Last month I underwent the bone marrow harvest which I had discussed in the previous two Gift of Life articles (Part 1 and Part 2). In the time preceding the harvest, I met with the doctors at Long Island Jewish Medical Center to have the preliminary screening tests, which were rigorous. Testing included... Read more →

Recently a very popular colleague of mine was hospitalized. He happened to be hospitalized at the facility where he works and thus you can imagine he was inundated with visitors and friends wanting to wish him well. Unfortunately, the terms of his hospitalization were emergent and thus he did not have... Read more →

It is that time of the year again when medical students start appearing on the wards. If you are a third year student you are now likely starting your clinical rotations. If you are a fourth year student you are probably embarking on away rotations to the specialty of your choice. Every physician has... Read more →

It seems that as of October 1, 2008, Medicare will no longer be reimbursing hospitals for eight conditions that befall patients who are hospitalized, and that might have been reasonably prevented using certain evidence-based measures. These eight conditions include: * Pressure ulcers (bed sores) ... Read more →

With healthcare being the stressful and serious environment it is, sometimes we can lose the lighter side of medicine. I wanted to share a few funny stories that have arisen from my training, in hopes that other professionals can get a chuckle, and share their own tales. 1. When I was a medical student... Read more →

Who is to blame when patients die in overcrowded and understaffed emergency rooms? The story of the death of a psychiatric patient in a large Brooklyn, New York hospital got my attention, both as a nurse and as a human being. These stories are, thankfully, rare but still happen too frequently. In this... Read more →

The eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. is medication error. This statistic may surprise you. Other frightening statistics include the following: * 7,000 deaths occur each year that are directly attributable to medication errors. * Errors occur around 1 in 5 times that medication is administered. *... Read more →

I read with interest my fellow Brain Blogger’s article on pharmacists and their essential value to the medical team. While pharmacists do not have prescribing power and often get a bad rap as being “pill counters,” it is clear to me that their position in the medical team food chain... Read more →

A physician frequently gets stopped in the hall of the hospital or gets paged by another doctor for an unofficial consult. In medicine, this is called a “curbside consult.” Essentially, one physician would like some input on a case without getting the consulting physician officially involved... Read more →

In an effort to make this blog more interactive, I’ve decided to start a new series of posts focusing on Ethics and Medicine. In this series I will post a series of cases and see what my readers think. Some of these will focus on the ethics of the doctor, some the patient, the hospital, and other... Read more →

I’ve decided to go ahead and post a series on Medicine and the Law. One of the things I hear about so often from both sides of the patient-physician relationship is the fear and threat of legal action. Typically physicians are paranoid of being sued. They practice defensive medicine and go out... Read more →