Pandemic Leads Doctors to Rethink Unnecessary Treatment
Covid-caused delays in medical treatments and surgeries are producing data for health care providers to take another look at whatās needed and what isnāt.
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Covid-caused delays in medical treatments and surgeries are producing data for health care providers to take another look at whatās needed and what isnāt.
A new federal regulation makes it easy to get test results and see what your doctor is recording about your health. One downside: You might not understand what you read.
The pandemic has demonstrated that virtual medicine is great for simple visits. But many new types of telemedicine promoted by start-ups more clearly benefit providersā and investorsā pockets, rather than yielding more convenient, high-quality and cost-effective medicine for patients.
Itās time to consider primary care a ācommon goodā akin to public education and shore up the foundation of the pandemic-battered U.S. health system, report says.
The percentage of medical students who canāt find residencies is increasing every year. But as more graduates look for support, they might not realize that two organizations offering it are backed by anti-immigrant groups.
For years, women with painful gynecological issues have faced long waits in ERs or longer waits to see their doctors. During the pandemic, women have increasingly turned to womenās clinics that handle urgent issues like miscarriage or serious urinary tract infections.
Exclusive: The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says health workers āhave lived up to the oath they takeā but says shortages of protective gear have contributed to excess deaths.
As The Guardian and KHN end Lost on the Frontline, a yearlong project to count health care worker deaths in the pandemic, the White House is under pressure to take up the task.
As of Wednesday, the KHN-Guardian project counted 3,607 U.S. health worker deaths in the first year of the pandemic. Today we add 39 profiles, including a hospice chaplain, a nurse who spoke to intubated patients "like they were listening," and a home health aide who couldn't afford to stop working. This is the most comprehensive count in the nation as of April 2021, and our interactive database investigates the question: Did they have to die?
Dr. Linath Lim came to the U.S. as a refugee after slaving at work camps under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. Even with little English or education when she arrived, Lim put herself through college and medical school. As an internal medicine doctor in Californiaās Central Valley, she treated farmworkers and other Cambodian refugees.
The emergence of an organization for med students motivated by progressive concerns highlights the changing attitudes of some physicians in training.
Same building. Same procedure. Same doctor. But now youāre charged a hospital facility fee. For one Ohio Medicare patient, the copay for a shot that used to cost her about $30 went up to more than $300.
One group of maternal health experts in 2016 urged doctors to give all women heparin shots after C-sections, barring specific medical risks for individual patients. But many physicians disagree, questioning whether wide use of the drug is effective, worth the cost and safe, since it carries the risk of bleeding.
The numbers of people wearing these monitors are soaring as prices have fallen and device-makers promote them to doctors and patients. But few studies show the devices lead to better outcomes for the nearly 25 million Americans with Type 2 diabetes who donāt inject insulin to regulate their blood sugar.
Dr. Paloma Marin-Nevarez graduated from medical school during the pandemic. We follow the rookie doctor for her first months working at a hospital in Fresno, California, as she grapples with isolation, anti-mask rallies and an overwhelming number of deaths.
Hospitals dealing with staff shortages during the current covid surge are unable to tap into one valuable resource: foreign-trained doctors, nurses and other health workers, many with experience treating infectious diseases. Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Nevada are the only states to have eased credentialing requirements during the pandemic.
Doctors say some patients, and even medical staff members, donāt know where to go to be vaccinated against covid-19.
A growing body of research shows that overuse and misuse of antibiotics in childrenās hospitals is helping fuel superbugs, which typically strike frail seniors but are increasingly infecting kids. And the pandemic is making things worse.
The National Academy of Sciences cites journalistsā āLost on the Frontlineā project in a push to expand federal tracking of worker fatalities.
At least 2,900 health workers have died since the pandemic began. Many were minorities with the highest levels of patient contact.
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