Healthcare Update Satellite — 09-15-2014

This study should be required reading in every emergency medicine residency in this country. In fact, the concepts in the studies should be tested on the emergency medicine board exams. Now if the study only compared the type of a patient’s insurance with the likelihood of emergency department recidivism. How else can the media try to tarnish this guy’s reputation? The doctor who oversaw Joan Rivers’ fatal endoscopy was once *sued* 10 years ago. Gasp. The former patient’s attorneys are really trying to create their 15 minutes of fame. They alleged that 10 years ago the patient received no informed consent prior to a surgery and then vomited during surgery and developed pneumonia because of it. The jury found otherwise and exonerated the doctor. A spokesperson for the endoscopy clinic also noted that the surgical complications in the case 10 years ago occurred because the surgery was performed as an emergency. In one breath, the patient’s lawyers denied that the surgery was emergent, but in the next breath they stated that the patient was “put under before he could tell the doctors he had been fed two meals earlier in the day.” If the surgery wasn’t an emergency, then why didn’t the patient (who happened to be a retired physician) have time to tell the doctors about his meals? One way to keep patients from overcrowding the emergency department: Bring the emergency department to them. Colorado ambulance company teaming up...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs