12 ms·

Hospital mortality rates in each department are also lowest when there's a conference for that specialty nearby. The doctors all go there, few/no routine surger

Hospital mortality rates in each department are also lowest when there's a conference for that specialty nearby. The doctors all go there, few/no routine surgeries are done that day, far fewer people die.

dsacco 10y ago
This is interesting. Do you have a source for this?
- jackweirdy 10y ago
  I believe I read it here, though there are several similar studies and this might not be the one I originally read. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25531231 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25531231
huac 10y ago
That study gave no causal reasons. In particular, there was no effect on number of surgeries done. It's just as possible that research-oriented doctors go to the conference, and those doctors are worse at performing surgeries.
SilasX 10y ago
Isn't that because a surgery, if it fails, will result in the patient dying immediately, rather than some random time later? If you do more surgeries, you will increase both the failed and the successful surgeries, whether your success rate is 10 or 90 percent. Compare: "bomb explosions tend to increase around the time when we send in the bomb squad. I guess bomb defusing is pointless." IOW: Surgeries and bomb defusing tend to move forward a lot of the death-probability-mass (while, in theory, destroying some of it).
- bike4beer 10y ago
  Surgery in general usually makes patient worse, insurance company's know this, they would rather cash-out a claimant early then pay for a claimant to recover post-surgery. Expert surgeons, in their eyes the cure for every common cold is 'surgery', like we used to say in UNIX, "If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" A few years ago, in Bend, Oregon at the only Hospital they had the high rate of un-needed back surgery's in the country, upon close inspection it was because all the high-paid back surgeons chose to live there, just about everybody who went to 'st-charles' for anything left dead or in debt from 'back surgery'. The insurance company's finally put an end to it, but it took over ten years, as the AMA also owns the legislature in Salem-OR ( capital of state ). In summary NEVER go to a doctor, you will die, and if they talk surgery, run like hell.

dsacco 10y ago

This is interesting. Do you have a source for this?

jackweirdy 10y ago
I believe I read it here, though there are several similar studies and this might not be the one I originally read. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25531231 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25531231

huac 10y ago

That study gave no causal reasons. In particular, there was no effect on number of surgeries done. It's just as possible that research-oriented doctors go to the conference, and those doctors are worse at performing surgeries.

SilasX 10y ago

Isn't that because a surgery, if it fails, will result in the patient dying immediately, rather than some random time later? If you do more surgeries, you will increase both the failed and the successful surgeries, whether your success rate is 10 or 90 percent. Compare: "bomb explosions tend to increase around the time when we send in the bomb squad. I guess bomb defusing is pointless." IOW: Surgeries and bomb defusing tend to move forward a lot of the death-probability-mass (while, in theory, destroying some of it).

bike4beer 10y ago
Surgery in general usually makes patient worse, insurance company's know this, they would rather cash-out a claimant early then pay for a claimant to recover post-surgery. Expert surgeons, in their eyes the cure for every common cold is 'surgery', like we used to say in UNIX, "If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" A few years ago, in Bend, Oregon at the only Hospital they had the high rate of un-needed back surgery's in the country, upon close inspection it was because all the high-paid back surgeons chose to live there, just about everybody who went to 'st-charles' for anything left dead or in debt from 'back surgery'. The insurance company's finally put an end to it, but it took over ten years, as the AMA also owns the legislature in Salem-OR ( capital of state ). In summary NEVER go to a doctor, you will die, and if they talk surgery, run like hell.