While nurses deserve patients’ gratitude and the highest praise for the valiant care they have provided during the coronavirus pandemic, a Nashville case has raised tough questions as to whether and when professional caregivers’ medical errors ought to be criminalized. Prosecutors decided that some mistakes rise to the criminal level, after considering the evidence against….
Continue ReadingMedical Error
Patient safety’s new perils: Lack of medical staff and their mental wellness
The coronavirus pandemic and the wrenching demand this public health nightmare has put on the U.S. health care system and its people have become such a worry that staffing shortages and workers’ mental health have become top safety concerns in 2022. That is the evidence-based view of ECRI, aka the nonprofit, independent Emergency Care Research….
Continue ReadingRacial bias: Another reason for patients to get and correct their own medical records
Patients, for their own protection, long have needed to secure copies of their medical records and correct inaccuracies they find — a safeguard that has grown even more vital as research builds about unacceptable biases that doctors and others may show in their recorded observations about those in their care. In two separate, published dives….
Continue ReadingMaryland’s medical examiner crisis is occurring nationwide, too
It’s a grim issue that too many of us would want to ignore in the best of times. But the coronavirus pandemic and its collateral harms have pushed beyond their limits the medical experts who study death, locally and nationally. In Maryland, the chief medical examiner has resigned, and a deputy has been designated as….
Continue ReadingWith a ‘Zoom boom’ still going, cautions rise on cosmetic surgery
While the coronavirus pandemic has forced patients, doctors, and hospitals to curtail crucial tests, procedures and treatments in worrisome fashion, a trend with one kind of medical practice apparently continues apace: The so-called “Zoom boom” in plastic and cosmetic surgeries is still going strong. Patients, though, soon will get a tough reality TV warning about….
Continue ReadingThousands admitted to hospitals for other reasons ended up with Covid-19
When hospitals too often fail to disclose and to adequately deal with their problems, patients and their loved ones suffer. That’s what happened during the coronavirus pandemic, when individuals admitted for other reasons were infected in hospitals and died of Covid-19 at alarming rates. The federal government, separately, also is stepping up its efforts to….
Continue ReadingMDs urged to better police their own, as health disinformation runs amok
Doctors must step up and better police their own ranks, taking a helpful warning from medical malpractice lawsuits in dealing with problem practitioners or systemic wrongs. That’s the wise view of Dr. Shah-Naz H. Khan, a neurosurgeon and a clinical assistant Professor of Surgery at Michigan State University (shown, right). Her trenchant commentary — published….
Continue ReadingSharp reminders of the need to watch out for dangerous doctors
Patients, politicians, and regulators may find it tough to believe, so they need sharp periodic reminders: While there are many terrific, dedicated doctors working today, there also are some truly terrible ones. And dealing with the harms of medical malpractice by the incompetent and abusive can require courage and vigilance. Perhaps a new, streamed Hollywood….
Continue ReadingHigh-tech tools can boost blacks’ cancer warnings — and be racially biased
While technological advances may help provide crucial warnings to young men, especially those who are black, about their heightened risk of early-onset colorectal cancer, the rise of other high-tech diagnostic aids may only worsen built-in, harmful racial biases in an array of medical practices. Researchers at the University of Chicago, to their credit, have sought….
Continue ReadingHospitals called out for performing too many low-value tests and procedures
When it comes to hospitals performing low-value tests or procedures and putting older patients at increased risk, Dixie may have little to whistle about. The Lown Institute, a respected and nonpartisan think tank that says it “believes a radically better American health system is possible,” has published a new hospital index that puts dozens of….
Continue Reading