Each year more than 32,000 people die in the United States as a result of suicides, homicides and accidents with firearms. For years doctors have tried to reduce the toll by addressing gun injuries and deaths as a public health issue; there's ample evidence that ease of access to is linked to the number of suicides and homicides. But those efforts haven't gained much traction. On Monday, six medical organizations including the American College of Physicians and professional societies for surgeons, family doctors, obstetricians and gynecologists, pediatricians and emergency physicians joined with the American Public Health Association and the American Bar Association in a "call to action" aimed at reducing the health consequences of firearms.
The Multifire Endo TA30 stapler is a medical marvel, capable of threading inside a patient and firing a tiny row of titanium staples that hold back tissue so surgeons have space to operate. There's just one potential problem: The gunlike device has a tiny white tip that could fall off during surgery. Innovative devices have revolutionized surgery, increasing the number of procedures that can be done through tiny incisions and reducing both medical complications and recovery times. But the trade-off is the potential for pieces to break off these delicate devices inside patients, which poses new safety complications for hospitals.
How do you rescue Georgia's rural hospitals — often the heart and soul of the communities that they serve — from the financial challenges that are forcing them to close their doors forever? Apparently, you don't. If you're the state of Georgia, you express insincere concern for their health, slap a Band-Aid on their gaping wounds and push them out the door to face the ugly future that awaits them. Back in March — and back when he still had an election to win — Gov. Nathan Deal claimed to be so concerned that he appointed a special committee to study the problem and recommend potential answers.
A KVUE Defenders investigation uncovered a substantial increase in Texas nurses disciplined by the state and losing their licenses. Years after year, nursing ranks as the most trusted profession in the country, but even nurses make mistakes. The Defenders discovered the state is citing them for one type of crime more than any other. Dante Fair found that out the hard way. The 29-year-old father died after registered nurse Dana Tackett hit him head-on driving the wrong way just outside of Killeen on Highway 130 in 2013. Hours before, Tackett left a hospital and went drinking. Tests revealed her blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit.
Chemotherapy and radiation failed to thwart Erika Hurwitz's rare cancer of white blood cells. So her doctors offered her another option, a drug for melanoma. The result was astonishing. Within four weeks, a red rash covering her body, so painful she had required a narcotic patch and the painkiller OxyContin, had vanished. Her cancer was undetectable. "It has been a miracle drug," said Mrs. Hurwitz, 78, of Westchester County. She is part of a new national effort to try to treat cancer based not on what organ it started in, but on what mutations drive its growth.
According to the Dyslexia Research Institute, up to 15 percent of Americans are affected by this neurological difference, resulting in language, perceptual and processing difficulties. The percentage of dyslexic doctors is difficult to measure, as many fear that disclosure could thwart professional development and compromise the trust of patients. For a recent paper in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, Jean Robson at Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary in Dumfries, UK, and colleagues interviewed seven dyslexic first-year physicians in the Scottish National Health Service. Most said they had not disclosed their dyslexia and had experienced difficulty with communication, time-management and anxiety.