Imagine yourself as a hospital patient. Your doctor walks in and lets out a long yawn. When you ask why he is so tired, he admits to working nonstop for the last 24 hours. He says that he works these marathon shifts many times a month.Should you be concerned for your safety? Increasing evidence suggests yes. Physicians who work marathon shifts -- those longer than 24 hours -- can cause real harm...
According to the FDA, off-label use of drug-eluting stents carries an increased risk of thrombosis, myocardial infarction and death. An FDA advisory panel recommended changing the labels of such stents. The two approved devices are Cypher (sirolimus-eluting) and Taxus (paclitaxel-eluting). Approximately 60% of the three million drug-eluting stents implanted in Americans, are off-label. In...
An Associated Press story yesterday reported that seven people died in weekend motor vehicle accidents throughout the state of Alabama. The accidents include a head-on crash in Choctaw County that killed two men, a one-car accident in which the driver ran off a Madison County bridge, and other traffic fatalities in Baldwin and Lauderdale Counties. The tragic death toll for the weekend should be...
If an employer sends a drunk employee off the worksite knowing he would likely drive home, should the boss be liable if the drunk employee does what drunk drivers often do, crosses the center line and kills an oncoming motorist? My answer is yes. If a doctor discharges a hospital patient knowing that his medical condition and medications would make him an unsafe driver without warning the...
When the Florida Legislature was being pressured to place a cap on the damages in medical malpractice cases there were those who said doing so would only result in windfall profit for the medical malpractice insurance industry. They were right. Three years after the Legislature capped medical malpractice payouts, insurance company payouts have decreased dramatically, but not their...
The medical director of polytrauma at McGuire Veterans Medical Center said, "Traumatic brain injury is the signature injury of [the Iraq] war." Roughly 62% of the troops injured in Iraq suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI's occur when the head is unexpectedly and forcibly hit with an object. In severe cases, the object pierces the skull and enters the brain tissue. Depending the...
Revised federal guidelines have been proposed to the FDA regarding experimental drugs being given to the seriously ill. The revised guidelines will lay out the specifics regarding when the drugs will be given and also provide if and when the drug companies could charge for the experimental drug. Since the 1970's the FDA has made experimental drugs available to large groups of people or...
Maybe, just maybe, hospital medication errors will be reduced soon. Congress has tied Medicare reimbursements to a hospital's adoption of new quality standards related to medications. Congress Passes Legislation to Prevent Medication Errors U.S. Senators Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar today announced that the Senate passed legislation late last night that includes steps to prevent hospital...
The WARNINGS section of the prescribing information for Heparin has been revised. Use of the drug carries the possibility of delayed onset of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia or HIT, a serious condition caused by irreversible aggregation of platelets. The condition may progress to thromboses. Health care providers should evaluate patients for HIT, if they present with thrombocytopenia or...