Would Adding Residency Slots Solve the Primary-Care Shortage?

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog:
With the medical establishment warning of a looming shortage of primary-care docs and general surgeons, Sen. Chuck Schumer is getting ready to introduce an amendment to the Senate health-care bill that would add 2,000 new medical residency slots, the WSJ reports this morning. But adding residency slots may [...]

Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…

From CNN:
Debra Bader was taking a walk in the woods with her 53-year-old husband one morning when suddenly he collapsed. At first she thought the situation was hopeless.
“I looked at him and said, ‘He’s dead,’ because he wasn’t moving or making any sounds at all,” Bader remembers. “But I pulled the cell phone out of [...]

Aortic Dissection at Any Age: The Tyler Kahle Story

Ed. I saw this video during Dr. Sullivan’s lecture at the ACEP Scientific Symposium.
From BestCare:

The tragic death of a young man named Tyler Kahle has transformed care at Methodist Hospital. After coming to us for treatment, Tyler died from an undetected rupture inside his chest, a tearing of the aorta called thoracic aortic dissection. He [...]

The joys of practicing rural emergency medicine

From Edwin Leap, posting on the Kevin MD blog:
I practice in the rural, northwest corner of South Carolina, also known as “The Upstate.” It is a place of expansive lakes, white-water rivers and the mist covered foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The area includes thousands of acres of Sumter National Forest. The natural beauty [...]

Observations on Increased Accidental Asphyxia Deaths in Infancy While Cosleeping

From The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology:
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) has recorded a significant increase of accidental asphyxia deaths in infancy associated with cosleeping in the state of Maryland in 2003. A total of 102 infants died suddenly and unexpectedly during 2003 in the state of Maryland. Of the 102 [...]

IV Drugs Don’t Improve Survival in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

From MedPage Today:
Patients who were given an intravenous drug during advanced cardiac life support did not have increased rates of survival to hospital discharge, Norwegian researchers said.
Investigators found that the survival rate of those who who received IV drugs was 10.5% compared with 9.2% for those who didn’t receive them, a difference that was not [...]

Thanksgiving at the E.R.: When a turkey feast proves too much of a good thing

From the LA Times (blogs):
Take this as a cautionary tale.
The man was covered in sweat, clutching his chest, when he entered an emergency room on Thanksgiving some years back. His next words are fixed in the memory of Dr. Mark Morocco, associate residency director of emergency medicine at UCLA.
“I just ate a lot of meatballs. [...]

Mitigating Absenteeism in Hospital Workers During a Pandemic

From Disaster and Public Health Preparedness:
Objectives: An influenza pandemic, as with any disaster involving contagion or contamination, has the potential to influence the number of health care employees who will report for duty. Our project assessed the uptake of proposed interventions to mitigate absenteeism in hospital workers during a pandemic.
Methods: Focus groups were followed by [...]

ED staff sue over missed lunch breaks

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Seven of Philadelphia’s largest health systems were sued yesterday and Friday by employees who said they were not compensated when they worked through their unpaid lunch hours.
Among the plaintiffs is nurse Pamela Kimble-Armstrong of Vineland, who said she was fired for taking a 15- minute break when she worked in the emergency [...]

NYC – Bronx man sues city after medics throw his ear in the garbage

From the NY Daily News:
Bronx hospital and the city are really hearing it from a Bronx man whose ear was thrown in the garbage.
Eduardo Garcia, 67, filed a lawsuit after emergency service workers tossed out his ear – which was ripped off by a dog – because they feared it was too risky to reattach [...]