My Strong Medicine

The adventures of a male nurse navigating through life, staying fit, surviving the journey.

Posts Tagged ‘surgery’

Need Surgery : Is a more experienced surgeon better?

Posted by Sean on January 12, 2012

Once again, this was a weak study design. But, it sure does raise some eyebrows doesn’t it?

I think having the experience is paramount, but does the experienced surgeon grow with the changing face of medicine? Experience can be a tricky thing.

Previous studies have shown doctors reach their peak performance levels after about 10 years of experience in their specialty. Few studies have looked at the association between experience and performance in an objective manner. The intent of this study was to model the associations between experience and outcomes among surgeons performing thyroid procedures.

Read the entire story here: via Medical News: Older Surgeons May Not Be Better Surgeons – in Surgery, General Surgery from MedPage Today.

Posted in health, opinion | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Are quieter hospitals safer?

Posted by Sean on June 11, 2011

This was another retrospective study that can raise some eyebrows, but it doesn’t do a good job relating direct cause and effect. Still interesting to say the least.

Hip and knee replacement surgery is riskier in hospitals that carry out fewer operations, researchers have found. People are more likely to get blood clots or die at quieter hospitals, compared with hospitals that perform the operations regularly.

According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, around 800,000 hip and knee replacement surgeries are performed in the United States each year. A joint replacement can help people with severe arthritis move around more easily and have less pain, but it involves major surgery and things can sometimes go wrong.

In the study, which looked at the medical records of around 30,000 people, hospitals that performed more than 200 hip or knee replacements each year had better results. Patients treated in hospitals that performed fewer operations ran a higher risk of getting a blood clot or dying within a year of surgery.

In hospitals that performed 25 or fewer hip replacements a year, 4 in 100 people died within a year of their operation. In hospitals performing more than 200, the death rate was less than 1 in 100….

……

Hip and knee surgery riskier at quieter hospitals | Consumer Reports

Posted in health | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.