New details have emerged about Ebola victim Thomas Duncan’s first treatment at a Dallas hospital emergency room. High fever, severe pain, a recent trip from a foreign country: classic markers of a patient who needs to stay in the hospital and not be ushered out the door. Yet he was sent home, and came back….
Continue ReadingEmergency Medicine
False Move From ‘Urgent’ to ‘Emergency’ Care
When a woman asked Trudy Lieberman, a professor of public health, if urgent care centers affiliated with hospital emergency departments “ever try to escalate patients to the ER when it is not medically necessary,” the answer, in a nutshell, was “Yes.” In many other industries, persuading a customer to buy more than what he or….
Continue ReadingDischarged ER Gallbladder Patients Often Require Emergency Surgery
Gallbladder disease is common in the U.S., and people suffering from it often find themselves in the emergency room to deal with the pain. Researchers recently concluded that a disturbing number of these patients are sent home only to return shortly for emergency surgery. The study published in the Journal of Surgical Research found that….
Continue ReadingSuggested Reading — ER Doctor Become ER Patient
It’s too bad that Dr. Charolotte Yeh, an emergency physician, had to get hit by a car before experiencing emergency medicine from the other side of the bed. But she learned an important lesson we hope will be shared widely among her peers. Following are excerpts from “‘Nothing Is Broken’: For an Injured Doctor, Quality-Focused….
Continue ReadingWhy Emergency Treatment Can Be a Guessing Game
Emergency department physicians often are accused of ordering too many tests and admitting too many patients to the hospital. But even if medical overuse is a problem, sometimes the circumstances in the ER don’t leave a doctor much choice. One ER doc, Leana Wen, recently blogged on NPR.org about just such a situation, and her….
Continue ReadingTreating Kidney Stones Often Has Complications
People who have suffered kidney stones say there’s nothing more painful. But according to new research, for a disturbing number of patients, treating them can cause complications requiring emergency follow-up. All the more reason to heed some good advice about how to prevent them in the first place. Kidney stones are small, hard pebbles formed….
Continue ReadingSuggested Reading — Doctor Experiences Critical Care From the Patient’s Perspective
Arnold Relman, a 90-year-old physician with more than 60 years’ experience treating patients in critical condition, gained a new perspective about medical care when he became a patient after tumbling down the stairs at his home. His chronicle in the New York Review of Books of what it was like to receive treatment is a….
Continue ReadingThe Sticker Shock of Ambulance Transport
Anyone who has been transported by ambulance knows that the cost can be astonishing. A generation ago, as reported by the New York Times, ambulance rides often were free of charge, provided as a municipal service or by volunteers. Now, like most of the U.S. health-care industrial complex, most ambulance services are businesses that charge….
Continue ReadingHow Long Will You Wait in the Emergency Room?
If you have a medical problem requiring a visit to the emergency room, how long you must wait depends on the severity of your condition, and many other factors beyond your control, such as time of day or night, location of the facility, the demographics of other patients and the medical staff on hand. In….
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,”….
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