Wrongful Death Suit Filed After Patient Waited Hours in Emergency Room Lobby
After a patient died while waiting for care in an emergency department waiting room in Washington state, the woman’s husband has filed suit against the hospital, Providence Regional Medical Center Everett. Sean Costello, individually and on behalf of the estate of Cheyenna Costello, alleged that his wife’s death at the age of 41 in November […]
Opinion | Medical Debt Is Killing Our Patients
Venkat is an emergency physician and state representative. As an emergency medicine resident in the early 2000s, I cared for a patient in her early 60s with back pain. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), approximately 16% of emergency department patients were uninsured. Often their issues were of low acuity, again […]
Opinion | Violence in Healthcare: Why Are People So Angry?
Ho is an emergency physician. The first time I was assaulted in healthcare, I was a third-year medical student. An incarcerated, agitated patient handcuffed to a gurney rail in the emergency department fought so hard, the entire metal rail separated from the bed. The 6-foot piece of heavy steel would’ve gone flying into my skull […]
Opinion | Questions You Should Be Asking About How Your Physician Group Works
Pines and Aldeen are emergency medicine physicians and leaders of a physician-owned emergency medicine group. Emergency physicians experience burnout at three times the rate of the average doctor. A common refrain underlying this is that corporatization by so-called contract management groups (CMGs) interferes with the physician-patient relationship and erodes the specialty. Acerbic posts in the […]
Opinion | It Shouldn’t Take Another Pandemic to Invest in Digital Health
Saldanha is chief innovation officer of a health system. The public health emergency, declared in 2020 as a result of the COVID pandemic, fostered the creation of waivers and exemptions that allowed for the widespread use of digital health, including telemedicine and remote patient monitoring. With the public health emergency ending earlier this year, many […]
Opinion | How Much Anguish Must Residents Experience?
Nwodim is an emergency medicine resident. I just completed intern year of my emergency medicine (EM) residency. It was rewarding, but also the most emotionally laborious year of my life. Amidst becoming a family member’s caretaker due to illness, and then working 60- to 90-hour weeks, my emotional anguish experienced as an EM resident has […]
Opinion | ‘Can’t Just Sit Back and Walk Away With a Settlement’: What We Heard This Week
“I can’t just sit back and walk away with a settlement.” — Ming Lin, MD, an emergency medicine physician who was fired early in the COVID pandemic for airing alleged safety concerns. “This is getting at the whole diagnostic odyssey for rare diseases.” — P.J. Brooks, PhD, acting director of NIH’s NCATS’ Division of Rare […]
Fired COVID Whistleblower Will Take His Case to Trial With New Lawyers
Ming Lin, MD, the emergency physician who was fired early in the COVID pandemic for airing alleged safety concerns, has hired new lawyers to take his case to trial. After parting ways with lawyers working for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) because he didn’t want to settle his case as they recommended, Lin selected […]
Opinion | The Straw-Man Argument Against California’s COVID Misinfo Law
Sawyer is an emergency medicine doctor. An article in the South Carolina Post and Courier in early 2022 recounts how a patient levied grave accusations against his physician. The doctor was accused of persistently trivializing the dangers of COVID, recommending hydroxychloroquine as treatment, and purportedly alleging that the vaccines were concocted as a sinister plot […]
Return of Rule Nixing Delivery of Rx Drugs to Medicare Patients Drawing Docs’ Ire
Community oncologists are up in arms about a little-known consequence of the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE): the return of a rule barring them from mailing or home-delivering chemotherapy drugs to their Medicare patients. The rule comes from a nine-page Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document published in September 2021 on the federal […]