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Note . . . Of course, doctors and other medical practitioners have plenty to worry about these days what with H1N1 flu epidemic worries, the potential for sweeping health care reform legislation changing the way we do business, and all our normal worries. But, in the spirit of the season, we thought we’d take a post-Halloween midnight walk through the dungeons of our profession to bring you . . .

The creepiest things (we could find) in the practice of . . .

Anesthesiology – “Patient Awareness.” Normally we think of awareness as a good thing—increased awareness of the symptoms or prevalence of serious diseases for example, or increased awareness of our need for spiritual well-being. Well, awareness is definitely not a good thing when you’re a patient on the operating table.

After reading this harrowing story of a patient who regained consciousness during surgery, we were glad to learn that according to the ASA, it occurs in less than one in 40,000 non-emergency surgeries and there are effective ways to prevent it. Patient Awareness awareness begins with anesthesiologists’ Patient Awareness awareness education.

ER – It’s all a game! You’ve just spent two back-to-back shifts in your understaffed, overworked downtown ER and you’re finally at home, ready to unwind. What do you do? How about a nice game of Emergency Room: Code Red on your Nintendo? Which is scarier: that there is such a game (plus sequels and variations) or that actual ER nurses, doctors, and EMTs spend their time-off playing them?

Radiology – Confusion exposes 206 patients to eight times normal radiation over 18 months.

This one really is scary—confusion over how to reset a GE CT scanner locked-in a higher radiation setting for patients receiving CT brain perfusion scans at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Apparently, the confusion arose when doctors tried to “override preprogrammed instructions” in an effort to set the machine to use less radiation. The hospital is currently subject to a class-action lawsuit. An attorney for the law office handling the case remarked that at eight-times the normal dose, patients are now “more susceptible to potential cancers and other effects of radiation poisoning than those people who survived the atomic bomb.”

Orthotics – We’ve got nothing.

Apparently, nothing especially scary happened in orthotics (that we could publish), so you’ll have to be content with the knowledge that trying to run your practice on your own is one of the scariest things you can do.

To take the scary parts out of the business of running your healthcare practice, contact David Gaston,

PBN Business Development, 800.288.4901,

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Overland Park, KS 66210 | 800.288.4901 | pbnmed.com

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