Category: Quality Improvement

Study flow

Retracted papers about COVID-19 are more highly cited than they should be

Earlier this month a study showed that papers about COVID-19 that are retracted tend to be cited far more than average and continue to be heavily cited after retraction. Clearly, scientific publishing and the scientific community need to do better.

/ May 1, 2023

Geriatric Preventive Medicine Appointments Covered by Medicare

Medicare offers free preventive medicine visits for those over 65: the Welcome to Medicare visit and the Annual Wellness Visit. Increased awareness of these benefits would improve health care, save taxpayer money, and reduce inequities of preventive medicine care for underserved populations.

/ November 8, 2022
Pulse oximeters

COVID-19 puts the spotlight on an unexpected racial disparity in health care

Evidence increasingly suggests that pulse oximeters, the little finger clips that measure blood oxygen, overestimate the blood oxygenation in Black patients. It's a problem that's been discussed a long time that took a pandemic to bring to public consciousness. How can SBM decrease or eliminate such healthcare disparities?

/ July 18, 2022

Nepotistic Journals

Research identifies another potential bias in scientific publishing - nepotistic journals.

/ November 24, 2021

Direct to Consumer Telemedicine’s Flaws

Telemedicine is here, probably to stay, but with its arrival come new problems.

/ June 7, 2019

Charlatans for Christmas

A novel by Robin Cook is a great read with a medical theme. It brings up some serious questions about quality control and medical education.

/ December 25, 2018

Should Evidence-Based Medicine Be Replaced by Interpersonal Medicine?

An opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine complains about the limitations of evidence-based medicine (EBM) and recommends a new approach they call "interpersonal medicine." In my opinion, good clinical medicine is already interpersonal medicine; there is no need for something new.

/ November 27, 2018
surgeons bouffant cap skull cap

Bouffant caps versus skull caps in the operating room: A no holds barred cage match

Over the last few years, AORN and the American College of Surgeons have been battling it out over AORN's 2014 guideline that has increasingly led to the banning of the surgical skull cap in the operating room in favor of the bouffant cap. Lacking from this kerfuffle has been much in the way of evidence to support AORN's guideline, but unfortunately that...

/ August 20, 2018

Where Are We With the Replication “Crisis”

The replication problem is not as bad as the sensational reporting has suggested. But it is still a legitimate issue that needs to be addressed. 

/ February 28, 2018

The effort of integrative medicine advocates to co-opt the opioid crisis to claim non pharmacological treatments for pain as solely theirs continues apace

Last week, I wrote about how advocates for quackery were trying, and succeeding, at persuading state Medicaid agencies to pay for acupuncture for pain. This week, I discuss how they are promoting the integration of quackery with medicine. In this case, they are promoting a white paper and trying to influence the AHRQ.

/ January 29, 2018