Unhappy with your cosmetic surgery results? Let me help guide you through this tricky terrain.
Cosmetic surgery is often an art form, occasionally a necessity, and sometimes even a private obsession. As a result, it’s tricky to sort out what to do when you’re dissatisfied with your results, and where the blame lies. Consider this: As exaggerated looks fall out of fashion, plastic surgery reversals are on the rise. People…
Keep readingAh, those pesky surgical consent forms….
When a surgeon is sued by a dissatisfied patient for battery or harm, this litigation often revolves around the informed consent process. To wit: How is it possible for a patient and their surgeon to have such different understandings? Let’s look at it from both sides. From the surgeon’s perspective. During pre-operative consultations, patients can…
Keep readingYou Need to Care About Your Aftercare Following Same Day Surgery
To cut costs, many complex surgeries that once involved an overnight stay in the hospital are now done on a same day basis in ambulatory surgery centers. Surgical techniques have evolved to the point where even elaborate joint replacements can be safely performed outside of a hospital. But approaches to post-operative patient care haven’t kept…
Keep readingOperating room staff are supposed to be patient safety advocates…but are they, really?
I recently came across a fascinating piece of journalism looking at how the U.S. airline industry made revolutionary improvements in airplane safety, virtually eliminating plane crashes after suffering a record death toll in 1996. Of course better technology helped. But a big part of the story was how the industry made many small improvements in…
Keep readingTrying to evaluate surgeons for your procedure? Good luck!
It’s a jungle out there. Bad surgeons are almost impossible to spot. But if you believe the 80/20 rule, you need to at least try to figure out if your prospective surgeon is among the small minority which are simply lousy at their jobs, or creeps, or both. Don’t trust your state medical board sanction…
Keep readingSo, you’re having elective cosmetic surgery? Keep an eye on your surgical consent form.
When patients sue plastic surgeons for battery, their cases frequently revolve around whether or not they had properly consented to the procedure(s) beforehand. To wit: How is it possible for a patient and their surgeon to have such different understandings? Let’s look at it from both sides. From the surgeon’s perspective. During pre-operative consultations, patients…
Keep readingHow secure are your doctor’s medical record-keeping practices? Here’s what you need to know.
In this post, I’m going to describe the risks you face if you visit a doctor that still writes notes by hand and keeps paper records or uses an electronic health record (EHR) system that isn’t certified (and might even have been developed in-house). Holdouts that have resisted making the transition to gold standard certified…
Keep readingDid you know that any prescriber can pull up your personal prescription history, even if you’re not a patient?
Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) operated by states collect data on every controlled substance that has been prescribed to you, including the date, dose, quantity, refills, dispensing pharmacy, and prescriber name.1 With simple password access, these sensitive databases can be viewed by law enforcement, regulatory compliance boards, pharmacists, and prescribers. Many states require doctors to…
Keep readingSomething Fishy Is Going on with Medical Board Physician Oversight and Discipline
State medical boards are agencies that license medical doctors, investigate complaints, discipline physicians who violate the medical practice act, and refer physicians for rehabilitation when appropriate. If you’ve been injured by a licensed medical doctor, perhaps you’ve considered filing a medical board complaint to seek disciplinary action. The right to practice medicine is a privilege…
Keep readingWhy and how to evaluate your surgeon’s ambulatory surgery center
After selecting your surgeon, the next most important step for patients scheduled to have same-day surgery in an ambulatory facility is to evaluate this facility. Patients almost always neglect this step in the hectic run-up to their procedures because they don’t know what questions to ask and why it’s important to do so. Ambulatory surgery…
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