Michael Kirsch, MD – An Emergency Physician Basher Without A Clue
The nice thing about the internet, about having a blog, and about having a Twitter account is that even us peons have the ability to combat censorship.
Here’s a good example.
Self-described “insider” and “whistleblower” Michael Kirsch, MD, who blogs at “MD Whistleblower,” has a penchant for bashing emergency physicians even though his commentary shows that his “inside knowledge” is full of misinformation. You can be the judge of Dr. Kirsch’s veracity, but my opinion is that he is unethically spewing his inside misinformation as fact.
So I called him out on it.
Kev...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - June 7, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Medical Topics Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 03-25-2014
Patients gone wild. Really wild. 70 year old Brookdale Hospital nurse Evelyn Lynch gets knocked to the ground by patient Kwincii Jones and has her head stomped. She was knocked unconscious and suffered severe facial fractures. Also underwent brain surgery, so it is likely she suffered a brain bleed or has brain swelling as well.
Congratulations to the antivaccination movement for increasing the worldwide incidence of pertussis and measles. Measles and mumps are now “crushing” the UK. Patients with “religious exemptions” to receiving vaccinations were reportedly the source of one recent California p...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - March 25, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
The “Punch” Line
Q: How do you get a room full of little old ladies to all use obscene language at the same time?
A: Yell “BINGO!”
When elderly patients blurt out obscenities, most of the time it takes everything I can do not to laugh out loud. No offense intended. I just get flashbacks of my mom sitting and putting her fingers in her ears while watching scenes in certain movies or seeing her gasp in shock if an F-bomb catches her off guard. I don’t expect to hear obscenities from someone who just rolled by me with a walker. For example, a while ago I posted a story about one lady from a nursing home who caught me off guard with an M...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - March 19, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Patient Encounters Source Type: blogs
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 o...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - March 4, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Unprofessional Act or Political Mudslinging?
US Senate candidate Milton Wolf (@miltonwolfmd), who also happens to be a radiologist, is catching heat because he had previously posted patient x-rays on his Facebook account … and then made what some people would consider as inappropriate comments about the patients who were depicted in the x-rays.
Articles in the Topeka Capital Journal are here, here, and here. Note the repeatedly recycled content.
The story was also picked up in Talking Points Memo and on Breitbart.com
For example, in the comments to the right, he commented that the positioning of a dead patient’s head on CT scan wasn’t going to cause...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 26, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Medical-Legal News Commentary Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 02-24-2014
This article is just one of what I’m sure will be many more to come.
Another article on the same topic is here.
And another.
Receiving healthcare insurance doesn’t guarantee you medical care any more than receiving automobile insurance guarantees you a car.
And California is getting close to Florida as one of the states in which doctors should NEVER consider practicing medicine.
Topeka, Kansas VA Hospital is converting its emergency department into an urgent care clinic. As a result, the hospital no longer has to take ambulance runs. Hospital cites staffing shortages. Kansas Senator Jerry Moran alleges that the...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 24, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Just Checking
In one of the hospitals where I work, when we order certain tests in the computer, we have to write the indications for the test on the order sheet. I suppose this isn’t a bad idea in some cases. For example, if an ultrasound might be better than a CT scan to look for the suspected diagnosis, writing the indication may help to provide the most useful test.
The problem that has popped up recently is that the typewritten indications have now turned into a full scale interrogation by the radiology techs. What symptoms is the patient having? For how long? What is the patient’s medical history? What medications?
App...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 23, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Random Thoughts Source Type: blogs
Problem Found
An 8 year old girl was brought in for a psychiatric evaluation.
The child’s mother had a laundry list of abnormal behavior in which the child was engaging. The child allegedly scratched the eyes out of all her dolls – except her stuffed cat, of course. The patient breaks glass on the bathroom floor so no one can use the bathroom. She also screams incessantly. Oh, and today she threatened to burn down the house.
According to the patient’s mother, she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after being beaten by her stepfather as an infant. Then, a couple of years ago, her pet kitten was found dea...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 18, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Patient Encounters Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 02-13-2014
More medical news from around the web on my other blog at DrWhiteCoat.com.
No more “putting it on my account.” Due to cuts in payments from Medicare and Medicaid and expenses for treating uninsured patients, Hutchinson Hospital in Kansas will require payment for emergency department services, radiology, and outpatient surgery services before services are rendered.
Emergency department patients will still get screened, but apparently won’t receive non-emergency treatment if a partial payment isn’t made.
Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center has implemented the same type of system – along wit...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 13, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
What’s the Diagnosis #18
An elderly patient with hypertension, hypothyroidism, and dementia is sent from the nursing home by ambulance for evaluation of a rash to her scalp. The patient’s nurse had noted the rash that afternoon while putting the beret in the patient’s hair and is sure that the rash wasn’t there two days ago when she last cared for the patient.
The patient was reportedly sleeping more than usual the day prior to her transport. The nursing director at the nursing home was concerned that the patient had developed shingles to her scalp.
A picture of the patient’s rash is to the right (unfortunately, not the bes...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 12, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Patient Encounters What's the Diagnosis? Source Type: blogs
Open Mic Weekend
It’s been a year since I last did this and I’ve had a couple of people send me questions about medical issues. Interest has varied in previous Open Mics, so we’ll see how this one turns out.
Like Reddit, you can “Ask Me Anything” in the comments section and I’ll give you the best non-binding informational answer I can give you. I’ll be back Tuesday to answer questions and any of the other readers who want to chime in are welcome to do so.
The only rules are that there are no personal attacks and that the comments/questions have to be medically-related.
Let the show begin … ...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 9, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Random Thoughts Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 02-06-2014
More medical news from around the web over at my other blog at DrWhiteCoat.com
Holy feces, Batman! How bad of a marriage do you have to be in for your wife to inject “fecal matter” into your IV line while you’re recovering from a heart procedure in the hospital? Whacked out wifey is a former nurse who will now enjoy an extended stay in Arizona’s Maricopa County jail. Thanks to PJ for the link!
Pennsylvania jury awards a $32 million judgment against two nurses who failed to notify an obstetrician about a change in the fetal heart rate for 13 minutes during the mother’s labor. Child later born w...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 6, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Guaranteed Referral
Emergency physicians are generally a good group of people. Most of the time we will go out of our way to try to help you. Sometimes, things just won’t work out, though.
For example, if you bring your child in with a bead stuck in her ear and the first words out of your mouth when the doctor walks in the room are “If my daughter so much as WHIMPERS when you’re trying to get this bead out, I will SUE you!”
Suddenly, the doctor might not feel so comfortable with his or her ENT skills.
Sure, the doctor will examine your daughter to make sure she doesn’t have an emergency medical condition. But the...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 5, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Patient Encounters Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite – 01-30-2014
More medical news from around the web over on my other blog at DrWhitecoat.com
St. Barnabas Hospital in Bronx, NY registers a patient in emergency department to be seen for a rash. Told to go sit in the emergency department. Was called several times over the loudspeaker but didn’t answer. Found “stiff, cold, and blue” 8 hours later.
An unnamed hospital employee told news that the man died because there is “not enough staff to take care of the number of patients we see each day.”
Comment sections of both articles about the story have created a crowd of people with torches and pitchforks relatin...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - January 30, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Unconventional Sign Language
The patient coming through the door was having trouble breathing. No doubt. You could hear the hiss of the nebulizer as the cart whisked by the nurse’s station into a room.
Most people knew the patient from prior emergency department visits.
Bad asthma
Steroid dependent
Several previous intubations
Last ED visit a couple of months ago
Unfortunately, being in the middle of doing a central line on a septic octagenarian with a systolic blood pressure less than her age makes it difficult to go evaluate a new patient.
I asked the nurse to go get me one of the PAs.
“Do me a favor,” I said to the PA, “Go t...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - December 31, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Patient Encounters Source Type: blogs
