I was in a discussion with a group of patients about how difficult it is for patients to get access to their own medical records. It was initiated after one of my patients was refused copies of her recent hospitalization. There is much confusion out th…
Category: KevinMD
Black market pharmaceuticals target immigrants
The bootleg medications were smuggled across the border and sold to mostly Latino immigrants in public spaces throughout Los Angeles — at swap meets, parks, beauty salons and makeshift stands outside mom-and-pop grocery stores. The drugs were cheap, an…
An important health care safety net is at risk
EMTALA is born The machine beeps alarmingly as it breathes for your child. The various numbers on the monitor are foreign to you, but you know something isn’t right because the nurse briskly walks away from the stretcher to grab the doctor, who then or…
How pneumatic tubes symbolizes our health system
About once or twice a day, everyone on our hospital’s computer network gets an emergency message that scrolls across the bottom of our screens, highlighted in the colors of danger and warning. They include things like a notification that a partic…