Do Malpractice Claims Change Physician Practice Patterns?October 25, 2019 3:06 pmA recent study reported that approximately 9 of 10 US physicians practice defensive medicine to avoid malpractice claims, which cost the United States an estimated $56 billion per year. However, it is not clear whether being named in a malpractice claim has a considerable effect on a physician’s practice patterns. A study published...Read More
We need physician leaders who understand our problemsOctober 25, 2019 3:05 pmYou cannot work in medicine today without being inundated with burnout statistics and commentary on your feed, coming to your inbox, or spoken from stages about the state of medicine we are in. The data is dire: we are disengaged, we are making mistakes, we are not heard, and we are not empowered to make decisions.Read More
Self-Acupressure Shows Benefit in Low Back Pain PatientsOctober 25, 2019 3:04 pm“Self-acupressure is a viable nonopioid/nonpharmacologic treatment for chronic pain,” said co-author Richard E. Harris, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. “Self-acupressure can reduce pain and fatigue in some patients.”Read More
Fighting Pain Without Opioids: How One Nurse In The Gambia Does ItOctober 25, 2019 2:51 pmGrowing up in the Gambia in West Africa, Nabia Drammeh always knew she wanted to be a nurse. "My auntie was a nurse," she says. "I used to go to the clinic and see the way she works. I told her, 'I really want to be a nurse in the future!' So I've loved this job since when I was a child."Read More
Chronic Pelvic Pain as a Form of Complex Regional Pain SyndromeOctober 18, 2019 1:34 pmChronic pelvic pain remains a challenging diagnosis and condition to treat. It tends to be a diagnosis of exclusion characterized by pain that has been continuous or recurrent for at least 6 months and is incumbent of a wide variety of conditions, such as prostadynia, vulvodynia, pudendal neuralgia, interstitial cystitis...Read More
What to D.O. – Rapid and Remarkable Relief for HeadacheOctober 18, 2019 11:24 amEmergency clinicians are tasked with the dual roles of excluding life-threatening pathology and providing effective pain relief and symptomatic care for the 2.1 million visits made to U.S. EDs each year for acute headache. Read More
How physician burnout hurts patientsOctober 18, 2019 9:37 amOut of the chaos surrounding me at that moment, my physician’s brain assessed the situation: “VT. Serious arrhythmia.” After that, I lost it. I became a scared-to-death patient who has a serious heart condition and is feeling like dying right now....Read More
NFL, players taking strides to address pain managementOctober 18, 2019 9:32 amAs Peter Gent described vividly in his 1973 book “North Dallas Forty,” the NFL used to be the Wild West when it came to prescription pills — players grabbing fistfuls and popping them like candy, doing whatever they felt was needed to get through their injuries and stay on the field. Even into the 21st century...Read More
They enrolled in medical school to practice rural medicine. What happened?October 18, 2019 9:28 amThe University of Kansas School of Medicine-Salina opened in 2011 — a one-building campus in the heart of wheat country dedicated to producing the rural doctors the country needs. Now, eight years later, the school’s first graduates are settling into their chosen practices — and locales. And those choices are cause for both hope and despair.Read More
Working for a Health System vs Remaining IndependentOctober 2, 2019 9:45 amAccording to a recently released survey from the American Medical Group Association (AMGA)—the 2019 Medical Group Operations and Finance Survey—the income of medical groups in both independent and integrated practices increased from 2017 to 2018. This positive trend, however, may obfuscate the fact that...Read More