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School has barely begun, but many U.S. hospitals have already received their report card in colon cancer. They flunked.
A new study finds the majority of hospitals don’t check enough lymph nodes after a patient’s colon cancer surgery to determine if the disease has spread.
Checking more lymph nodes is linked to improved survival of colon cancer because it allows doctors to accurately diagnose the stage of disease and prescribe the most effective treatment…
“It’s disappointing that despite so much emphasis on this particular issue, so many hospitals still aren’t checking enough lymph nodes to ensure they diagnose the accurate stage of cancer,” said Karl Bilimoria, M.D., lead author and a surgery resident at the Feinberg School. “Knowing the accurate stage of your disease affects your survival and treatment. That’s critical.”
Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
I’m not surprised at casual ineptness in American hospitals. You would hope that surgeons dealing with cancer might be up to standard, though.
What a bunch of assholes.
Hospitals don’t order lymph node tests==DOCTORS DO!
Now some hospitals have protocols approved and enforced by the medical staff that require/suggest what types of tests are done pre and post operations but “bascially” it all comes down to the DOCTORS!!!
This holy BS image of the Doctor/Patient relationship and “you don’t want a bureaucrat between you and your doctor” results in pretty shoddy medicine throughout the USA.
So==yea, pick a hospital (Mayo Clinic for instance) known to have good outcomes because those good outcomes only come by riding herd on those money grabbing doctors.
Isn’t the wonders of the free market supposed to prevent all this? Competition? All that jazz?
Or could it be that health care for profit leads to corners being cut?
#3–michael==medicine falls outside the definition of when a free market can work. Knowledgeable buyers and sellers interacting at arms length with alternative buyers and sellers available. Medicine is a monopoly controlled by DOCTORS. Patients don’t know enough to choose doctors with competence.
The profit motive in medicine results in a lot of harm and misallocation of resources and “the market” not being served unless you think healthcare is meant as a way for doctors to get rich rather than for the population to get healthcare.
Healthcare is not a right of the people but it should be a service universally available to all.
#2, Bobbo,
I agree. My thoughts exactly.
So are the Surgeons not ordering the tests or are the hospital pathologists not performing them?
#4 “Healthcare is not a right of the people but it should be a service universally available to all.”
Isn’t that the same as saying having lots of money is not a right of the people but it should be universally available to all?
And, once you put wage caps on doctors then what do you do about the doctor shortage, as exists in countries where this has been implemented?
Men, after age 40 get a colonoscopy every five years. Just do it.
#8 No. It could be done simply by the gov’t.
Everyone who wants it could voluntarily give the gov’t $ to be used in a gov’t run program and hospitals. The gov’t could ensure that only direct costs are paid for with no profit. People who wanted to be doctors in this system could have their med training paid by the gov’t with the obligation to work 20 years in the system.
I don’t see the difficulty.
Why not let the people put a certain percentage of their income into tax-deductible health care accounts that can’t be used except to pay health care bills? Then everyone could afford routine health care and the government would only have to get involved for catastrophic health care payments.
Of course, that would take power away for the all-loving nanny state and put health-care decisions back into the hands of the people. The statist demolibs wouldn’t stand for that. Only BIG GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY can provide health care…you dolts are incapable of taking care of yourselves.
You would think after looking at assholes all day they wouldn’t mind looking at some lymph nodes.
#9, the only way I would be in favor a system like that, is that it must be self sustaining (any initial costs should be a loan, and be required to be paid back with interest). No tax money should go to fund it, if the concept fails to sustain itself it should go away, or have to take a loan to keep itself afloat, just like any other business in this country.
Of course this would never happen. The first time such a system goes into bankruptcy, which will happen pretty quickly, the government would come in and bail it out with my tax money. So I would in effect be paying for not only my own healthcare but someone elses as well. Sounds allot like back door government health care.
#12 “the only way I would be in favor a system like that, is that it must be self sustaining”
Well, according to the libs, a gov’t run system cutting out the capitalistic greed would be more popular and efficient than a free market system. So, it should be a wild success…
#2 and #5,
Staff practitioners and surgeons are expected to deal with uninsured and indigent patients according to the strict and quiet guidelines of, Hurry up and don’t spend any time or money on these people, at the hospitals they work for. Most doctors and nurses just ignore the bullshit because they realize they are the ones with the power, but those who cant get another job or those with management aspirations do follow the quiet code. At least that’s how it has been in the fifteen years I have worked in the Urban hospital environment.
The American Cancer Society tells all cancer patients to learn all they can about their disease because they WILL be mistreated in the hospital and if you don’t know what is right you might die from the wrong treatment.
Unfortunately doctors are human which means they are lazy and prone to error and accident. I have told my doctors I make mistakes at work too but nobody dies when I fuck up.
How about you, have you never made a mistake or stopped short of the mark because you were tired?
I recently got a colonoscopy and I stuck M&M’s up my butt just to make it interesting.
#16, That’s just wrong.
#17, Liberty,
#16, That’s just wrong.
Not if you let Paddy-O look first.
#14, Madhatter,
Staff practitioners and surgeons are expected to deal with uninsured and indigent patients according to the strict and quiet guidelines of, Hurry up and don’t spend any time or money on these people, at the hospitals they work for.
Bullshit. For uninsured patients, hospitals are only required to give immediate aid to women birthing or the seriously ill or injured. They do not have to cure someone dieing of cancer.