Skeptical Scalpel Surgeon

All articles by Skeptical Scalpel Surgeon

Surgeons Should Never Take Off

Study Says Surgeons Should Never Take a Day off

A paper by a couple of public health researchers created some media buzz because it suggested that cardiac surgeons’ performance deteriorated when they took even one day off from surgery.

For a sample of over 56,000 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in Pennsylvania over a 5-year period, the average 1-day mortality was 0.62% and average in-hospital mortality was 2.72%. That means 349 patients died within 24 hours and 1532 died in-hospital.

Are Wikipedia's Medical Articles Unreliable?

Are Wikipedia’s Medical Articles Unreliable?

Something seemed odd when I first read that 90% of medical articles on Wikipedia contained errors. The paper was from an obscure osteopathic school called Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina.

Like most abstracts you read, this one was a little fuzzy about the methods used. The top 10 most-costly medical conditions were identified, and a Wikipedia article for each was reviewed by 2 randomly assigned investigators.

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