Ten years ago, 12-year-old Rory Staunton dove for a ball in gym class and scraped his arm. He woke up the next day with a 104-degree Fahrenheit fever, so his parents took him to the pediatrician and eventually the emergency room. It was just the stomach flu, they were told. Three days later, Rory died […]
A BMJ study published in 2015 concluded that High LDL-C is inversely associated with mortality in most people over 60 years. This finding is inconsistent with the cholesterol hypothesis. You can find the BMJ study here: Lack of an association or an inverse association between low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol and mortality in the elderly: a systematic review While […]
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen. Ernest Hemingway Five years ago, I wrote a post about the disorientation caused by the loss of listening and hearing as part of a series on the importance of our five senses. You can find it here. There’s […]
When I represented hospitals, my boss used to stress bedside manner as the most effective risk management. It’s been forty years and the industry is still trying to figure out a way to make that stick. Healthcare is fully embracing the concept of consumerism, and with that comes the need for consumer and patient satisfaction—and […]
Ever felt alone in a crowd? How about alone in a crowded emergency room surrounded by professionals who could help but choose to ignore you? These things happen. Here is the link: ‘I delivered my baby scared and alone.’: Mom raises awareness about hospital malpractice after traumatic birth
Staffing shortages are everywhere but largely not considered in individual cases when reviewing medical records. This is because the names of nurses and techs may appear throughout a medical record but without seeing the rest of the shift and treatment records of other patients, it is difficult to put the names into context. This is […]
Runoff from farms collects in Lake Okeechobee and is discharged regularly across the state, polluting the waterways, bays, and shorelines of Florida. Red Tide is just one of the adverse consequences imposed by big agricultural concerns (sugar, citrus, dairy) that lurk in the rural interior of the Sunshine State. “We discovered that nitrogen-enriched Caloosahatchee River […]
Here is a link to my experience with product liability litigation. wdeft Practice Area: Product Liability Product liability applies to over the counter medicines like Tylenol as well as prescribed pharmaceuticals. Here is a story on a recent OTC laxative recall. Vi-Jon issued a recall a few weeks ago for various laxative products, warning that […]
The system for getting donated kidneys, livers and hearts to desperately ill patients relies on out-of-date technology thathas crashed for hours at a time and has never been audited by federal officials for security weaknesses or other serious flaws, according to a confidential government review obtained by The Washington Post. If you ever wondered, yeah, […]
I look at the world through a gothic lens. I love the old and traditional mixed with the new and modern. “The Lazarus Phenomenon” describes the spontaneous return of electrical heart function and circulation after CPR (often abbreviated in a medical record as ROSC). It was first described in 1982 when I was in college. […]
