A Tennessee woman sued Vanderbilt University Medical Center on Tuesday, alleging the hospital operated on her wrong kidney during a surgery — a mistake so rare and preventable that medical experts call it a "never event."
Dr. Tara Zandvliet doesn’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine. It is a philosophy most of her colleagues would agree with, most of the time – just not when it comes to vaccinations. Zandvliet appears to have cornered San Diego’s market of vaccine-skeptical parents.
Dr. Dana Corriel wrote on Facebook in September that the flu vaccine had arrived and encouraged patients to come to her office for a shot. Within hours, the post was flooded with thousands of comments from people opposed to vaccines. Corriel initially decided to allow the postings to continue, hoping to use the moment to educate people about the importance of immunizations.
The kind of thing we have done instinctively in our workplaces for two decades — sending a quick email instead of setting up a meeting — has until recently eluded many doctors. Electronic consultations, or eConsults (sometimes called eReferrals), are a growing way for primary care doctors and specialists to communicate with each other securely.
Physicians applying for a license in Florida may not have to share past history of mental health or substance abuse issues if the state Board of Medicine drops probing questions. Committees for the medical board, which oversees physician licensure and discipline, are reviewing questions on the license application that inquire about past illnesses and whether the questions are appropriate.
The University of Virginia Medical Center is facing federal government safety penalties for the fifth year in a row. In the latest round of sanctions, UVa and some 800 other hospitals were docked for having high rates of injuries and infections among patients. UVa will see a reduction to Medicare payments of 1 percent, in addition to a reduction of 0.09 percent for having high rates of patient readmission.