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British Medical Journal (The BMJ)
In a study of 256,288 individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 and had at least one risk factor for developing severe COVID, regardless of immunization, booster, or prior infection history, treatment with nirmatrelvir reduced rates of hospital admission or death at 30 days.
All Specialties April 19th 2023
MDLinx
An Idaho man received $13.5 million after a nearby hospital missed his stroke diagnosis by more than 12 hours. The jury’s finding that the emergency physician engaged in “reckless misconduct” allowed this case to exceed the usual Idaho cap on judgments for cases of this nature of $400,000.00.
All Specialties April 18th 2023
Healthgrades for Professionals
There is excellent news in the upcoming Medscape Female Physician Compensation Report for 2022. Female primary care and specialist physicians had pay increases of 8.1% and 8.5% from the prior year, respectively. This has resulted in a 2% reduction in the pay difference between men and women in both situations. Despite the fact that this is progress, there is still a huge 25% disparity in primary care and 31% in specialties, with female doctors underrepresented in the higher paying specialties.
In the first half of 2020, only 36% of the three million submissions to top health and medical journals came from women. The gender difference was most prominent among younger cohorts of female authors who were just starting their careers and applied to both research and non-research papers across all authorship positions in both top-tier and lower-impact journals. The damage to women’s research productivity, particularly for those in their early careers, was immediate amid the enormous, quick publication of covid papers. According to research, women’s publication production fell by 15% in 2020 compared to 2019, and by comparison to men, it was 24% lower. A growing gender disparity was substantiated by an analysis of nearly 500,000 authors in the fields of basic medicine, biology, chemistry, and clinical medicine, demonstrating that the early disadvantage women faced in terms of recognition and career advancement was both real and lasting.
Annals of Internal Medicine
Comparing outcomes for all available monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID, this study found the risk for hospitalization or death at 28 days was 4.6% in treated patients and 7.6% in nontreated control patients. Relative risk was somewhat lower for Alpha and Delta variants, and highest for Omicron variants.
All Specialties April 11th 2023
JAMA Network
The viewpoint authors argue that excellence in medical education cannot be reduced to a simple set of scores for ranking. The formula used by USNWR is deeply flawed. The key question is, “what makes a good physician?” There are a multitude of skills and character traits that comprise the answer, and USNWR doesn’t have metrics for those essentials.