Diseases & Condition

Woman suing hospital, doctors over prank during surgery

A Los Angeles woman is suing an area hospital after one of its surgeons affixed a fake mustache to her upper lip and fake tears and then photographed her – all while she was still under anesthesia.

ABC News reports the unnamed patient, who also worked at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, where the procedure was performed October 2011, also hit her unidentified anesthesiologist with a raft of incendiary legal claims.

The patient says she learned of the bizarre photos from co-workers who had seen them after returning to work as a surgical supply purchaser at the hospital.

“Perhaps the most vulnerable position any human being will ever endure in their life is a time when they are placed under full anesthesia,” reportedly reads the lawsuit, filed Aug. 15 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Among the myriad claims leveled against the anesthesiologist and Dr. Patrick Yang is that the pair also positioned the patient’s neck “so that they could keep her mouth open in order to make a crude sexual joke,” during her procedure.

Perhaps most troubling is that the suit also reportedly accuses Yang and Co. of choosing to employ full anesthesia, rather than a simple sedative, so they could stage the whacky photo shoot, or “for the sole purpose of humiliating and embarrassing the patient.”

Torrance Memorial Medical Center acknowledged the alarming affair in a statement to ABC News, saying it was “intended to be humorous in nature.”

And although the hospital conceded that the anesthesiologist and the nurse “demonstrated poor judgment,” the medical facility reportedly dismissed most of the woman’s allegations as “factually inaccurate, grossly exaggerated or fabricated.”

“While the breach of professionalism outlined above regrettably did occur, Torrance Memorial is vigorously defending this lawsuit and requesting its dismissal,” reportedly reads the statement, which goes on to chalk the whole matter up as a practical joke between friends gone awry.

Yang and the patient were “friendly,” the hospital’s statement to ABC News says, and “had a good working relationship,” prior to the procedure.

“We take patient rights and privacy very seriously,” the statement reportedly reads. “After our internal investigation into the 2011 incident, we conducted additional training among the hospital’s staff about demonstrating professionalism at all times. We have taken substantial steps including privacy training to ensure patient rights are respected and protected for every patient in our hospital, even if that patient is a friend and colleague.”

Source: Fox News

Lung diseases cause one in 10 deaths across Europe

tobacco smoking as “the most important health hazard in Europe

Lung conditions are the cause of one in 10 of all deaths in Europe and smoking is a major factor, says a report from the European Respiratory Society.

It says deaths from lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) will rise over the next 20 years because of past smoking rates.

But a British lung charity says lung disease kills one in four in the UK.

Yet it does not receive priority when it comes to prevention, treatment or research funding, it says.

The data, presented in a publication called the European Lung White Book, uses the latest data from the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to analyze trends in lung disease.

Disease burden

In the WHO European Region, which stretches from the Atlantic to Central Asia, it found that the four most commonly fatal lung diseases – lower respiratory infections (including pneumonia), COPD, lung cancers and tuberculosis – accounted for one-tenth of all deaths.

Among the 28 countries of the European Union, however, these diseases account for one in eight deaths, the White Book said.

Only Belgium (117 deaths per 100,000 population), Denmark, Hungary and Ireland had higher death rates from lung disease than the UK, at 112 per 100,000 people.

Finland and Sweden had the lowest mortality rates of 53.7 and 55.7 per 100,000.

But the report said the proportion of total deaths attributed to a lung condition is highest in the UK and Ireland, a figure which the British Lung Foundation puts at one in four people.

Health hazard’

The data in the White Book also shows that half of the total socio-economic costs of respiratory disease can be put down to smoking.

It describes tobacco smoking as “the most important health hazard in Europe” and it maintains that smoking is the main preventable cause of death from illnesses such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and coronary artery disease.

While smoking rates in many high-death rate countries such as Denmark and the UK have fallen significantly since the 1970s, the report says the long-term effects of those habits are keeping cases of lung cancer and COPD at high levels.

This means the proportion of deaths caused by lung conditions is likely to remain stable over the next 20 years, even though a decrease in lung infections is predicted.

 

For More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23971689