Healthcare Update Satellite — 03-04-2014

Science reporter Miles O’Brien suffers a freak accident while packing equipment after a reporting trip. Case falls onto his arm and causes bruise/injury. The following day, pain and swelling in his arm got worse. The day after that, he was being rushed to the operating room for compartment syndrome. His blood pressure dropped during surgery and the surgeon had to amputate his arm. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Miles. Patients who have had strokes are 50% more likely to have iron deficiency anemia as are control populations. Authors suggest a couple of possible mechanisms for the correlation including decreased oxygen delivery and a secondary thrombocytosis, but no one is quite sure why the risk increases. Eastern Ontario Children’s Hospital asks patients to stay away unless they have a “true emergency”. The hospital is just too busy. New Hampshire hospital employee makes “offhanded” comment about strangling and shooting man who was divorcing her daughter. “Antagonistic” co-workers notify police that she was making homicidal threats. Police then come and arrest her and take her to hospital emergency department … where she waits six days before a bed in a psychiatric hospital opens up. She is discharged from the psychiatric hospital the following day. Now she’s suing for false imprisonment and wrongful discharge … from her job, not from the hospital. The good news is that we have these tests to give us a bet...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs