In a word-light, graphic-heavy web presentation, Reader’s Digest lists “50 Secrets Your Surgeon Won’t Tell You.” The dish ranges from what days of the week are best to schedule your elective operation to how to find out what exactly happened in the OR while you were under. As Reader’s Digest summarizes, “Surgeons have our lives….
Continue ReadingArchives for May 2013
IUD Poses Problems for Thousands of Women
As promoted by Bayer, its manufacturer, the Mirena IUD is a highly effective birth control device that can remain in the uterus for as long as five years. The product website also warns that it’s not indicated for women with a pelvic infection, who get infections easily or those who have certain cancers. What the….
Continue ReadingMixed Media Signals on Stem Cell Research
Earlier this month, advancements in stem cell research were widely covered by the media, as was the range of reactions to the successful production of embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos. Such cells are essential, basic components of human biology that can be cultivated into more specialized tissue-skin, blood, bone, etc. Some people hailed the….
Continue ReadingMobile Health Screenings Can Be Bad Medicine
An ounce of prevention might be worth a pound of cure, but applying that proverb too broadly is just bad medicine. Look before you leap is a much wiser approach to mobile medical screenings, as shown earlier this month in a story by Kaiser Health News and the Washington Post. Health-care facilities (mainly hospitals) seeking….
Continue ReadingHow Restrictions on Malpractice Lawsuits Hurt Patient Safety
The New York Times has a good readers’ dialog in its letters to the editor, following up on a study published last week by law professor Joanna Schwartz about how malpractice lawsuits help hospitals correct patient safety lapses. The dialog has the usual claims by the medical establishment that the malpractice lawsuit system is “broken,”….
Continue ReadingLipstick Is a Host for Potentially Toxic Metals
No one would choose to consume toxic metals such as lead, cadmium and chromium, but millions of women unknowingly do it every day. According to a study in Environmental Health Perspectives, 32 brands of lipsticks and lip glosses sold throughout the U.S. contain nine metals, some of them at potentially toxic levels. Previous research of….
Continue ReadingFDA Issues New Warnings and Lowers Dosage for Sleep Drugs
Earlier this year we wrote about the FDA’s concern over a certain class of sleep medication whose active ingredient is zolpidem. The feds said its dosage should be lowered. Last week, as reported on AboutLawsuits.com, the FDA approved a new warning label for these drugs and lower doses for Ambien, Ambien CR, Edluar and Zolpimist…..
Continue ReadingTreatment Risks Climb When Drug Companies Plant Stories in Research Journals
Medical providers, insurance companies and well-informed medical consumers know that drugs, devices and treatments aren’t considered best-practice-or even credible-unless and until research has been conducted, the results reviewed by scientific peers and the results published in a reputable journal. So how was it, health reporter Martha Rosenberg asks on KevinMd.com, that blockbuster drugs such as….
Continue ReadingMedicare Takes a Pass on Expanding Hospice Care—For Now
Many Medicare recipients delay getting hospice services because they must agree to cease curative treatments such as chemotherapy. So by the time they do enter hospice, their condition is much more dire, and many often have mere days to live. Some never make it to hospice at all, and spend their final days in a….
Continue ReadingStudy FInds Malpractice Suits Can Make Hospitals Safer
A new survey of hospital risk managers finds that malpractice lawsuits can give them important clues to holes in their hospitals’ patient safety nets that need patching. The study by UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz was excerpted in the New York Times op-ed page. Professor Schwartz writes: New evidence … contradicts the conventional wisdom that….
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