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Physician Murdered After Denying Prescription To Drug Seeker

Horrible.

200912091638.jpg Perry doctor killed by patient

SUSPECT HAD BEEN REFUSED PAIN PILLS EARLIER IN DAY

By Dori Hjalmarson, Bill Estep and Karla Ward – dhjalmarson@herald-leader.com

CORNETTSVILLE — A man seeking prescription painkillers shot and killed a doctor at a Perry County medical clinic Tuesday morning, according to state police. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

Homebirth Risks: Babies Three Times More Likely To Die

By Amy Tuteur, MD

More than 10,000 American women each year choose planned homebirth with a homebirth midwife in the mistaken belief that it is a safe choice. In fact, homebirth with a homebirth midwife is the most dangerous form of planned birth in the US.

In 2003 the US standard birth certificate form was revised to include place of birth and attendant at birth. In both the 2003 and 2004 Linked Birth Infant Death Statistics, mention was made of this data, but it was not included in the reports. Now the CDC has made the entire dataset available for review and the statistics for homebirth are quite remarkable. Homebirth increases the risk of neonatal death to double or triple the neonatal death rate at hospital birth. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

Family Receives Medical Bill And Form Letter After Son Dies In ER

Wow. Just wow:

Hospital bill stuns slain student’s parents
By Sam Stanton

“It was just devastating and insulting,” Gerald Hawkins said Monday. “It’s just hard to grasp for words. My wife and I were near collapse.”

On Saturday, 10 days after Scott Hawkins was beaten to death inside his dormitory at California State University, Sacramento, his parents got a letter in the mail.

It contained a bill from the UC Davis Medical Center for $29,186.50 along with a form letter addressed “Dear Patient” that implied they were indigent and stated that the hospital no longer could provide them services.

“UC Davis can no longer provide follow-up care or any other non-emergency care to you,” it read. “Please go to a County clinic for all non-emergency care or to get a referral to another doctor.”

For Gerald and Elizabeth Hawkins, it was just too much to bear.

Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*

Pregnant Women: 1 in 25 With H1N1 Flu Will Die Of It

by Amy Tuteur, MD

Doctors are often compelled to make quick decisions in life threatening cases with only limited information. Unfortunately, pregnant women are now going to be put in the same situation.

The H1N1 flu has taken an extraordinary toll among pregnant women. A new vaccine is now available. Because of the nature of the emergency, there has not been time to do any long term studies of the vaccine. Yet pregnant women will need to make a decision as soon as possible on whether to be vaccinated. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

When Your Significant Other Overrides Your Living Will

He knew she was angry with him.

“Whenever I come to see her, I reach out and take her hand, but she looks away.”

Husband and wife for well over 50 years, they had been through a lot.  They met in another country in another time, and to hear him tell it, it almost seemed fated that they’d end up together.  Since then, they’d moved many times, raised a family, supported each other through myriad illnesses.  They were growing old together.

Unfortunately, “growing old together” doesn’t always work out like we hope it will.  Diseases and illnesses ravage our bodies; dementia ravages our brains.  She’d long ago given up on their little garden in the backyard.  It was her favorite hobby, but she couldn’t manage it anymore. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at code blog - tales of a nurse*

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