Posts Tagged: Surgery
Opinion
OPINION: “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” proclaims an elderly woman in a 1980’s commercial for LifeCall, a home system that summoned emergency care, but became the subject of derision and perhaps a bit of schadenfreude over time, spawning parodies. Of course, it might seem funny until it’s you or a loved one, perhaps the victim of a fall due to poor eyesight.
Opinion
OPINION: A record 3,200 Californians lost their lives to opioids in 2019 — well before the stress and disruption caused by COVID-19 caused overdose deaths to spike to new highs nationwide. By May 2020, powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl caused California’s 12-month all-drug overdose death rate to spike nearly 27%, significantly faster than the national average.
News
And children’s hospitals that have offered to take sick kids off the hands of adult hospitals, or extend the age of people they admit, have not seen an influx of patients to fill the beds they emptied. As a result, numerous pediatric facilities, like many of the adult ones, face sharply declining revenues and extra expenses.
Opinion
In his state budget proposal, Gov. Gavin Newsom made it clear that health care is a top priority for the Golden State – allocating the largest component of total state-funding to the California Department of Health Care Services (53.5% of the budget, or roughly $34.7 billion).
Recent News
Major surgery or a stay in the hospital can be stressful enough, even when you have insurance. But Californians with health care coverage who seek treatment at a clinic or hospital that is in their insurance plan’s network must often also deal with the anguish caused by huge unexpected costs.
Opinion
Health care delivery in California is moving toward an integrated model that brings together physicians, nurses and other health professionals, each playing a specialized role as a member of a team. As professionals that have served in multiple roles on that team, and done the training for each, we believe we are in a unique position to comment on Senate Bills 323 and 622, which would alter the roles of nurse practitioners and optometrists, respectively.
News
ProPublica: As the privacy officer for The Advisory Board Co., Rebecca Fayed knows a thing or two about privacy and what can happen when it’s violated. But when Fayed received a letter telling her that she, like nearly 80 million others, was the victim of a hacking attack on health insurer Anthem Inc., she couldn’t figure out why. Anthem wasn’t her insurance provider.
Opinion
OPINION: The Legislature had a critical opportunity to help increase access to medical services and reduce the wait times for patients who need ocular services. SB 492 would have allowed doctors of optometry to perform limited laser and minor procedures around the eye and freed up ophthalmologists to perform the complex surgical procedures only they are trained and educated to perform.
Opinion
OPINION: Simply put, learning to do surgery requires actually doing procedures on live human patients in sufficient numbers to develop competence. Indeed, sufficient numbers are vital to develop the judgment to choose the right procedure and – particularly important — manage complications (including rare ones) that may arise.
An ophthalmologist performs eye surgery on a patient. (Photo: PRESSLAB, via Shutterstock)
