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A large study published August 6th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) has connected higher heart attack survival rates to women patients treated by a female doctor. Heart attacks are the leading cause of death for both men and women in this country. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), a woman dies every 80 seconds from a heart attack. Women are also more likely to die from a heart attack than men, the reasons for which have never been proven.

Women MDs Linked to Heart Attack Survival

The study, entitled “Patient-physician gender concordance and increased mortality among female heart attack patients,” relied on hospital records of 582,000 heart attack patients in Florida hospitals over the nearly 20 year period between 1991 and 2010.

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“Today, this is the most dangerous place in the developed world to give birth.”                                                                          -USA Today: “Hospitals know how to protect mothers. They just aren’t doing it.” (July 27, 2018)

Last Friday, USA Today published a report with findings from their investigation into hospital records and personal stories and has concluded that hospitals are failing mothers by missing symptoms that indicate serious maternal complications. The report, entitled “Hospitals know how to protect mothers. They just aren’t doing it.,” shared the CDC’s statistic that 50,000 women a year in this country suffer a serious complication during delivery. Around 700 mothers die a year.

These statistics alone might not sound significant given that there are nearly 4 million births a year in the U.S., but the frightening part is that despite being a wealthy, industrialized country, our maternal death rate is getting worse and is the WORST of any developed country. We are the only country besides Sudan and Afghanistan whose maternal death rate is on the rise, despite the belief by many that we have the best care in the world.

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A recent study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings reveals that 54% of American physicians report feeling burnt out at work. Lead study author, Stanford pediatric physician Daniel S. Tawfik, and his team found that those experiencing burnout were TWO times as likely to have made a major medical error in the last 3 months. Study authors also believe that based on this information, 1/3 of all American physicians are experiencing burnout at any given time.  Researchers describe burnout as “emotional exhaustion or cynicism.”

The study questioned 6,586 physicians in active practice at an American hospital or clinic and asked them to report feelings of burnout, excessive fatigue, recent suicidal thoughts, their thoughts on patient safety on the unit in which they primarily work, as well as those who had made a major medical error. The authors found:

  • 54.3%  of physicians admitted feeling burnt out
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The Center for Justice & Democracy, a consumer rights advocacy group out of New York Law School, has compiled a review of medical malpractice incidents and has publicly shared their findings. Entitled “Medical Malpractice: By the Numbers,” the briefing examines recent medical studies and investigations of both inpatient and outpatient groups and facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, and hospice organizations.

The data brings deficiencies in medical care into the spotlight, specifically the care Americans receive within hospitals. Below is a summary of information from the report our medical malpractice attorneys think is particularly informative and worth sharing. All data sources can be found in the CJ&D briefing. We have included the page number of the report that contains the source for each statistic.

HOSPITALS:

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Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin and lesser known MS Contin, is facing scrutiny after several recent articles exposed information from a Justice Department investigation into the company. The investigation focused on evidence that showed Purdue’s legal council and executives were aware of the addictive nature of their drugs, including their popularity with drug seekers. Despite knowing their drugs were being misused, the company continued a false marketing campaign that promoted the drug as safer than other opioids because it was less likely to be abused or cause addiction. The company still maintains that they weren’t aware of users abusing their drugs until Maine’s attorney general issued an alert about the drug in 2000, despite federal investigators finding proof that company salespeople were aware as early as 1997, just a year after the release of OxyContin.

The federal investigation ended in 2007 with Purdue Pharma pleading guilty to a felony charge of deceptive advertising and 3 top executives pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges. The company paid $635 million in fines to the government, while the execs did community service and avoided jail time. According to many familiar with the case, Purdue’s executives were given a proverbial hall pass, missing a potentially huge opportunity to throw a roadblock in the now public health crisis that is America’s opioid crisis. Many have called drug company executives behind opioids at the center of the crisis “suited drug pushers,” no better than street drug dealers. Others have said that if they were a minority in street clothes selling these drugs, they’d be locked up. Instead, drug company executives who knowingly market these drugs and force their sales reps to push them on doctors with false claims of safety and less addictive formulations are skating by, continuing to receive large bonuses and stock options while fueling the ongoing drug crisis.

Internal Emails Reveal Awareness of OxyContin’s Street Reputation

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In fall 2015, stories began circulating that a study had shown that chemo wasn’t already required as part of breast cancer treatment. But after awhile, the conversation started to dwindle. That is until now. Today in Chicago, attendees of the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology are hearing study findings that chemotherapy may no longer be required for all women diagnosed with breast cancer. The study, called TAILORx, was a team effort by the U.S. and Canadian governments, as well as several charitable organizations.

Chemo Found to Have No Impact on Early-Stage Breast Cancer Survival Rates

TAILORx began in 2006 and followed 6,800 women from age 18-75 who had received an early stage breast cancer diagnosis, defined as tumors that have not spread to the lymph nodes and range between 1-5 cm. The women must also have tested negative for HER2, a protein found to be a major contributor to breast cancer.

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The health insurance giant’s ‘avoidable E.R.’ policy has their insured customers playing doctor and deciding between the emergency room or toughing it out at home or at urgent care.

Anthem, the second largest health insurance provider in the country, is under fire from doctors, hospital groups, health policy experts, politicians, and especially its customers for a new policy that aims to cut back on E.R. visits. The policy is now in effect for Anthem customers in Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio and New Hampshire. According to an Anthem spokesperson, the idea behind the policy is to help keep healthcare costs down for everyone. The company says that 5% of all E.R. visits are unnecessary and that (unneeded) emergency care costs 10 times more in an E.R. than it does in an urgent care or retail healthcare setting.


E.R. Flu Visits Not Covered Under Policy

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The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) just released guidelines advising all OBs in this country to change the way they care for mothers in the 3 month period following childbirth. Instead of the traditional 6 week postpartum visit, the new guidelines recommend seeing all mothers no more than 3 weeks following childbirth, or within 3 days if the mother had severe hypertension during pregnancy, childbirth or immediately following. ACOG also recommends a 12 week final visit that assesses the mother’s overall health and well-being, with attention focused on future family planning, sexual issues, and emotional stability. ACOG’s guidelines also urge OBs to discuss the long term risks associated with certain conditions suffered during pregnancy, such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes. After leaving the hospital, many mothers feel as though their health and needs are essentially forgotten. We know now that overlooking a woman who has just given birth can have tragic consequences.

More Mothers Die in America Than Other Developed Countries

A 6 month long NPR/ProPublica investigation last year found that the maternal death rate in the U.S. is higher than in any other developed country and that it is on the rise. Black mothers fare the worst.  A black mother is 3 to 4 times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or during the postpartum period than a white mother. Our blog has previously touched on the reasons why: black women have higher rates of heart disease and other health conditions that impact pregnancy, and they are subjected to more stress than white women.

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The University of Illinois at Chicago and Dr. Nagamani ‘Mani’ Pavuluri, widely considered an expert on bipolar disorder in children, have both been accused of violating medical ethics during a clinical study that studied the affects of lithium on children suffering from bipolar disorder. This past November, Dr. Pavuluri and UIC were ordered to repay all $3.1 million granted to them by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), something many experts say is unprecedented.

Doctor Violated Protocol  

Dr. Pavuluri’s study took place between 2009-2013 and involved 103 children, some as young as 10 years old. The aim was to examine how a young brain functioned during a manic phase of bipolar disorder, then compare it to the brain after an 8 week course of lithium. After an initial review of Dr. Pavuluri’s grant application for the study, she was told by NIMH to correct several things before they would approve her for a grant. Dr. Pavuluri amended her application to correct the below listed flaws and was approved for $3.1 million in funding to conduct her research. However, she was found to have violated each of the things she specifically agreed to change in order to receive funding.

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A study of 440 emergency department doctors found that examinations are less thorough when ERs are so crowded that patients are treated in the hallway. Conducted at a 2015 Boston medical conference, the study revealed that 75% of physicians surveyed copped to obtaining less thorough medical histories of patients under these circumstances. Of that 75%, nearly all admitted that they also changed their standard procedure for conducting a physical exam.

Women who presented with genital or urinary problems were found to be the most underserved group, with the majority of doctors admitting that these issues impacted the way they conducted a physical exam or took a patient’s medical history. Interestingly, the majority of physicians surveyed also said that even in a private room, the presence of someone else known to the patient impacted the questions they asked and the way in which they went about an exam.

The issue of privacy is multilayered. In addition to the majority of doctors being surveyed acknowledging that the presence of others affects their practice of medicine, patients also are believed to withhold information when spouses, family members, friends, and strangers are present.

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