Not a really a health story, but…
The Boston University Medical School was in the news last week when student Philip Markoff, 23, was charged with the so-called “Craig’slist murder.” The Boston Globe reported that among the evidence Boston police found in Markoff’s apartment was a handgun hidden in a hollowed-out copy of “Gray’s Anatomy.”
The Globe also reported that the case brings back some bad memories for students and staff at the BU Med School:
“In the dark of night in 2001, Daniel Mason, a fourth-year medical student, shot and killed a man execution-style, critically wounded another, and shot their dog while they slept in their Jamaica Plain home. … The crime shocked the Boston University community, which was troubled to learn that one of its doctors-in-the-making was accused of such brutality.
“Mason’s case differs in motive from that of Markoff, but both involve guns and what prosecutors called a brazen disregard for law and for life.”
…and in other disturbing health-related news…
The long-time head of a physicians’ group at the Brigham and Womens Hospital, Phyllis Jen, died Tuesday in a car crash near her home in Needham. She was 60 and, according to the Globe, very well-liked:
“Colleagues and patients said she was the kind of doctor who cannot be replaced.
“‘She was really one of the most alive people you can imagine, which is why it’s so hard for everyone to imagine this happening,’ said Beverly Woo, a fellow internist in the same practice who grew up with Jen. ‘It’s a huge loss — an overwhelming loss — for all the people who knew her. She was the heart and soul of the practice. It’s really hard to imagine the place without her.'”
Her official page is still up on the hospital’s website as of this post.
Mass General suspends pediatric heart surgery
The Globe reports on problems with pediatric heart operations at Mass. General Hospital that led to “serious complications” for two babies:
“The Harvard teaching hospital had expanded the small program and taken on more complex cases after hiring a heart surgeon two years ago to operate solely on children. But that plan has not worked out as hoped, and hospital executives said they shut down the program last week, at least temporarily.
“State public health officials began investigating the two cases after Mass. General notified them on Tuesday that the hospital had stopped taking young heart surgery patients and was evaluating whether to reopen the program.”
Top women in health care: A CEO at a major medical center or the midwife who got you through 15 hours of labor?
Depends on your audience.
The trade publication Modern Healthcare released its list of the “Top 25 Women in Healthcare” this week. It was heavy on the hospitals/corporate side and light on academia. About the closest Boston tie we get is Nancy-Ann DeParle , who heads President Barack Obama’s new White House Office of Health Reform. She’s a Harvard Law School grad — shocking — and ran the Medicare program in the 1990s when it was called the Health Care Financing Administration. When Bush arrived, she left HCFA for a — surprise — Kennedy School fellowship. Click here for the rest of her post-Clinton resume which straddles business, policy and academia.
Another, quite different, list of women in healthcare will likely to emerge from the “Our Bodies, Ourselves Women’s Health Heroes” awards.
You have until May 1 to nominate someone for the contest, sponsored by the Boston-based, feminist non-profit that generates the phenomenally successful and slightly subversive OB/OS series of books:
“When you hear the words “Women’s Health Hero,” who comes to mind? Your 9th grade health teacher who taught you about sexually transmitted infections? The midwife who sat with you through 15 hours of labor? The young Nigerian activist you read about who’s working to end gender discrimination in her country? Or maybe the neighbor who counter-protests at the abortion clinic every Saturday morning?
“Whoever your heroes are, we want to know about them! We’ve created the Our Bodies Ourselves Women’s Health Heroes awards to honor those who make significant contributions to the health and well-being of women.”
Mass. still below the average rate of sanctions for doctors
The Public Citizen Health Research Group published its annual state-by-state report on discipline for doctors this week. The study looks at regional variations in the percentage of doctors who are sanctioned for poor care. Massachusetts, which at one point disciplined fewer doctors than most other states, ranked 37th this year in terms of per capita sanctions. Other states were busier with their errant docs.
For example, Ohio, home to 37,000 doctors, ranked third, sanctioning more than 200 doctors in 2008. In the Bay State, home to 34,000 doctors, the Board of Registration in Medicine issued sanctions against 67 last year.
The report’s authors are careful to note that the study ranks only “the performance of medical boards by their disciplinary rates; it does not purport to assess the overall quality of medical care in a state or to assess the function of the boards in other respects.”
But it argues that “most states are not living up to their obligations to protect patients from doctors who are practicing medicine in a substandard manner.” The wide variation in disciplinary rates suggests the need for a closer look at how these panels do their work, according to the report.
The most recent annual report of the Mass Board of Registration in Medicine (PDF) notes that they meet Public Citizen’s recommendation for an effective board. But the Mass. board’s report doesn’t mention its national ranking.
Transplant Blues
The Grateful Dead — reuniting 15 years after the death of iconic guitarist Jerry Garcia — arrived in Worcester this week with more than a touch of gray. Bass player Phil Lesh had a new liver, the old one done in by Hepatitis C. During an intermission, he quietly emerged from what looked like a mountain of drums. He told his story and asked the audience to consider organ donation.
My ears were ringing a bit but we can all find out more at his Dead-headish Donor Zone website.
Looks like it would fit right in with a new Canadian program designed to convince young people to sign organ donor cards. Called “Recycle Me,” the effort includes a website that opens with an animated, topless young man. He offers to open up the surgical incision on his chest to point out which organs can be “recycled.” In the audio, he calls the campaign “the place where recycling moves from our curbsides to our insides.”
The Globe’s White Coat Notes blog pointed out the campaign and sought out comment from Dr. Francis Delmonico — a Mass. General surgeon and director of medical affairs at the international Transplantation Society. He told the blog that targeting young people makes sense:
“They become the advocates of organ donation throughout the country. If they believe it, then other generations will follow suit,” Delmonico, who is also a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, told the Globe and Mail. “We’re trying to take that message around the world.”
There’s more by Tinker Ready over at Boston Health News.