The Health News USA October 16 2017
- Rebecca Bredow, the 40-year mother from Ferndale, Michigan has lost primary custody of her child after she was jailed for five days for not following through on an agreement to vaccinate her 9-year-old son. She said vaccinations go against her religious beliefs. The judge also granted temporary custody to her ex-husband and ordered the boy to be vaccinated..
- A small study suggest when medical errors lead to serious injuries, patients and families may feel better when doctors take the time to listen to their feelings about the mistake and explain what can be done to prevent it from happening again. The research team interviewed 27 patients, 3 family members and 10 staff members at three U.S. hospitals that have established programs to communicate with patients about medical errors and efforts to improve safety – and offer compensation when substandard care causes harm.
- Once again Americans’ obesity rates have reached a new high-water mark. In 2015 and 2016, just short of 4 in 10 American adults had a body mass index that put them in obese territory. In addition, just under 2 in 10 American children — those between 2 and 19 years of age — are now considered obese as well.
News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 16th of October 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News
A Michigan mother has lost primary custody of her child after she was jailed for five days for not following through on an agreement to vaccinate her nine-year-old son. Oakland County Judge Karen McDonald ruled Wednesday that Rebecca Bredow, forty, of Ferndale would no longer have primary custody of the boy, but would share joint custody with her ex-husband, James Horne. Horne wanted his son vaccinated and Bredow agreed to do so last November but didn’t follow through. The mother said vaccinations go against her religious beliefs. Bredow was found in contempt of court last week and sent to jail for five days. The judge also granted temporary custody to Horne and ordered the boy to be vaccinated. He received four immunizations on Monday.
Bredow’s attorney said she was “devastated” when she found out her son was vaccinated.
“It was the worst five days of my life, except for the fact that I just found out that he was vaccinated and I’m not going to get him back today,” Bredow told the Detroit Free Press. She added: “It’s been a rough few days to say the least.” Bredow told reporters Wednesday she was “in shock” by the court’s decision. Her attorney plans to appeal.
A small study suggest when medical errors lead to serious injuries, patients and families may feel better when doctors take the time to listen to their feelings about the mistake and explain what can be done to prevent it from happening again. The research team interviewed twenty seven patients, three family members and ten staff members at three U.S. hospitals that have established programs to communicate with patients about medical errors and efforts to improve safety – and offer compensation when substandard care causes harm. In every case, patients had either accepted a malpractice settlement or been injured too long ago to file a lawsuit.
The study has found that overall twenty seven of the thirty patients and family members had received compensation, and eighteen patients continued to receive care at the hospital where the mistake occurred. After mistakes, patient satisfaction was highest when communications were not adversarial and included compensation. Patients and families also expressed a strong need to be heard and expected the physician involved in the case to listen to their feelings about the mistake, researchers report in JAMA Internal Medicine.
“When things go wrong in the hospital, doctors tend to be focused on doing what they do best: conveying medical information and treating the patient,” said senior study author Michelle Mello, a law professor at Stanford University in California. She added: ‘’Patients and families had some surprising advice for doctors and hospitals.’’
Another surprise was that both victims and clinicians said it was helpful to have plaintiffs’ attorneys join these conversations, said lead study author Jennifer Moore, of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Overall, thirty five of forty respondents thought lawyers could help, the study found. Although patients and families expressed a strong desire to know what would be done to prevent errors in the future, twenty four of the thirty participants said they didn’t get information about safety improvements, the study also found.
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At the end of the day, the study, while small, still highlights what may be a fairly universal need patients have after medical mistakes, said Dr. William Sage, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Texas at Austin who wasn’t involved in the study.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/4-10-adults-u-s-obese-cdc-finds-article-1.3561450
Once again Americans’ obesity rates have reached a new high-water mark. In two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen, just short of four in ten American adults had a body mass index that put them in obese territory. In addition, just under two in ten American children — those between two and nineteen years of age — are now considered obese as well.
The new measure of the nation’s weight problem, released early Friday by statisticians from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronicles dramatic increases from the nation’s obesity levels since the turn of the twenty first century. Adult obesity rates have climbed steadily from a rate of thirty point five percent in nineteen ninety nine and two thousand to thirty nine point eight percent in two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen, the most recent period for which data were available. That represents a thirty percent increase. Children’s rates of obesity have risen roughly thirty four percent in the same period, from thirteen point nine percent in nineteen ninety nine and two thousand to eighteen percent in two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen. Seen against a more distant backdrop, the new figures show an even starker pattern of national weight-gain over a generation.
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