http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (HealthDay)—About 65 percent of surgical residents report that they disapprove of the 2011 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Common Program requirements, which place restrictions on duty hours, according to research published in the May issue of JAMA Surgery. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-majority-surgical-residents-hours.html Surgery Thu, 16 May 2013 16:03:31 EST news287939004 More than a third of U.S. physicians responding to a national survey indicated they often or sometimes prescribed brand-name drugs when appropriate generic substitutes were available simply because patients requested the brand-name drug. Survey respondents who had marketing relationships with industry were more likely to fulfill such patient requests than were those without those relationships. The report from investigators at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy (MIHP) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will appear in JAMA Internal Medicine (formerly Archives of Internal Medicine) and has been released online. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-physicians-fulfill-patient-brand-name-drugs.html Medications Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:00:01 EST news276772075 As the nation grapples with surging health care costs, researchers at the University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, and Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford, have confirmed two simple cost-effective methods to reduce expensive postoperative complications—communications team training and a surgical checklist. Investigators found that when surgical teams completed communications training and a surgical procedure checklist before, during, and after high-risk operations, patients experienced fewer adverse events such as infections and blood clots. The study is published in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-surgical-checklist-costly-postoperative-complications.html Surgery Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:15:04 EST news273939291 (Medical Xpress)—A study has found that young, less-experienced surgeons made major surgical mistakes almost half the time during a "simulated" gall bladder removal when they were distracted by noises, questions, conversation or other commotion in the operating room. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-young-surgeons-special-room-distractions.html Surgery Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:04:11 EST news273420236 A study of postdischarge (PD) complications after general surgery procedures found that overall, 16.7 percent of patients experienced a complication and 41.5 percent of complications occurred PD, according to a report published in the November issue of Archives of Surgery. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-postdischarge-complications-surgery.html Surgery Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:00:05 EST news272562292 (Medical Xpress)—Lack of control over operating rooms and other resources as well as a lack of work-life balance are among the main reasons general surgeons may be dissatisfied with their jobs, a new study has found. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-surgeons-happy.html Surgery Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:19:47 EST news268049978 National estimates of death following general surgery have been too optimistic, suggests the first large-scale study to explore surgical outcomes across Europe published in the first Article in a special Lancet theme issue on surgery. New estimates generated using a snap-shot of death after surgery in over 46 000 patients from 500 hospitals in 28 European countries indicate that overall crude mortality (death from all causes) is 4%, which is more than double previous estimates. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-europe-wide-death-surgery.html Surgery Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:30:01 EST news267383207 A survey of surgical interns suggests many of them believe that new duty-hour restrictions will decrease continuity with patients, coordination of care and time spent operating, as well as reduce their acquisition of medical knowledge, development of surgical skills and overall educational experience, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of Surgery. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-survey-surgical-interns-duty-hour-restrictions.html Surgery Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:00:08 EST news259250253 Cigarette smoking contributes to significantly higher hospital costs for smokers undergoing elective general surgery, according to a study published in the June 2012 issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. When researchers analyzed data on more than 14,000 patients, they found that postoperative respiratory complications help drive up these health care costs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-significantly-higher-hospital-surgical-patients.html Surgery Tue, 29 May 2012 11:00:02 EST news257504811 An analysis of a national cohort of recent medical school graduates may provide insight into why women and graduates of some minority groups are relatively underrepresented among general surgeons, particularly those certified by the American Board of Surgery (ABS). The researchers found that general surgery graduate trainees in selected pop-ulation groups are more likely to go off the general surgery career path and into other medical specialties or, if they remain in surgery, are more likely not to complete the surgery board-certification process, according to a report published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-gender-racialethnic-disparities-surgery-board.html Surgery Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:20:01 EST news255002955 Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC, have successfully created and implemented an emergency general surgery registry (EGSR) that will advance the science of acute surgical care by allowing surgeons to track and improve surgical patient outcomes, create performance metrics, conduct valid research and ensure quality care for all emergency general surgery (EGS) patients. The registry, featured in a study published in the February 2012 issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, was modeled after the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) and components of the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP). It is the first registry of its kind to establish ICD-9 codes (International Classification of Diseases) that help to define and evaluate EGS patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-database-aims-emergency-surgery-outcomes.html Other Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:40:01 EST news247749992 An analysis of data on heart and lung transplant recipients indicates that patients who had transplant surgery performed at nighttime did not have a significantly different rate of survival up to one year after organ transplantation, according to a study in the June 1 issue of JAMA. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-nighttime-transplant-surgery-poorer-survival.html Other Tue, 31 May 2011 16:26:31 EST news226077965 Older, sicker heart-transplant recipients are significantly more likely to be alive a year after their operations if they have their transplants at hospitals that do a large number of them annually new Johns Hopkins research suggests. These patients fare less well at low-volume centers, the research shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-older-heart-transplant-patients-hospitals-yield.html Cardiology Mon, 09 May 2011 11:10:11 EST news224158190