"How to Survive Your Local ER"

From Parade magazine

How often do things go wrong? No one knows for certain: Because so many mistakes are minor and so few have clear causes, accurate statistics are difficult to maintain. According to one 1999 study, though, more than half of all preventable hospital-error claims result from mistakes made in the ER.
The main culprit [...]

USA Today: "When a heart attack goes undiagnosed"

From USA Today:
When chest pain woke James Pettry early one morning this spring, his wife, Mary, found him sitting on their bed, short of breath and sweating profusely. She dialed 911.
In the five minutes it took for an ambulance to reach their home in Lafayette, Ind., on April 28, the seriousness of her husband’s condition [...]

AED’s in Texas Schools

From GruntDoc
DALLAS (AP) A group headed by the Dallas Mavericks team physician said Wednesday it plans to raise $1 million for at least one automated external defibrillator in every Texas public high school after a recent mandate requiring the device.
The donations would help solve how some cash-strapped school districts will afford the life-saving heart [...]

New Spin on "Patient Dumping" (Alleged)

From CNN.com
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Authorities have launched a criminal investigation into suspected dumping of homeless people on Skid Row after police witnessed ambulances leaving five people on a street there during the weekend.
The city attorney’s office is reviewing police videotapes and photographs of the five suspected dumping cases to determine whether the patients [...]

Electronically Guided Resuscitation Device

From Medgadget:
In a report by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, a new prototype medical device, being created by the University of Utah researchers, could make it possible for anyone to perform life-saving actions for sudden cardiac arrest victims:
The just-in-time support, or JITS, device provides bystanders with guidance and information on how to administer CPR [...]

DentaSafe™

From Medgadget:
DentaSafe™ is a disposable foam strip designed to prevent anesthesiologists, EMTs and ER personnel from eviscerating patients’ teeth. Your correspondent, an anesthesiologist himself, humbly recalls a recent fishing expedition to extract two fallen teeth from around a patient’s uvula.

From the product page:
This medical-grade, elastic, hypoallergenic, and latex free foam strip is designed to stretch [...]

GlideScope® Ranger, a portable video laryngoscope

Another Medgadget tip, this one about a video laryngoscope, designed for the military:
The GlideScope® Ranger provides a clear picture of the larynx and vocal cords on a display monitor, enabling visual control of the endotracheal tube in its trajectory toward the airway. With its patented 50 to 60 degree viewing range, integrated camera, and patented [...]

MIT material stops bleeding in seconds

Tip of the cap to Medgadget, here’s an article from MIT
MIT and Hong Kong University researchers have shown that some simple biodegradable liquids can stop bleeding in wounded rodents within seconds, a development that could significantly impact medicine.
When the liquid, composed of protein fragments called peptides, is applied to open wounds, the peptides self-assemble into [...]

More on the Florida Med Mal Case

From InsuranceJournal.com
Fla. Jury Awards $217M to Misdiagnosed Stroke Patient
A Florida jury increased to nearly $217 million the damages awarded to a Tampa man who was left brain-damaged and disabled after hospital emergency room doctors misdiagnosed stroke symptoms.
The Hillsborough County jury added $100.1 million in punitive damages for Allan Navarro and his family after returning a [...]

Medical Malpractice Case in Florida

From Law.com
Even before a jury had completed its deliberations, two Tampa, Fla.-area medical practices filed for bankruptcy after they were hit with a $116.7 million malpractice verdict in favor of a quadriplegic who blamed them for his condition.
The Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings — designed to avoid paying what attorneys called the largest medical malpractice [...]