When to avoid hospitals ?

Some fascinating data has come out of Harvard Medical School and has been published in the Journal of the American Heart Association :-

They have found that heart attack patients are more likely to survive when senior cardiologists are  away at conferences and are NOT in the hospital . When the senior doctors aren't there the survival rate at their hospitals actually improves !

It is suggested that specialists, when they are there,  are more likely to do gung-ho surgical interventions such as stents which may do more harm than good it seems.

I was wondering if there could be similar data relating to ablations and pacemaker implants ??.

As part of my own research ,next time I go to hospital I'm going to choose a day when there aren't any specialists there .

If I see just a window-cleaner and a couple of pretty nurses I will be a happy man !

Ian

4 Comments

Window cleaner

by LondonAndy - 2018-03-10 08:46:05

Is the window cleaner so that there is a professional to clean your glasses so that you can see those nurses clearly? ;)

Andy

by IAN MC - 2018-03-10 14:12:32

You have seen through my fiendish plan .  Also, as nurses often live in multi-storey apartment blocks , who knows I may need borrow a ladder from the window cleaner !

Cheers

Ian

If the top cat's away....

by Gotrhythm - 2018-03-10 17:58:45

Who is it that said, if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail?

Another Whoops!

by donr - 2018-03-10 19:01:16

Ian:  recall I mentioned the "Weekend Effect"?  It is a corollary to the maxim -"Never get sick on a weekend - especially a 3 or 4 day holiday type."  You usualy get seen -if at all- by a second stringer physician or tech team.  OR - a needed procedure, like a heart cath gets put off till a Monday because no one wants to come in to do it.

Dunno if it was the same Hahvahd article mentions this or not, but ststistics show that mortality rates are significantly higher in US hospitals on weekends.

In Jan I experienced the weekend effect.  I thought I was having a heart attack on a FRi PM; went to the ER, where they determined that it was a false alarm, but ER Doc wanted to keep me overnight for observation due to my plethora of PVC's/PAT's.  Next AM, before they could do ANYTHING, I started having an attack for real.  They were treating me w/i 5 min of symptoms starting.  45 min later, I was back to normal.  LUCKY. 

Laid around till Mon AM, when they did the heart Cath.  No stents. 

Continued to have arrhythmias.  Tues started Sotalol.  Thurs HR was normal Out of hosp Thurs.

Note, however, that I did not get the cath till Mon, when the event was Sat.

Don

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