Short answer: No.

A recent study found that doctors who trained overseas and were not U.S. citizens when they entered medical school, had significantly lower mortality rates among their patients, compared to U.S. citizens trained in the U.S. and U.S.-born doctors who trained overseas.

The study looked at more than 244,000 hospitalizations in Pennsylvania, for patients suffering from heart attacks or congestive heart disease.

New research reveals that orthopedic surgeons who have an interest in specialty hospitals or ambulatory surgical centers are more likely to schedule patients for surgery. Significantly more. Patients treated by an owner-doc were 54% to 129% more likely to have carpal tunnel repair, 33% to 100% more likely to have rotator cuff repair, and 27% to 78% more likely to have arthroscopic surgery.

Federal law doesn’t allow physicians to refer Medicare and Medicaid patients to centers that the doctor has an ownership stake in. And most states have similar laws to protect private insurance patients.

But those laws don’t include specialty facilities or ambulatory surgical centers.

The study, which appears in the Archives of Surgery, looked at patients treated in Idaho between 2003 and 2007.

When provided with in-person, professional interpreters, patients who have limited-to-no English reported higher satisfaction in communicating with their health care provider. The treating physicians and nurses reported similar satisfaction.

While many hospitals have tried to accommodate patients by training employees in languages commonly seen in their ER — using patient family members to translate or providing phone/headphone-based interpreting services — the study found these all fell short when compared to on-site professional interpreters.

In fact, when patients had access to professional interpreters, patients, doctors and nurses were four times more likely to say they were satisfied with the interaction.

Researchers also found that patients with professional interpreters had shorter stays in the ED and had generally better outcomes.

The study was published in Annals of Emergency Medicine.

A new study from the American Medical Association looked into which doctors — by gender, age, specialty, etc. — are most likely to get sued or have other liability claims against them.

The report (downloadable) makes interesting — if sometimes maddening — gawking material. For example, a review of the records found that 65% of claims are dropped or dismissed, and another 30% are settled or decided via an alternate dispute method. Only 5% of claims actually go to court — of those, 90% are decided for the physician.

Even a win can be costly, however: Average costs to defend against a claim were just under $40,700. For claims that were dropped or withdrawn, it cost an average of just over $22k to defend; cases that go to trial average more than $100k to defend.

More frustrating: The rate of claims seems to have little correlation to actual malpractice. The AMA researchers found that among closed claims, 3% of patients hadn’t suffered any injury and in another 37%, there had been no error.

Worse: Many injured patients and wrongly accused doctors don’t get true justice. The researchers found that 27% of claims are paid despite the doctor not making an error. At the same time, 27% of patients who suffered from an error receive no compensation.

By the numbers

A doctor’s specialty, type of practice and even gender play a role in how likely he or she is to face liability claims.

Not surprisingly, the study found that the specialties with the highest rate of claims were general surgery and obstetrics/gynecology, with nearly 70% of physicians in those specialties facing suits during their careers.

Least likely to face claims: pediatricians and psychiatrists. Less than 30 percent of doctors in these specialties were sued during their careers.

The study also found that the type of practice can increase a doctor’s risk of being sued. Among physicians in solo practices or single specialty group practices, 45% faced lawsuits in their careers. The rate was only 40% for physicians working in hospitals, and 37% for doctors in multi-specialty group practices. Owners of practices are also more likely to be sued than employees.

Male doctors are twice as likely to be sued. In part, because they are concentrated in specialties with high rates of claims and are more likely to own their practices. The researchers noted that other studies indicate differences in interpersonal skills may contribute to some of the gender gap in lawsuits, but the data is difficult, at best, to quantify.

Researchers examined the brain scans of young women who regularly experienced moderate to severe menstrual cramps and compared them to scans of young women who reported minimal cramping.

They found that the women who suffered more severe cramps had several brain abnormalities, including:

• a decrease in volume in regions of the brain that control pain processing, higher-level sensory processing and emotional regulation, and
• an increase in volume in areas of the brain that handle pain modulation and endocrine function.

More research is needed to determine how the changes effect (or are affected by) the women’s menstrual symptoms. But researchers say the data shows that menstrual cramps and related symptoms need to be taken more seriously by the medical community, because they do have long-term consequences for women’s health.

The report is in the September issue of PAIN –
The Journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain.
.

That’s the takeaway of a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology (PDF).

Researchers found that non-native speakers had lower credibility scores — not due to prejudice or suspicion of their background, but because it’s simply a little harder to understand them.

The study’s authors theorize that the accents slow the listener’s processing speed, which unconsciously makes the information seem less credible.

Recent research found that doctors, in particular, are concerned that patients’ access to their notes could lead to needless confusion and concern and possibly worsen doctor-patient communication. The article appears in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Among the concerns doctors expressed:

• Common jargon/shorthand, such as using “patient complained SOB” for “patient presented with shortness of breath” may cause patients to be confused or even insulted.
• Doctors may feel the need to withhold speculative diagnoses, such as the chance a patient may have cancer, for fear of upsetting the patient before test results are in.
• Additional questions from patients who are confused or worried by something in their records may eat up already precious time from a doctor’s day.

No doubt, there may be some growing pains as clinicians and patients both learn to navigate with this new tool. But more information is likely to lead to better informed patients in the long run.

What are your thoughts? Will improved access to patient records help or hinder the doctor-patient relationship? Share your thoughts in the comments.

A new study found 36% of doctors don’t think it’s their responsibility to report fellow physicians who are under-performing — and potentially endangering patients. The research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Why doctors won’t report other docs — and who is least likely to report — may surprise you.

According to the researchers, doctors gave the following reasons for why they wouldn’t report a peer:

• assumption that someone else would handle it (19%)
• belief that nothing would be done (15%)
• fear of retribution (12%)
• belief that it isn’t the doctor’s responsibility to report (10%), and
• fear that punishment for the reported doc would be too harsh (9%).

The study also found that some doctors are more likely to report incompetent peers than others. The physicians least likely to report were those working in small practices and those who are underrepresented in the profession, such as minorities and international medical grads. But women were slightly more likely to report a peer than men were. Doctors practicing for fewer than 10 years, or for more than 30 years, were more likely to report than physicians in their mid-career.

Among the different specialties, the most likely to report were anesthesiologists and psychiatrists (76% each). Cardiologists (63%) and pediatricians (59%) were the least likely to report a peer.

A new study found that in a significant portion of children with chronic conditions such as asthma, obesity, behavioral/learning problems and other physical conditions, resolved over the course of just six years.

The researchers argue the data indicates that care providers should put more emphasis on prevention and intervention and less on continuing care that might not be needed long-term.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The U.S. health care system ranked last in a recent comparison of six other large countries.

Despite the amount of money spent each year, and the rigorous training health care providers undergo, the results just don’t equal those of other countries, according to the study done by the Commonwealth Fund.

The report compared the U.S. health care system with those of Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands and New Zealand.

It found that the U.S. spends more than twice as much as most other countries — while still ranking last on safety. The U.S. also came in close to or at the bottom of the list in several other key areas, such as number of patients who forgo care due to the cost and access to primary care providers.

Overall, the U.S. ranked last. Netherlands topped the list.

You can see the full report here.