I am often accused of being a doctor basher over at the NYT “Well” blog, but good…er, gravy!
A Maryland physician inserted 30 Abbott Lab heart stents (an expensive, and for the patient, scary procedure with long-lasting implications) in one day! Abbott threw him a roast pig party!
Now—now!—the hospital pulled his privileges and said 585 stents he inserted between 2007 and 2009 may have been unnecessary.
Abbott continued to pay him, though, according to reports in the NYT and WSJ.
Of course, the doctor says the hospital made this up to cover its own bad level of care.
Other experts say this is more common than we know. Second opinions, people!
You are only supposed to get a stent if the artery is pretty much blocked and you have a lot of chest pain. Rechecking of people who were told their “widowmakers” were pretty much clogged up showed they were pretty much not clogged up.
One writer wrote about this and an Abbott guy said someone should kick the writer’s ass. There you go--that’s the kind of charm we expect in our esteemed medication purveyors.
I once had a doctor talk about a pacemaker for me—then someone in his office was accused of buying the pacemakers he implanted on eBay. That pretty much did it for me.
By the way—a roast pig? Wouldn’t a salad be better heart fare?
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