Articles about Medicine

D Magazine Cover Model Rick Snyder Becomes President of Dallas County Medical Society

You see this handsome devil? His name is Richard W. Snyder II. In November of 2009, the cardiologist graced our cover. And now comes perhaps his second biggest achievement in life: he has been installed as the new president of the Dallas County Medical Society. Full release after the jump. (And full disclosure right here between these parentheses: Dr. Snyder has seen me shirtless, with a whole bunch of wires attached to my chest. In a strictly professional capacity. I swear.)

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posted by Tim Rogers | January 23rd, 2012 1:16pm | filed under Medicine | 12 Comments »

Report: Richard Rainwater Fighting for His Life

The new Fortune magazine has a remarkable story about the self-made Fort Worth billionaire, Richard Rainwater. Seems the deal-making legend who’s touched everyone from T. Boone and W to David Bonderman and Mort Meyerson is suffering from a degenerative brain disease for which there’s no treatment and no cure.

posted by Glenn Hunter | November 14th, 2011 4:21pm | filed under Business, Local News, Medicine | 2 Comments »

Is Your Doctor on the Dole?

An alert FrontBurnervian sends along a link to a new ProPublica database filled with data about doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Says ProPublica:

Drug companies have long kept secret details of the payments they make to doctors and other health professionals for promoting their drugs. But 12 companies have begun publicizing the information, some because of legal settlements. ProPublica pulled their disclosures into a database so patients can search for their doctor. Accepting payments isn’t necessarily wrong, but it can raise ethical issues.

You can search your doc’s name. Or you can just search for everyone in Dallas and then order the results by amount of payment, which is what I did. Have a look for yourself. Congrats to Dr. James Dale Griffin, the top individual on the Dallas list. Last year Dr. Griffin took $122,000 in cash from Pfizer for speaking. Quite a haul.

Update (11:31 a.m.): As several people have pointed out in the comments, I missed some money. Dr. Griffin took some meals and travel from Pfizer, too. Tack on another $26,452 for a total of $148,452 in 2010. Nice!

posted by Tim Rogers | September 8th, 2011 10:02am | filed under Medicine | 7 Comments »

Parkland’s Woes Not as Bad as Morning News Wants You To Believe, Ctd.

I’ve been meaning to update that post from last week since the day after it went up. That’s when I got an email from Bob Moos, a public affairs specialist for the Region 6 office of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), correcting an error I made in the post.

After asking the regional and national CMS offices for stats on how many “immediate jeopardy” citations it issues, and after not hearing back from them, I quoted this story, which says that CMS doesn’t keep those stats. Well, Region 6 does. After reading my post, Moos sent me the following email:

The Dallas Region 6 office of CMS oversees five states: Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

There have been six immediate-jeopardy citations against hospitals (including Parkland and Methodist) in Region 6 since the beginning of the current fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010). Specifically, there have been four in Texas, one in Arkansas and one in Louisiana. There are 957 hospitals in Region 6 — 517 of those are in Texas. During the previous fiscal year, there were two immediate-jeopardy citations against hospitals in Region 6. Both were in Louisiana.

So such “IJ” citations can be considered out of the ordinary.

Hope that helps.

Helps indeed. So despite Methodist’s getting an IJ citation right on the heels of Parkland’s, such citations are, indeed, rare. I was wrong to say they aren’t. What I don’t understand at this point is why the Morning News didn’t publish those same Region 6 numbers when it ran its big Sunday story on Parkland, instead choosing to quote experts. When I talked to Moos the day after I put up my post, I asked him whether anyone at the News had asked for those IJ stats. He said that, in fact, a reporter had called with that request after I put up my post. Moos couldn’t recall whether they’d previously asked for the numbers. I am forced to conclude they hadn’t, which is odd.

Anyway, mea culpa. I was wrong. And I learned something about Region 6.

I’ve learned something else since putting up that last post about Parkland. CMS’ IJ citation has lengthened wait times in the ER. Here’s an example a Parkland ER doc gave me:

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posted by Tim Rogers | September 6th, 2011 1:07pm | filed under Medicine | 18 Comments »

Parkland’s Woes Not as Bad as Morning News Wants You To Believe

Update: Right here.

Parkland is far from perfect. No question that organization needs to make some changes in how it does business. But is Parkland as horribly mismanaged and dangerous to its patients as the Dallas Morning News would lead you to believe? More specifically, is the ongoing Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) review of the hospital as monumental and unprecedented as the paper has made it out to be? I don’t think so.

Surely by now you’ve heard about the survey of the facilities conducted by the Texas Department of State Health Services, which led CMS (no idea why it’s not called CMMS) to issue a report saying the hospital was putting the health of its patients in “immediate jeopardy.” Fix the problems, said CMS, or we’ll withdraw your funding. Effectively, the hospital would be shuttered.

Sounds pretty bad, right? In a big front-page story (sub. req.) about the CMS report two Sundays ago, the News drove home the direness of conditions at Parkland with this money quote:

“It appears safety was routinely relegated to a lower priority by other pressures,” said Vanderbilt University professor Ranga Ramanujam, a national expert in health care safety. “The CMS action is extraordinary. I am hard-pressed to think of an example of a similarly high-profile hospital facing the very real possibility of losing their CMS funding as a result of safety violations.”

Ramanujam was the sole expert quoted in the story as to the singularity of the CMS report. You read his quote, and you think, “Parkland is the most awful hospital in America. It’s extraordinarily awful. I mean, a national expert can’t even think of another hospital that’s as awful as Parkland. That’s pretty awful.”

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posted by Tim Rogers | August 30th, 2011 11:15am | filed under Local News, Media, Medicine | 61 Comments »

Leading Off (8/22/11)

Wilmer-Hutchens Reopens School District, Keller Charges for Buses: Most area public schools begin the year today, and if you live in Keller, then that means you will now have to pay for bus service. If you live in the Wilmer-Hutchins area, then you will have school district again for the first time since 2005.

More Woes for Parkland: A new federal report on Parkland Hospital discovered numerous instances of unsanitary and neglectful conditions, which may put the hospital at risk for losing hundreds of millions of federal health care dollars. The threat of cutting funding, health experts say, is extremely rare, highlighting just how bad investigators believe the situation is at the hospital. Meanwhile, Parkland chief, Dr. Ron Anderson, just happens to be in negotiations for a new contract, and after three decades on the job, it is hard to imagine he will continue to lead the hospital for much longer.

Man Beaten To Death By Homeless Man He Let Live in Backyard: Gilbert Spira began letting a group of homeless people he was friendly with camp in his backyard as a way of deterring burglars. But then one of those men beat him to death. After the crime, the other homeless people restrained Spira’s assailant until police arrived There is no word on a motive.

posted by Peter Simek | August 22nd, 2011 8:24am | filed under Crime, Education, Health & Medicine, Medicine, controversy | 5 Comments »

Marketing Ploy of the Day: Get a Vasectomy, Enter to Win a Signed Dallas Mavericks Ball

Look, the following just-received press release is utterly shameless in its attempt to garner some free advertising for a Dallas urologist. But it’s so awesomely bad that it works.

The finals may be over, but fans can still win big! Dallas urologist, Dr. Mitch Moskowitz, is “Nuts about the Mavs” and is offering a team basketball signed by the Dallas Mavericks 2011 NBA Finals Champions to one fortunate patient that utilizes his Sport SnipSM services.
The Sport SnipSM campaign has spread like a wildfire, garnering plenty of attention. Even Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, is “Nuts about the Mavs” and publicized this deal on Twitter to his nearly 500,000 followers.

No strings attached here, literally. Consider this special offer an opportunity to “trade in your balls.”


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posted by Jason Heid | June 16th, 2011 9:51am | filed under Business, Medicine | 3 Comments »

Dr. Jeffrey Thompson Really Hates Smoking

Thanks to a FrontBurnervian for this tip. The good doctor faces a felony charge for trying to run down a guy who was smoking near his car. To be fair, in the altercation that preceded the car thing he was splashed with soda, which he probably also doesn’t like. The doctor is a specialist in hypertension. Is it catching?

posted by Wick Allison | March 29th, 2011 8:41am | filed under Crime, Medicine | (0) Comments »