, Quality Improvement, Sued, Surgeons
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Medical malpractice reform is in the news again. Of course, for the medical profession, the medical malpractice system is the wound that simply will not heal. For the plaintiffs bar, in contrast, the medical liability system is the gift that keeps on giving. I have argued that the current system fails on four important fronts.
- Efficiency
- Cost
- Fairness
- Quality Improvement
I admit readily that my profession has not been as diligent as it should be in holding ourselves accountable. We have not been forthright in admitting our medical errors, although can you blame us under the current medical liability construct? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*
August 28th, 2011 by John Di Saia, M.D. in Opinion, Research
Tags: Cancer, Cosmetic Surgery, Effectiveness, FDA Approval, Fibroblast removal, Laugh Lines, laViv, Plastic Surgery, Safe, Scar Tissue, Side Effects, Wrinkles
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The FDA has granted a license to the maker of laViv which is said to improve the appearance of smile lines without freezing the muscles of your face. Have you heard of this new drug? Does it work like it claims? Are there any side effects that are worrisome?
Source: dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2028456/New-biological-wrinkle-cure-touted-alternative-Botox-frozen-face.html
Maybe.
As we have discussed before, FDA approval is not a stamp of approval that a drug is effective. It just means that as far as current studies show, it is not harmful. Some drugs are FDA approved for years until later the FDA reconsiders and removes them from the market. Look at the relatively recent removal of Darvocet from the market after many years of FDA approval.
LaViv is an interesting concept. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*
August 27th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Appropriate Care, Budget Deficits, David Geffen, Equivocal Care, GDP, Government, Healthcare Policy, Insurance Industry, JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, Medical Care Costs, Necessary Care, Patients As Consumers, Physicians, RAND Corporation, Reducing Waste, Responsibility, UCLA School of Medicine
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The Role of Physicians in Controlling Medical Care Costs and Reducing Waste by the RAND Corporation and David Geffen, University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, Santa Monica was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). I do not think the JAMA should have published this article.
1.Why would the JAMA publish such an article?
2. Why are physicians blamed for all the waste in the system?
3. Why is it the physicians’ responsibility to eliminate waste when they are not the cause of the greatest percentage of the waste?
“The amount of money spent on medical care is increasing faster than the gross domestic product (GDP), and the federal deficit is increasing.”
The initial statement assumes that the government deficit is increasing because physicians control government spending for healthcare.
This is only partly correct. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
August 27th, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Health Tips, Opinion
Tags: abnormal heart rhythms, Acquired Heart Abnormality, Athletes, Brain Aneurysm, Congenital Heart Abnormality, ECG, EKG, Heart Abnormailty, Heart Failure, idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis, Mass Screening, Outdoor Activities, Physical Examinations, Routine Laboratory Testing, Seizure Disorder, Stress Test, Sudden Adverse Health Events, Young People
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Increasing numbers of young people participate in outdoor activities, including strenuous competitive athletics. In so doing, they subject their bodies to stresses that are more intense and prolonged than those presented by a largely sedentary life. Every story of a sudden death in a young person is a tragedy, and usually accompanied by commentary pondering the role and utility of pre-activity screening. Could the death have been prevented? What was the physiological condition of the deceased? Could the collapse, often attributed to a heart problem, have been predicted? Was there an examination or evaluation that might have indicated that the deceased was at greater risk, or should have been held out of the activity? These are all important questions, with no simple answers.
Sudden collapse and cardiac arrest in a young person seems wrong. It shouldn’t happen. It is a parent’s worst nightmare. Similar horrors occur on the freeway when a teenage driver is killed, or at the beach when a surfer is tossed in a monster wave and drowned. We know a great deal about injury prevention; much of our teaching and experience points to errors in judgment. But the situation is different when the seemingly healthy slumps to the ground without a pulse. That person has been taken by surprise in a cruel act of fate.
Sometimes we learn that the victim had Read more »
This post, The Importance Of Physicals For Young Athletes, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
August 26th, 2011 by Linda Burke-Galloway, M.D. in Opinion
Tags: Abortion, Babies, China, Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway, Fertility, Gender, Gender-related diseases, Hemophilia, India, Mattie Stepanek, Muscular Dystrophy, OB/GYN, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Pregnancy, Sex Determination, Sobs In The Night, Terminated Pregnancies, Xinran
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What would you do if you discovered early in your pregnancy that you were pregnant with a girl when you wanted a boy? Would you terminate the pregnancy? With the advent of a new DNA test that can determine the sex of a fetus at 7 weeks gestation with a simple blood or urine test, fetal sex selection is now possible. However, before you proceed to pop the cork on your bottle of champagne, a word of precaution is warranted. The Chinese and India dilemmas present a global warning regarding the perils of fetal sex selection. Boys now outnumber girls in China and India and competition is fierce regarding finding a wife or a mate. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), by the year 2020, there will be between 30 to 40 million more boys than girls in China and the statistics in India are equally as alarming. In her book, Sobs In The Night, Xinran describes a scene where a baby girl is born and the father cries out, “Useless thing” and then the baby is dropped in a bucket and dies. This “son preference” is what has caused the unusually large amount of U.S. adoptions of baby Chinese girls.
Clinically, the gender of a baby is only important if Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*
Medical malpractice reform is in the news again. Of course, for the medical profession, the medical malpractice system is the wound that simply will not heal. For the plaintiffs bar, in contrast, the medical liability system is the gift that keeps on giving. I have argued that the current system fails on four important fronts.
