Category Archives: Web Site

Scalpel…Suture…Suction…Pencil?

  The buzz going around the medical community this week is Dr. Paul Teirstein’s article in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, titled “Boarded to Death — Why Maintenance of Certification Is Bad for Doctors and Patients,” in which he skewers the imposition of the Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirement put into place a year ago by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM).

The concept of the MOC was to ensure that physicians who had been certified in their specialty kept current with medical practice and the current guidelines. It’s not that concept that Dr. Teirstein objects to, but its heavy-handed implementation by, as he puts it, “people not directly involved in patient care who have lost contact with the realities of day-to-day clinical practice.” Ouch!

And Dr. Teirstein is not alone in his objections. An online petition he created has garnered almost 20,000 signatures. It asks the ABIM to recall the changes in MOC and institute a simple pathway consisting of  a recertification test every ten years; a corollary petition, pledging non-compliance (read “boycott”) has over 6,000 signers – a more difficult pledge since many physicians are employed by hospital systems that require the ABIM MOC. And this certification is a monopoly, but more on that later…. Continue reading

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Filed under ACC, Medical Education, Meetings & Conferences, SCAI, Web Site

Recycling Health News for Google Dollars, Robot Style

By Mirko Tobias Schaefer [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

“Writing Robot” by Mirko Tobias Schaefer [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I don’t know a health reporter named Geoff Michaels. I guess I should because in less than 3 months, Geoff has authored almost 1,000 health articles, mostly about heart disease, angioplasty and stents. Geoff writes for a site named Toronto NewsFix, which seems to have been started back in April 2013. I also don’t know Martin March, who’s authored almost 300. Or Robert Cervin, who’s chalked up 700. Or April Clarkson, also at 1,000 posts (she seems to cover any story containing the word “women”). And there are more reporters at NewsFix, as well.

The stories are short, usually less than 200 words, but there are thousands. So how come I have never heard about this website that has such an enormous output? And  how come I didn’t realize that there were so many healthcare stories out there? Continue reading

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Filed under Media Coverage, Web Site

The Stent Blog Has a New Look

Burt at his laptop Hard to believe it, but I started this blog eight years ago! Ouch!

So it’s certainly ripe (more like over-ripe) for a bit of a change — you know, we need to re-invent things at least once a decade…. So here it is. We’ve designed a new look but, more importantly, we now will be able to link more easily to a variety of social networking tools, show off our Twitter feed and post appropriate comments from our readers.

And, even more importantly, our posts will have category tags so you’ll be able to find all my scintillating insights into the various controversies of the day, such as Appropriate Use Criteria or Fractional Flow Reserve or the Transradial Approach.

As with all change, this transition is a work in progress…or, in this case, regress. Which is to say, posts prior to March 2012 are still in the old school format, and can be accessed in our archives. But, as time goes on, we will be importing and tagging our older posts, all the way back to October 2004, into this new format.

Hope you all approve. Your comments are, of course, welcome.

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Filed under Social Networking, Web Site

Visit the Archive for all of Burt’s Postings

Burt Cohen, The Voice In The Ear

Visit the archive for all of Burt’s postings.

Nov 2010 is as far back into our blog’s history as we’ve imported the “Voice In The Ear” archives to this current format, where they are tagged by topic.

We invite you to browse the archive to read all Burt’s earlier posts, back to the blog’s start in Oct 2004.  Happy reading!

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Filed under Web Site