March 29, 2013
Back in 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education — the governing body “responsible for the Accreditation of post-MD medical training programs within the United States” — launched an effort to shorten the number of hours worked by medical residents. The rationale for the move was that it would not only improve the mental […]
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March 26, 2013
Hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities that fail to implement proper sterilization procedures or implement the necessary infection-control strategies are putting their patients at serious risk of catching the flu, norovirus and, even worse, so-called superbugs. For those unfamiliar with superbugs — or hospital-acquired infections, as they are also known — statistics have shown […]
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March 22, 2013
It is an altogether alarming and puzzling scenario that occurs every day here in the United States: Trained professionals misdiagnosing the many different symptoms of sports-related brain injuries — dizziness, blurred vision, loss of balance, etc. — as symptoms of other, less serious conditions. For example, a high school basketball player who strikes his head […]
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March 19, 2013
Regardless of whether you have been taking the same medication for years or were recently written a prescription to treat a short-term ailment, you probably don’t pay much attention to what’s actually inside the bottle. For example, while you may initially read the label or the information that comes with the prescription to verify that […]
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March 15, 2013
In the medical community, there is a certain category of mistakes that are classified as “never events,” meaning they are so flagrant and so avoidable that no competent medical professional should ever commit them under any circumstances. Chief among these so-called never events are “retained surgical objects.” For those unfamiliar with this term, it refers […]
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March 12, 2013
According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 232,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, with close to 40,000 women ultimately succumbing to this devastating condition. While science has yet to give us a cure for breast cancer, it has given us at least one very effective weapon in the […]
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March 8, 2013
Considering I practice law primarily in the field of medical negligence, I have become accustomed to situations wherein patient safety takes a back seat to profit motives. However, I read with sadness the article in Tuesday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette titled Highmark’s ‘Community Blue’ patients rejected by UPMC about UPMC essentially firing patients who are now covered under […]
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March 8, 2013
In our previous post, we discussed the shocking revelation made in a recent study that primary care physicians — the medical professionals in whom we place perhaps the greatest level of trust — are prone to misdiagnoses. In fact, the study determined that this was perhaps the most common of all medical mistakes. While studies […]
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March 6, 2013
If you suddenly find yourself feeling unwell and unable to identify the reason why, there is a very good chance you will make an appointment to see your primary care physician as soon as possible. That’s because these physicians are specially trained to help identify and treat all types of medical conditions, making them the […]
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March 1, 2013
If you should ever find yourself gathering at the bedside of a loved one wondering how things could have gone so terribly wrong with a medical procedure, the last thing you should expect is a visit from a medical professional or hospital official offering you an apology. Why? Conventional wisdom is that physicians should not […]
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