The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made headlines last November when it strongly urged surgeons not to use power morcellators in either hysterectomies or myomectomies, and decreed black-box warnings, the highest warning level issued by the agency, would henceforth be used on the devices. These rather definitive actions by the FDA came on the […]
The president’s stimulus has put taxpayers behind $30 billion in electronic medical records (EMR) expenses. The money in question and the technological disasters that were born out the EMR “upgrades” have many upset, and rightly so. But you shouldn’t expect to hear about these issues from doctors or the hospital administrators who employ them. This […]
If you make the life-altering decision to undergo a major operation, it goes without saying that you have complete trust in your surgeon. Indeed, you trust in their abilities, you trust in their medical knowledge, and you trust in their communicating all pertinent information. As such, when the unthinkable happens and you suffer significant — […]
The first stop for medical care for many of those brave men and women who served in our nation’s armed forces is one of the 150 medical centers or nearly 1,400 facilities that together comprise the Veterans Health Administration, the single largest integrated health care system in the nation. Indeed, the VA system provided care […]
Last time, we started discussing how a group of Canadian researchers recently published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine examining the impact of sleep deprivation on surgical performance and how its findings are contrary to those made in what is now considered a landmark 2009 study by American researchers. In today’s post, […]
Most people understand that the life of a surgeon can be far from glamorous, as these highly trained medical professionals must manage sizeable patient loads, extreme stress and, of course, frequent sleep deprivation. While this is accepted as part of the culture, a growing number of experts have raised the question in recent years as […]
Attorney Veronica Richards has been selected to be the new Chairperson for the Pennsylvania Association for Justice medical malpractice section. The PAJ boasts more than two thousand members and was founded in an effort to provide a wealth of legal education and resources for attorneys who represent victims of medical malpractice. Attorney Richards is extremely […]
Without a doubt, two of the most important metrics for any hospital — public or private — are patient outcomes and cost savings. While these two considerations may seem so diametrically opposed that there is no good way to improve them simultaneously, this isn’t necessarily the case. Indeed, private hospitals across the nation have long […]
Last time, we discussed how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was warning patients taking either Brintellix and Brilinta, the former an antidepressant and the latter a blood-thinner, to exercise caution as their similar-sounding names were creating confusion among both physicians and pharmacists. Indeed, the FDA indicated it had received reports of 50 medication errors […]
When you read the names Brintellix and Brilinta, it’s possible you think of computer software or some type of electronic product manufactured by the same company. As it turns out, however, these are the names of two very different prescription medications designed to treat two very different conditions, with the former designated as an antidepressant […]
