Back/Spine Surgery Category Archives — Page 2 of 4 — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

July 31, 2020

Road toll, gun violence, heat risks, pesky skeeters — yipes, the perils abound

While the Covid-19 pandemic rages on, other major killers of Americans — threats posed by vehicles and guns, as well as searing weather and nasty critters like mosquitoes — have not stopped. People need to be aware and safeguard themselves as they can from these risks.

The data keep growing and the news, for example, continues to be glum about the coronavirus lockdowns and road mayhem. As NBC News reported:

“Motor vehicle fatalities surged by 23.5% in May, as drivers took advantage of open roads to push to autobahn speeds, a situation made easier by the fact that authorities in many communities were pulling back on enforcement, in part, to avoid risking the possibility of their officers becoming exposed to the coronavirus. According to the National Safety Council (NSC) report, the May numbers mark the third-straight month that U.S. motorists were at a higher risk of dying from a crash …”

November 15, 2019

13 million and one reasons why simultaneous operations should be barred

by Patrick A. Malone

A big Boston hospital has offered 13 million and one ways to try to make good with a former orthopedic surgeon who assailed the respected institution and colleagues for performing simultaneous operations in which doctors went from suite to suite, working for hours on multiple patients at once.

Massachusetts General Hospital insisted this practice was safe. Dr. Dennis Burke, a hip and knee specialist whose patients have included former Secretary of State John Kerry, disagreed. He told his bosses at the Harvard-affiliated hospital that simultaneous procedures put patients at risk, and, at minimum, they should be told that the surgeons they flocked to for surgery on them might pop in and out of their procedures.

Burke infuriated his bosses by taking his criticisms outside the hospital, including to investigative reporters for the Boston Globe. The newspaper dug into hospital surgeries, particularly in orthopedic cases where operations lasted for hours.

November 7, 2019

‘Any One of Us’ shows harsh realities and hope for spinal cord injury patients

by Patrick A. Malone

Extreme sports may be to blame. Or it might be a falling tree, an error with a surgery, or an auto wreck.

As the title of the tough, direct, and new HBO documentary makes clear, “Any One of Us” might suffer from a calamitous spinal cord injury (SCI). The 1-hour and 25-minute work by first-time director Fernando Villena focuses on pro mountain biker Paul Basagoitia but is carried by a “chorus” of 17 women and men who all have had significant injuries to their spinal cords.

May 24, 2019

Walmart sees a bigger picture with costly imaging: frequent misdiagnosis

by Patrick A. Malone

As Walmart tries to work with its 1 million-plus U.S. employees in controlling health care costs, the retailing giant has not only struck a blow for quality medical treatment, it also has raised key questions about a costly and booming specialization in health care: medical imaging.

Walmart decided to shake up this diagnostic field by telling its employees to pay more themselves or to first seek CT scans and MRIs at one of 800 imaging centers that a company-retained health care consulting firm has identified as providing high-quality care. Covera Health, a New York City-based health analytics company, “uses data to help spot facilities likely to provide accurate imaging for a wide variety of conditions, from cancer to torn knee ligaments,” Kaiser Health News Service reported.

KHN reporter Phil Galewitz said Walmart targeted improved imaging based on the giant retailers’ experiences already in funneling workers to select facilities its research has found to offer efficient, high-quality care in specific areas, such as organ transplantation, back and knee surgeries, and heart and cancer treatment.

December 22, 2017

It’s not a stretch: Avoid those over-use boo-boos, older yogis are warned

by Patrick A. Malone

For seniors who may be rushing to squeeze in a few more pretzel-twisting sessions to ease their stress from a hectic holiday season, this is a gentle reminder: Take it easy with the yoga. It can be good for you, but don’t overdo it or you may hurt yourself.

The Washington Post reported that the number of yoga devotees has climbed to an estimated 36.7 million Americans, many of whom find that stretching and posing in various styles makes them breathe and feel better, as well being more limber, focused, and relaxed. Yoga also has special appeal to older practitioners, 17 percent of them in their 50s and 21 percent 60 and older, according to a study conducted by a yoga publication.

But public health researchers from the University of Alabama Birmingham, after examining electronic data on almost 30,000 yoga-related injuries that led patients to emergency room treatment between 2001 and 2014, reported that:

December 5, 2017

Does modern medicine give patients with major brain trauma really fair care?

by Patrick A. Malone

Nick Tullier once was a handsome, strapping sheriff’s deputy in Baton Rouge, La. Then, in a blink, he and five others were gunned down by a former Marine and black separatist who had come from Missouri to Louisiana to kill cops. Tullier was one of three deputies who survived the attack.

What happened next to him is part of a series worth reading in the Houston Chronicle, a year-long dig the newspaper has dubbed “Alive Inside.” The work asks whether doctors and hospitals across the country have stayed current with medical advances that maybe, just might, possibly offer greater glimmers of hope to patients like Tullier who suffer traumatic brain injuries.

Such individuals, the Chronicle carefully says, may too quickly be deemed too injured to survive. Doctors, in sincere acts of perceived compassion, may be too fast to urge family and loved ones to withhold or halt medical services for the brain-injured, partly out of the pragmatic reality that their recovery prospects remain poor.

October 6, 2017

For young athletes, head contact and infections can pose costly risks

by Patrick A. Malone

Parents happily send their eager youngsters off to a demanding array of sports activities, in the belief that athletics will improve their health and well-being. But, especially for active young men, life as a jock can carry costly long-term risks and immediate infection perils.

A Yale economist and colleagues have scrutinized available public data and estimated that by changing some contact sports like football into their less violent forms (like touch or flag versions), almost 50,000 fewer collegiate and 600,000 or so high school injuries would be averted. Figuring in the costs of medical care and time lost, this could mean a savings of $1.5 billion at the college level and $19.2 billion for high schools.

The researchers came to these big sum conclusions after looking at four types of serious injuries: concussions and damage to the nervous system, bone injuries, torn tissue, and muscle and cartilage injuries. They said that the popularity and prevalence of high contact sports like football in explaining why athletics’ economic toll can be so high.

February 24, 2017

Low back pain? Try exercise before drugs, doctors say

by Patrick A. Malone

Back pain is one of Americans’ leading debilitating complaints, prompting us to spend billions of dollars annually for relief and costing more than $100 billion, especially in lost work and wages. But an influential physicians’ group, joining a growing number of other experts, now recommends that we buck up, exercise, keep moving—and stay away from a reflexive reach for drugs, especially powerful painkillers, to deal with aching backs.

The American College of Physicians, with guidelines published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, concedes it is breaking with longstanding medical views on treating low back pain. But the group’s experts said they conducted a “systematic review of randomized, controlled trials and systematic reviews published through April 2015 on noninvasive pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatments for low back pain.”

They found that many patients with low back pain recovered over time “regardless of treatment,” and these individuals might benefit most from heat, rest, exercise, and over the counter, non-steroidal medications. Another group of back pain sufferers might need physical therapy, stress reduction, acupuncture, yoga, or ta-chi. Only after patients have not found relief with “non-pharmacological therapy,” should doctors consider giving non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen or naproxen. If these don’t work, tramadol (Cymbalta) or duloxetine (Ultram) might be considered.

January 3, 2017

More spent on health care in U.S. than on everything in Britain

by Patrick A. Malone

What if you bought the hottest car around, only to find a neighbor found a model just as sporty and paid much less? How would you react if you opened your credit card bill and learned that the family budget was in tatters because your daughter commuted a few blocks to school by taxi, and your son had racked up huge charges for junky electronic gadgets and questionable movies online? Your consternation would be a tiny fraction of the great concern that most of us should experience due to a new study that finds that Americans spent $3.2 trillion on health care in 2014.

If you’re like me, when figures get that big, they become hard to grasp. But for comparison’s sake, the United States’ medical spending exceeded the 2015 gross domestic product (the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a given country’s borders in a specific time period) for the economies of: Britain, France, Canada, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Indonesia, Australia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and the Netherlands.

Americans spent more on back and neck pain than Russia did on its military and national defense.

November 8, 2016

Surgeon jailed in Dallas, as details unwind still of his terrible spine surgery spree

by Patrick A. Malone

Just how difficult can it be to stop a highly credentialed but dangerous doctor from hop-scotching around a metropolitan area to perform brutal spinal surgeries in different hospitals, including a respected academic medical center? Just ask crippled patients, neurosurgeons, medical licensing officials, and prosecutors in Dallas what it took to derail Dr. Christopher Duntsch.

As detailed well in the latest edition of the upscale city magazine D, Duntsch was a high-flying physician who moved from Tennessee to Texas, carrying with him an excellent reputation, which later would be challenged, as a medical scientist. Although established as a cancer stem cell-researcher, the neurosurgeon also morphed himself into a spinal surgeon based on training earlier in his career. He eventually won privileges to operate at three Dallas area hospitals, including the well-regarded Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano, Texas.

He was a loner and boastful, though colleagues liked him at first. They quickly were horrified by his surgeries. Among the damages he is criminally accused of inflicting: amputating a patient’s spinal nerve, causing paralysis; cutting another patient’s vertebral artery and ignoring the major bleeding that occurred; installing a too-long screw so that it punctured a big vein, causing extensive bleeding and nerve damage; slashing a patient’s esophagus and a neck artery, leaving the man struggling to eat, breathe, and with blood loss to the brain.