In 2008 alone, more than a million Americans underwent various coronary procedures, including balloon angioplasty and coronary artery bypass surgery. However, while these expensive measures can be lifesaving for some, they do not necessarily do a better job at protecting most people’s hearts than a heart-healthy lifestyle would, Jane Brody writes in the New York….
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Making Surgery Safer by Using Checklists
An international research team has shown that death and complication rates from surgery can be dramatically improved by using simple checklists to make sure that safety measures are taken before, during and after each operation. The research project, involving nearly 8,000 patients at eight hospitals around the world, was done as part of the World….
Continue ReadingPatients Benefit from Getting Second Opinions
When a doctor knows that his patient would receive better care elsewhere, should he inform the patient and send him to another provider? While this question is yet to be settled among bioethicists and physicians themselves, authors of an article published recently in the journal, Public Library of Science Medicine, think doctors have an ethical….
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