After doctors in Florida failed to remove his deep-seated brain tumor, Marc Kotolnick traveled to Los Angeles to see Dr. Hrayr Shahinian, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. But when a delicate pair of forceps failed, the surgeon aborted the operation. There was no functioning spare set on hand. The May 2005 incident resulted in a lawsuit, which Cedars-Sinai resolved in a confidential settlement. The case, however, was part of a wider problem: A long-running conflict between hospital administrators and Shahinian culminated in its own lawsuit after he stopped working there in late 2005. An arbitrator in that case ruled last November that the hospital had forced him out by improperly restricting his ability to perform surgeries, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Expressing concerns that nurses may be shifted into positions for which they have no expertise, the executive committee of the Public Health Trust rushed to approve four Miami-based Jackson Health System union contract revisions—hoping the cuts would take effect on April 18. The revisions in effect would reduce by 5% the salaries of 10,000 hospital workers, saving Jackson $30 million this fiscal year. However, Miami-Dade County spokeswoman Victoria Mallette said the commission could not act on the contracts until they were approved by the full PHT board—a process that could delay final approval by a month, the Miami Herald reports.
A City Council panel has approved plans for a $1 billion Seattle Children's Hospital expansion. Children's had warned that it would consider moving outside Seattle if it couldn't proceed with the expansion. Construction on the 20-year expansion, which would add up to 450 more beds, could begin in 2011. As part of the compromise Children's also agreed to cut 275,000 square feet from its planned expansion of 1.5 million square feet. The campus now has about 900,000 square feet, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
Texas doctors launched a campaign to collect 1 million signatures from patients and sympathizers in support of scrapping the federal government's Medicare reimbursement formula. Under the current payment structure, doctors are facing a 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements. While they're almost certain Congress will step in to prevent the cuts, doctors said they're tired of temporary fixes year after year, the Dallas Morning News reports.
For the first time since leaving medical school, many doctors are having to take tests to renew board certification in their fields. The recertification tests are a work in progress. In the future, some boards plan to include assessment of a doctor's communication skills with patients. Eventually, testing may include rating a doctor's technical skills and directly observing performance.
In response to the ongoing strike at Temple University Hospital, U.S. Congressman Bob Brady (D., Phila.) met with the leadership of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals at the union's satellite office near the North Philadelphia hospital complex, said union executive director Bill Cruice. Hospital management had reached out to the Democratic congressman, himself a union carpenter, who frequently intercedes in tough management-labor disputes, Cruice said.