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Bedside Manner Even More Important for Hospital Patients Admitted Via the ER

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Being rushed into hospital care can be an emotional experience. So, what a surgeon says to trauma or emergency surgery patients plays a role in how satisfied they are after their operations, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 187,000 patients discharged from 168 HCA Healthcare hospitals in the United States in 2018 and 2019. HCA Healthcare is a publicly traded company based in Nashville, Tenn. The goal was to determine how several factors — including interactions with nurses and doctors — contributed to satisfaction ratings in five patient categories: trauma; elective surgery; emergency surgery; emergency medical; and elective medical. “Nurses uniformly come out as the most highly ranked, and that’s because they provide wonderful bedside care and have so much contact with the patients,” said study author Dr. Samir Fakhry, vice president of HCA Healthcare’s Center for Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Research. “But in the case of the trauma patients, and to a lesser degree the emergency surgical patients, physician communication ranked as the number two factor,” Fakhry added. Among trauma and emergency surgery patients, physician communication had a significant impact on overall satisfaction after nursing factors were accounted for, representing a 12% increase in the former and an 8.6% increase in the latter group, the researchers found. Among elective surgery and medical admission patients, physician communication didn’t even rank as…  read on >  read on >

Drugged Driving a Growing Threat on America’s Roads

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Combining drugs with driving is a potentially deadly but all too common combination in the United States, according to a new report. University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers found that almost 9% of adults reported driving under the influence of alcohol. Marijuana use among drivers was more than 4%, while many adults also use both pot and other drugs in combination with alcohol. The most commonly reported drugs used while driving were marijuana and opioids, the study found. “We need to focus our efforts on drugged driving, in addition to drunk driving, because drugged driving causes such a high level of fatalities,” said study lead author Andrew Yockey. He’s a doctoral student in UC’s College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services. With lawful marijuana use rising in the United States, there are concerns about road safety, the researchers said in a university news release. Keith King, director of the UC Center for Prevention Science, said, “There is serious concern as to how legalization will affect driving behaviors among adults.” King called for more research to evaluate the impact of legalization. The team also emphasized education at an early age and identifying culturally relevant prevention strategies. For the study, the researchers used sample data from the 2016 to 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The investigators found that men were significantly more likely than…  read on >  read on >

‘So Happy:’ World’s First Hand/Face Transplant Patient Doing Well

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Joe DiMeo’s life changed forever when he fell asleep at the wheel on U.S. Route 22 in New Jersey on July 14, 2018. The horrific crash left him with third-degree burns on 80% of his body and a grim prognosis. Now, more than two years later, DiMeo, 22, is the recipient of the world’s first successful double hand and face transplant, and on the road to recovery. The historic surgery, which took place on Aug. 12, 2020, at NYU Langone in New York City, involved more than 140 health care professionals. Over 23 hours, they successfully transplanted two hands, three dominant nerves to the hand, six blood vessels, 21 tendons and a full face, including forehead, eyebrows, both ears, nose, eyelids, lips, and underlying skull, cheek, nasal and chin bone segments. Face and hand transplants have been performed independently, but this double procedure had been attempted twice before and was unsuccessful both times. For this procedure, surgeons used computer-generated three-dimensional guides. They ensured that bones were properly aligned and implants were in position to anchor the grafted face and hands to DiMeo. Technology aside, a big part of DiMeo’s success owes to his can-do attitude, according to the head of his surgical team, Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, director of NYU Langone’s Face Transplant Program. “He is the most highly motivated patient I have ever met,” Rodriguez…  read on >  read on >

Pfizer Vaccine Is 90% Effective 3 Weeks After First Shot, Early Study Shows

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Just one dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine might be enough to largely protect people from being infected with COVID-19, preliminary research shows. The vaccine became 90% effective 21 days after the first shot in a two-dose regimen, said British researchers who looked at data from Israel, where the vaccine has been rolled out to a large portion of the population. “A second dose of the Pfizer vaccine would normally be given 21 days or more after the first, to top up and lengthen the effect of the first dose,” explained lead researcher Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School. “But here in the U.K., the decision was made to delay the timing of the second injection until 12 weeks after the first,” Hunter said in a university news release. “The logic behind this is to protect more people sooner and so reduce the total number of severe infections, hospitalizations and deaths,” Hunter explained. “But this decision caused criticism from some quarters, due in part to a belief that a single injection may not give adequate immunity.” Hunter noted that an earlier study, which has not been peer-reviewed, reported that a single shot of the Pfizer vaccine might not provide sufficient protection. “But we saw a number of flaws in how they looked at the data, including the fact that they did…  read on >  read on >

Bedside Manner Even More Important for Hospital Patients Admitted Via the ER

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Being rushed into hospital care can be an emotional experience. So, what a surgeon says to trauma or emergency surgery patients plays a role in how satisfied they are after their operations, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 187,000 patients discharged from 168 HCA Healthcare hospitals in the United States in 2018 and 2019. HCA Healthcare is a publicly traded company based in Nashville, Tenn. The goal was to determine how several factors — including interactions with nurses and doctors — contributed to satisfaction ratings in five patient categories: trauma; elective surgery; emergency surgery; emergency medical; and elective medical. “Nurses uniformly come out as the most highly ranked, and that’s because they provide wonderful bedside care and have so much contact with the patients,” said study author Dr. Samir Fakhry, vice president of HCA Healthcare’s Center for Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Research. “But in the case of the trauma patients, and to a lesser degree the emergency surgical patients, physician communication ranked as the number two factor,” Fakhry added. Among trauma and emergency surgery patients, physician communication had a significant impact on overall satisfaction after nursing factors were accounted for, representing a 12% increase in the former and an 8.6% increase in the latter group, the researchers found. Among elective surgery and medical admission patients, physician communication didn’t even rank as…  read on >  read on >

Drugged Driving a Growing Threat on America’s Roads

By | | Add a Comment

Combining drugs with driving is a potentially deadly but all too common combination in the United States, according to a new report. University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers found that almost 9% of adults reported driving under the influence of alcohol. Marijuana use among drivers was more than 4%, while many adults also use both pot and other drugs in combination with alcohol. The most commonly reported drugs used while driving were marijuana and opioids, the study found. “We need to focus our efforts on drugged driving, in addition to drunk driving, because drugged driving causes such a high level of fatalities,” said study lead author Andrew Yockey. He’s a doctoral student in UC’s College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services. With lawful marijuana use rising in the United States, there are concerns about road safety, the researchers said in a university news release. Keith King, director of the UC Center for Prevention Science, said, “There is serious concern as to how legalization will affect driving behaviors among adults.” King called for more research to evaluate the impact of legalization. The team also emphasized education at an early age and identifying culturally relevant prevention strategies. For the study, the researchers used sample data from the 2016 to 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The investigators found that men were significantly more likely than…  read on >  read on >

1 in 3 Young Americans Prescribed a Psychiatric Drug Misuses Them: Study

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Many young Americans are prescribed psychiatric drugs to treat medical conditions, but nearly one-third of them wind up misusing the medications, a new study finds. “Misuse of prescription substances is alarmingly high among U.S. youth and young adults,” said lead researcher Israel Agaku, a part-time lecturer in oral health policy and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, in Boston. The study found that, overall, 35% of young people (aged 12 to 25) said they had taken a prescribed psychoactive drug in the past year, and 31% of those said they had misused that drug. While opioids were the most commonly prescribed drug, misuse of stimulants and tranquilizers was higher. Psychotropic drugs change a person’s mental state and can have intoxicating effects. “This study draws attention to the silent epidemic of prescription stimulant use among youth,” Agaku said. “With increasing popularity of performance-enhancing stimulants in schools, it is imperative for policymakers, school administrators, health care professionals and parents to become more aware of this emerging danger and take appropriate steps, similar to what has been done for the opioid epidemic.” Dr. Scott Krakower, an attending psychiatrist in child and adolescent psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y., said, “It is very alarming to see so many young people having access to controlled substances.” It is important for doctors to screen for illicit…  read on >  read on >

Segregation, Poverty Tied to Worse Outcomes for Black Lung Cancer Patients

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Racial segregation may help explain why Black Americans with lung cancer do more poorly than their white counterparts, a new study suggests. For years, U.S. studies have documented racial disparities in lung cancer. Black Americans are less likely to receive surgery for early-stage lung cancer — the standard of care — and they typically die sooner. The reasons, however, are not fully clear. Researchers said the new study implicates residential segregation — a manifestation of structural racism — in the disparities. It found that Black lung cancer patients living in the most segregated U.S. counties were 49% more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage, compared to those living in the least segregated counties. And among those with early-stage lung cancer, Black patients in highly segregated areas were 47% less likely to receive surgery. In the past, racial disparities in health outcomes were often attributed to genetics, according to Dr. Michael Poulson, a resident physician at Boston Medical Center who worked on the study. “But we all know race is a social construct,” Poulson said. These findings, he said, highlight the role of historical policies, including “redlining,” that devalued areas with large Black populations. Lack of investment in those areas meant fewer businesses, fewer job opportunities, more poverty, poorer housing and fewer health care facilities. And the health effects are still being felt, the…  read on >  read on >

‘So Happy:’ World’s First Hand/Face Transplant Patient Doing Well

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Joe DiMeo’s life changed forever when he fell asleep at the wheel on U.S. Route 22 in New Jersey on July 14, 2018. The horrific crash left him with third-degree burns on 80% of his body and a grim prognosis. Now, more than two years later, DiMeo, 22, is the recipient of the world’s first successful double hand and face transplant, and on the road to recovery. The historic surgery, which took place on Aug. 12, 2020, at NYU Langone in New York City, involved more than 140 health care professionals. Over 23 hours, they successfully transplanted two hands, three dominant nerves to the hand, six blood vessels, 21 tendons and a full face, including forehead, eyebrows, both ears, nose, eyelids, lips, and underlying skull, cheek, nasal and chin bone segments. Face and hand transplants have been performed independently, but this double procedure had been attempted twice before and was unsuccessful both times. For this procedure, surgeons used computer-generated three-dimensional guides. They ensured that bones were properly aligned and implants were in position to anchor the grafted face and hands to DiMeo. Technology aside, a big part of DiMeo’s success owes to his can-do attitude, according to the head of his surgical team, Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, director of NYU Langone’s Face Transplant Program. “He is the most highly motivated patient I have ever met,” Rodriguez…  read on >  read on >

Pfizer Vaccine Is 90% Effective 3 Weeks After First Shot, Early Study Shows

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Just one dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine might be enough to largely protect people from being infected with COVID-19, preliminary research shows. The vaccine became 90% effective 21 days after the first shot in a two-dose regimen, said British researchers who looked at data from Israel, where the vaccine has been rolled out to a large portion of the population. “A second dose of the Pfizer vaccine would normally be given 21 days or more after the first, to top up and lengthen the effect of the first dose,” explained lead researcher Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School. “But here in the U.K., the decision was made to delay the timing of the second injection until 12 weeks after the first,” Hunter said in a university news release. “The logic behind this is to protect more people sooner and so reduce the total number of severe infections, hospitalizations and deaths,” Hunter explained. “But this decision caused criticism from some quarters, due in part to a belief that a single injection may not give adequate immunity.” Hunter noted that an earlier study, which has not been peer-reviewed, reported that a single shot of the Pfizer vaccine might not provide sufficient protection. “But we saw a number of flaws in how they looked at the data, including the fact that they did…  read on >  read on >