ABLEnews MedNotes

                        AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS (10/26/92)

Weighing HIV Risks (1)
  "A physician saw a needlestick in one of his assistants, but the
  patient refused to be tested. The physican thought that was wrong. He
  saw the agony and anguish his colleague was experiencing." --Holley
  Midgley, Medical Association of the State of Alabama. Now an Alabama
  court is to rule if testing without consent sacrifices patients rights
  for physician safety.

What to Expect When Lab Inspector Knocks (1)
  Starting next year more than 100,000 physicians will be surveyed to
  see whether their office labs  meet the requirements of the Clinical
  Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988.

HHS Funding Bill Breaks Medicare Pledge to Pay Claims in 17 Days (1)
  $184 million in payments will be postponed until Fiscal Year 1994.

Fighting a Growing Menace (2)
  Pollution kills more than 2,000,000 people worldwide each year.

You Can't Overdo Advice on Mammograms (3)
  Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second
  leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States.

Special License for Retirees Raises Quality Question (3)
  "We want to continue to give to the community." --Jack McConnell,
  M.D., one of a group of retired physicians seeking to open a free
  clinic in South Carolina. "Some of these physicians may provide care
  that is worse than no care." -Sidney Wolfe, M.D., Public Citizen's
  Health Research Group, who opposes exemptions allowing the clinic to
  open.

Discrimination Against IMGs Barred (3)
  New federal law bars discrimination against international medical
  graduates, who constitute one-fifth of all U.S. physicians.

Congress Sends Medicare Fixes to the White House (4)
  50 Medicare amendments are attached to H.R. 11, a massive tax and
  urban aid bill that raises $27 billion in federal revenue and faces a
  likely veto from a president running on a no-new-taxes platform.

Nobel Medicine Prize Goes to 2 Americans (5)
  Edmond Fischer, Ph.D. and Edwin Krebs, M.D. honored for defining a
  basic biological process important to understanding cancer.

Test Program to Cut Liability Risk Expands to 9 States (5)
  Medical societies and insurers are participating in an experiment to
  help physicians identify and eliminate practices that expose them to
  professional liability lawsuits.

Naming of New Executive Raises Friction Over CME Contract (6)
  If the AMA is a Goliath, the CMSS (Council of Medical Specialty
  Societies) sees itself as David--deriving strength from its weakness.

California Cites Finances in Rejecting Residents' Hours Limits (6)
  Governor Pete Wilson vetoes bill establishing work limits for residents
  and quotas for primary care residency slots.

The Insider's Guide to Health Reform Jargon (7)
  "coordinated care: Bush euphemism for managed care. His plan calls for
  more of it. Clinton euphemism is collaborative care. His plan also
  calls for more of it."

Watching TV May Be Bad for Your Health (9)
  "People who watch between 3 and 4 hours of TV daily tend to be
  overweight and sedentary. Many smoke, and many experience high levels
  of stress." --Larry Tucker, director, Health Promotion and Wellness
  Program, Brigham Young University. Habitual TV viewers have double the
  high-cholesterol risk of infrequent watchers.

Hurricane's Emotional Damage Is Also Devastating (10)
  "It was one big blur of human tragedy." --Raquel Cohen, M.D., child
  psychiatrist.

Warning in English May Not Be Enough (10)
  Spanish-speaking family whose child contracted Reye's syndrome sues
  aspirin manufacturer whose product bore an English-language warning.

Redefining Quality (11)
  "Total quality management" and "continuous quality improvement"
  promise to improve medicine. But what does these terms really mean?

IRS Loses Test Cases on Small Pension Audits (11)
  Investment in small defined-beneift pension plans appear to be safe
  from retroactive, across-the-board taxation by the IRS following a
  U.S. Tax Court ruling.

Early Pension Distributions May Be Taxing Problem (18)

Training Employees Is Good Preventative Medicine (19)
  Well-designed training programs for new employees ensures they will
  become competent soon and makes it possible to gauge how well they
  are performing.

New Credentialing Program Certifies Medical Coders (19)
  46% of the medical-record coders who took the American Health
  Information Management Association's exam met the minimum passing
  score of 80%.

Physicians Not Responsible for Patient's Death (20)
  After "incomplete abortion," finds Illinois court.

Chiropractor Can't Testify (20)
  In Indiana malpractice case, court rules.

Escaping From Unfair Peer Review's Web (editorial) (23)
  "The problem with many review programs is that they infringe on the
  doctors' abilities to make clinical decisions. And the costs,
  administrative requirements, and coverage restrictions place an
  unacceptable burden on physicians and patients."

Health Reform: Doctors Will Claim a Seat at the Table (op ed) (23)
  Under Health Access America, "our patients would keep their freedom to
  choose their own doctor. hospital and insurance plan, rather than a
  distant and remote government dictating thoses choices from afar."
  --Raymond Scalettar, chairman, AMA Board of Trustees.

Doctors Should Start Out With Optimism (letter-to-editor) (25)
  "To make such devastating neurological and functional prognoses...so
  early in the clinical course of this young person is a travesty.
  Initially, families are extremely grateful to discover that their
  loved one is going to survive. Most of the time this is sufficient to
  carry them for several weeks." --Joseph Carfl, M.D. CURE Comment: For
  families that remain grateful, such as those we have been privileged
  to work with for over a decade, it is enough to carry then a lifetime.

Statistics Bear Out Health Impressions (letter-to-editor) (25)
  "10% of the population consumes 75% of medical expenditures....Those
  who are sick remain sick for some time, and those who are well remain
  well for extended periods." --George Manning, M.D.

Question of Genetic Information DIstribution Tricky (op ed) (26)
  "Many people already have been denied insurance coverage, and
  disadvantaged with respect to employment opportunities...The evidence
  of a new 'genetic underclass' is alarming." --Leo Uzych, JD.

How Organized Medicine Is Trying to Harness RBRVS (ope ed) (28)
  "Outside of the Washington beltway, no one is happy with RBRVS and the
  ever-tightening noose that HCFA is drawing around our professional
  necks." --Arthur SIlk, M.D.

The Good Things About Death (29)
  Prominent in the office of psychiatrist Irvin Yalom's office is a
  statue of Buddha. As an existentialist, Yalom holds that human
  existence is bounded by the unescapable reality that we are all going
  to die.

Comfort Or Truth: What Is the Doctor's Duty to the Dying Patient? (31)
  Dr. Yalom's new novel, set in 19th century Vienna, speculates on what
  muight have been if psychotherapy had been molded by the Extensialist
  Nietzche rather than the pschosexual Freud.

A Reminder From Behind Bars: Live by the Ethics, Doctor (32)
  "Somehow this gentle, kind, knowledgeable opthalmologist had turned
  dishonest, making up diagnoses, patients, and procedures." --Adria
  Burrows, M.D.

Devices Intended to Stop Needle Reuse Not the Answer (32)
  to AIDS and other diseases spread by addicts. 'It is probably better
  to consider potential new injection equipment as difficult to reuse
  rather than truly nonreusable." --Office of Technology Assessment.

M.D.-Legislator still Running for Office--Despite Illness (34)
  Dr. William Filante battles Democrats and a brain tumor in
  California's 16th Congressional district.

Patients Requesting List of Free Drugs (35)
  For further information, write Senate Special Committee on Aging, Room
  G-31, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510-6400.

House Says Sick Veterans Should Be Able to Light Up (36)
  "The V.A. smoking issue has left many of our veterans hot under the
  collar. This provision gives them back their dignity and provides them
  with the protection they deserve from their government." --Rep. Nick
  Rahall (D-WV).

Step by Step: the Ins amd Outs of Lab Inspection (37)
  The usual COLA customer, a 7-to-10-physician group pays $1,320.

Deals Robbing Peter to Pay Paul (41)
  Most health programs will see only miniscule funding increases and
  others will suffer serious cuts under a 1993 appropriations bill.

[The above listing, prepared for ABLEnews by CURE, includes all major
articles in the cited issue and a representative selection of the rest.]

...For further information, contact CURE, 812 Stephen Street, Berkeley
Springs, West Virginia 254511 (304-258-LIFE/5433).








