Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Almost half of all opioid misuse starts with a friend or family member's prescription | PBS NewsHour

More than half of adults who misused opioids did not have a prescription, and many obtained drugs for free from friends or relatives, according to a national survey of more than 50,000 adults.

Although many people need medical narcotics for legitimate reasons, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported Monday that regular access to prescription opioids can facilitate misuse. The results, outlined in the Annals of Internal Medicine, indicate when the medical community overprescribes opioids, unused drugs are then available for abuse.

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/opioid-misuse-starts-friend-family-members-prescription/?

Monday, July 31, 2017

Double-Booked: When Surgeons Operate On Two Patients At Once | Kaiser Health News

The controversial practice has been standard in many teaching hospitals for decades, its safety and ethics largely unquestioned and its existence unknown to those most affected: people undergoing surgery.

But over the past two years, the issue of overlapping surgery — in which a doctor operates on two patients in different rooms during the same time period — has ignited an impassioned debate in the medical community, attracted scrutiny by the powerful Senate Finance Committee that oversees Medicare and Medicaid, and prompted some hospitals, including the University of Virginia's, to circumscribe the practice.

Known as "running two rooms" — or double-booked, simultaneous or concurrent surgery — the practice occurs in teaching hospitals where senior attending surgeons delegate trainees — usually residents or fellows — to perform parts of one surgery while the attending surgeon works on a second patient in another operating room. Sometimes senior surgeons aren't even in the OR and are seeing patients elsewhere.

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http://khn.org/news/double-booked-when-surgeons-operate-on-two-patients-at-once/