doctors

Things you don't really want to know, part CXII: Doctors don't always wash their hands

adamg — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 03:12:57 +0000

Beth Israel CEO Paul Levy shares with us a photo of two Petri dishes - one showing bacteria cultured from his hands before he washed them and one showing a dish that's pretty much empty because he washed his hands before the second sample.

Yah, so? Levy uses them to illustrate why he and his medical chiefs have to keep reminding doctors and nurses to wash their hands before they see each patient, because based on a New England Journal of Medicine article, they often don't:

It is inconceivable to those of us who are not doctors or nurses that caregivers would not follow simple standards for hand hygiene. We wonder why it does not occur. ... Again, we lay people might wonder why it is necessary to provide such advice and reminders to people who have been trained in medical school; but since it is apparently necessary, my colleagues at BIDMC and other hospitals will continue to do so.

Doctors from hell

adamg — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:33:10 +0000

Margaret posts a copy of a letter she sent to Cambridge Health Alliance about her post-operative care (or lack thereof) following some knee surgery at Cambridge Hospital. For example, the night after surgery, she woke up in excruciating pain and had her husband call the orthopedics department for advice. A doctor calls her back:

... "You have your pain medication?" He asked.

"Yes they gave me Tylenol 3 but..." At this point he cut me off.

"There's nothing I can do for you."

Then he berated me for waking him up at 3:00 in the morning. Isn't that his job? I am an IT professional and I have gotten the odd phone call in the middle of the night and I would never treat somebody the way Dr. Antounian treated me. It was horrible. I was in excruciating pain and this guy's way of "helping me" was to yell at me for waking him up. He told me to ice it and wouldn't listen when I tried to tell him that I'd had a cold cryo-cuff on it since the surgery.

Then he hung up and that was that. ...

Should the TB doc be permanently barred from practicing medicine?

adamg — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:07:18 +0000

Yes

43% (12 votes)

Don't know

14% (4 votes)

Total votes: 28