How Much Paperwork for a Doctor and Other Professions?

Image courtesy of Gualberto107 at  FreeDigitalPhotos.net The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a paper which investigated how much time a doctor spends on paperwork after following 57 U.S. physicians in family medicine, internal medicine, cardiology, and orthopedics who were observed for 430 hours, 21 of whom also completed after-hours diaries. The conclusion was during a typical day, 27.0% of their total time was on direct clinical face time with patients and 49.2% on "…

12/17/2016 0

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How Fast Should an Emergency Tracheostomy Take?

Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net When faced with an emergency airway situation, a surgical airway may be required in order to save a person's life. Such surgical airways include emergency tracheostomy or cricothyroidotomy. The main question here is how quickly should such a procedure take in order for it to be considered a success? Clearly, it should take less than 4 minutes given that is how long a brain can survive without oxygen before permanent damage sets in…

2/04/2016 0

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Germs Are Winning the Antibiotics Arms Race

When human scientists develop a new antibiotic to kill a germ... how long do you think it takes before germs develop a resistance to the antibiotic? 10 years? 20 years? If only that was true... In reality, it's only a few years now (typically less than three years). Check out this table made by the CDC that shows when an antibiotic was created by humans on one side and when germs develop a resistance on the other side. Some interesting things to note from the table: - Penici…

1/05/2016 0

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The Fallacy of Hard Work for Determining Healthcare Costs

Image courtesy of stockimages at  FreeDigitalPhotos.net One day, I lost the key to a safe deposit box I keep in the house. I called the locksmith who came and got the door to the safe open with his lock-picks in under 3 minutes. The charge? $400. For many people, this charge may seem outrageous. $400 for 3 minutes of work? If it had taken the locksmith an hour, most people would probably not have complained about a $400 charge, because he put in a lot of "hard work." What peo…

9/10/2015 0

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Hearing Loss Over Time

It is well-known that professional musicians have a higher risk of hearing loss and tinnitus compared to non-musicians. According to one study , the risk for musicians is 1.5x for hearing loss and nearly 4x for tinnitus. And although people understand that as you get older, hearing loss increases, what is less clear is how quickly hearing loss occurs over time. After analyzing over 3 million subjects , here is the graph of hearing loss with age. Intuitively, I thought there would have bee…

5/03/2014 0

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Unhappy with Your Appointment Day/Time with your Doctor?

A common complaint for patients is how long it may take to get in to see a medical specialist. A new patient appointment may be 1-2 weeks away when an earlier appointment may be desired. What to do? Of course, one can call around to every single specialist office in the region to see who has the next earliest appointment. Other options which may work just as well include the following: • Do NOT limit yourself to a specific day of the week and time. Always use the phrase "the very…

8/24/2013 0

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