NOT ALL SURGERY CENTER DOCTORS ARE BOARD CERTIFIED: REPORT

 

Grumpy Editor notes a USA TODAY story that reveals more than one in three outpatient surgery centers employ doctors who are not board certified in their respective medical specialty.

 

The information comes from a survey by Washington, D.C.-based Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit that summarizes trends in safety and quality of care for same-day surgical services.

 

Leapfrog Group also reports nearly 30 percent of those that provide anesthesia at doctor-owned centers are not board certified. 

 

Nonprofit Leapfrog Group polled more than 1,400 hospital and ambulatory surgery centers to give the public information on the facilities that now perform the majority of U.S. surgical procedures.  Patients who undergo operations and other procedures at the centers are released the same day.

 

"Unlike hospitals that keep patients overnight and must report quality measures, comparatively little information is available to the public when evaluating same-day-surgery centers, points out the USA TODAY story.  It adds, "The centers handle more than 60 percent of all surgeries and procedures as doctors and specialists shift away from hospital operations, particularly for healthier individuals who don't required the level of monitoring a hospital provides.”

 

It quotes Leapfrog Group’s CEO Leah Binder:  "“Virtually nothing is known in a systematic way about the safety of these centers. When you go under the knife, you want the reassurance of an independent report on their safety. That’s why we did it.” 

 

 

IN CASE YOUR FAVORITE NEWS OUTLETS MISSED THESE…

 

HALLOWEEN OUTLAYS MOUNT.  WalletHub projects Halloween spending reaching $8.8 billion this year, including $3.2 billion going to costumes and $2.6 billion to candy.  It finds 36 percent of parents think children 12 or 13 years old are old enough to trick-or-treat alone.

 

SAILORS ALLOWED TO WEAR FALSE EYELASHES.  Males in the Royal New Zealand Navy, starting Friday, will be allowed to wear discreet makeup, clear or pale nail varnish and "trimmed, neat and natural" false eyelashes when in uniform, under new gender-neutral guidelines. One pair of natural colored stud or sleeper earrings will also be allowed along with moderate amounts of perfume or cologne.

 

MILITARY CASUALTIES IN TRAINING EXERCISES.  It was a bad week for service members undergoing training exercises.  In Laurel, Mississippi, 32 paratroopers were injured, with 18 of them hospitalized, after jumping from a C-130 aircraft when the wind blew them into pine trees. At Fort Stewart in Georgia, an armored vehicle fell from a bridge in post-midnight darkness landing upside down in water, killing three of those inside and injuring three others.  

BLANK FRONT PAGES IN AUSSIE PROTEST.  Australia’s leading media outlets launch a co-ordinated campaign to protest restrictions on press freedom by blacking out texts on front pages.  It comes  amid mounting concerns over what government critics describe as a culture of secrecy, in which national security legislation has been deployed to deliberately target investigative journalism.

BANK HIRES EX-CRIMINALS.  New York-based JPMorgan Chase is expanding its efforts to hire people with criminal backgrounds, continuing the trend of big companies giving people second chances. The bank hired 2,100 people with criminal records in 2018, which equals about 10 percent of total hires last year.  Applicants with criminal records are being considered for entry-level jobs like account servicing and transaction processing.

BILL MAKES ANIMAL CRUELTY FEDERAL FELONY.  The U.S. House of Representatives passes a bill that would make animal cruelty a federal felony. The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act bans abusive behavior including crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impaling and other bodily injury toward any non-humans. Violators could face criminal penalties of a fine, a prison term of up to seven years, or both.

K-9s ASSIST IN MARIJUANA BUST.  Four Connecticut state police drug-sniffing dogs are credited with helping troopers collar two men on drug-trafficking charges by sniffing out 420 pounds of marijuana.

INSURERS NIX FIRE COVERAGE.  Insurance companies are raising premiums and refusing to renew fire coverage in existing policies to 350,000 Californians.

UNION PUSHES RAISES FOR FINANCIAL NEWS OUTLETS.  The union that represents business journalists at The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch.com and Barron’s asks the parent company for raises of at least 3.25 percent over the next three years.

GWEN IFILL ON POSTAGE STAMPS.  Pioneering journalist Gwen Ifill, who died three years ago, is being memorialized on a U.S. Postal Service Forever stamp, the 43rd stamp in the Black Heritage series. After being a reporter for  The New York Times and The Washington Post, Ifill switched to television in the 1990s and covered politics and Congress for NBC News. She moved to PBS in 1999 as host of "Washington Week" and also worked for the nightly "NewsHour" program.

 

USING B-WORD COULD LEAD TO JAIL TIME.  A bill introduced by a Massachusetts lawmaker seeks to make an expletive a fineable offense --- up to $200 --- with jail time, up to six months, a threat for repeat offenders. The word: b----, to accost, annoy, degrade another person "shall be considered a disorderly person."