Big hospitals keep getting bigger. But, contrary to what the suit-wearing MBAs may claim, the rising number of institutional mergers and acquisitions isn’t necessarily better for patients and their care. At hospitals subjected to corporate wheeling and dealing, the quality of care got worse, or, at best, it stayed the same and didn’t improve, a….
Continue ReadingMisdiagnosis
Seniors are getting urine over-tested and joints over-injected
It’s the 21st century, and excellent information is more available than ever due to communication and technology advances. But doctors and hospitals keep harming patients by testing and treating them in ways that are unsupported by rigorous medical evidence, and by carrying out safety recommendations in extreme ways. Just consider: Hospitals have become so obsessive….
Continue ReadingHealth care plagued by cases of a persistent pathology — unmitigated gall
There seems to be a never-ending outbreak of a certain kind of pathology in the United States. Big Pharma has it and spreads it around, a lot. So, too, do public health figures. Let’s call this scourge what it is — unmitigated gall. The problem with this nasty condition is that it afflicts the rest….
Continue ReadingU.S. task force refines guidelines for women’s genetic cancer screening
Many more women would benefit if their doctors took time to put them through a relatively easy screening using readily available questionnaires to determine if they might need further specialist assessment and a medical test for a genetic mutation linked to breast and other forms of cancer. Women, however, should not routinely be subjected to….
Continue ReadingFor women, medicine can be about miscommunication and mistreatment
Doctors and medical scientists have their hands more than full these days, struggling to get out vital, evidence-based information to benefit the public’s health. They must cope with challenges ranging from battles with the growing problems of infections and vaccine “hesitance” to how to debunk celebrity humbug on diet and well-being. The medical establishment’s communication nightmares,….
Continue ReadingDo health care’s perverse incentives lure MDs into deliberate misdiagnosis for profit?
When doctors become medical outliers, shouldn’t hospitals, colleagues, insurers, and the rest of us ask how and why an individual practitioner diverges so much from the way others provide care? Olga Khazan details for the Atlantic magazine the disturbing charges involving Yasser Awaad, a pediatric neurologist at a hospital in Dearborn, Mich. As she describes….
Continue ReadingDefense bill may offer active service personnel a way to win back key rights
Although members of Congress have fled the nation’s capital for their annual August recess, there’s guarded optimism that lawmakers may be open to reversing a seven-decades-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bars active duty military personnel from their constitutional right to pursue in the civil justice system claims that they have suffered harms while seeking….
Continue ReadingCan lives be saved with lessons learned from a space pioneer’s botched care?
Neil Armstrong served as a naval aviator, test pilot, federal administrator, and a university professor. He earned his place in history as space pioneer — the first astronaut to walk on the moon. The American hero, who spoke the legendary phrase about “one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind,” also now….
Continue ReadingCutting resident doctors’ hours doesn’t harm quality of patient care, study finds
Will the medical educators finally get that it makes no sense to force residents to toil like field animals? Yet another study, this latest from Harvard experts, finds that keeping residency training hours at more humane levels does not significantly affect quality of patient care, including inpatient mortality. Let’s be clear: The grueling preparation for….
Continue ReadingHigh court leaves it to Congress to restore service members’ basic rights
The U.S. Supreme Court has left it up to Congress to decide if service members may pursue in the civil justice system claims that they have suffered harms while seeking medical services, a fundamental civil right now denied to military personnel. Justices Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who rarely agree on much —….
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