Materials of Interest

The material on this page is a mixture of items – often somewhat provocative – that may be of interest to thoughtful clinicians involved in perioperative health care.  We welcome other contributions.

 

A brilliant, and somewhat confronting paper by Mark Neumann and Lee Fleisher, looking back at the history of the excessively enthusiastic uptake of perioperative beta-blockers as a strategy to prevent perioperative cardiac complications.

1: Neuman MD, Bosk CL, Fleisher LA. Learning from mistakes in clinical practice
guidelines: the case of perioperative β-blockade. BMJ Qual Saf. 2014
Nov;23(11):957-64. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2014-003114. Epub 2014 Aug 18. PubMed PMID:
25136141; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4348068.
  • ‘Overkill’  Atul Gawande The New Yorker, 2015..

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande

Atul Gawande at his best, discussing low-value health care.

A nice short opinion piece by Prof Graeme Stewart, Immunologist of Westmead Hospital, Sydney, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, commenting on the habit of young Doctors to avoid using their own surnames ….

An oldie but a goodie about interaction with patients (and others).

1: Kahn MW. Etiquette-based medicine. N Engl J Med. 2008 May 8;358(19):1988-9.
doi: 10.1056/NEJMp0801863. PubMed PMID: 18463374.

‘Why most published Research findings are false’.  This should be mandatory reading for anyone who is contemplating changing their clinical practice based on the latest research findings…

1: Ioannidis JP. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2005
Aug;2(8):e124. Epub 2005 Aug 30. PubMed PMID: 16060722; PubMed Central PMCID:
PMC1182327.

‘Overdiagnosis’ is an interesting and relatively new concept; more subtle and difficult to explain than ‘just’ low-value health care.  This is one of the early papers by Roy Moynihan and colleagues.

1: Moynihan R, Doust J, Henry D. Preventing overdiagnosis: how to stop harming
the healthy. BMJ. 2012 May 28;344:e3502. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e3502. PubMed PMID:
22645185.

Totally non-medical… but some useful thoughts about managing waiting in clinics, hospitals..or anywhere.  Originally used during the planning for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

This resource from the NHS is a useful compilation of issues to consider about healthcare with different religious groups.

 

 

If you have any relating materials of interest send them through to perioptalkdesk@gmail.com