Ron Paterson, the former Health and Disability Commissioner, is going to head up a research project into “the best practice on how the public can be confident any given medical practitioner is “a good doctor”“. While this sounds superficially like a worthy undertaking, you can be assured that the conclusions arrived at will probably be [...]
Just occasionally, when the media run a “bad doctor” story, the doctor is actually bad. Such is the story of Sajan Bhatia, the disgraced Southland urologist, who has apparently continued to practice as a doctor long after the medical council refused to renew his practicing certificate. This is the medical equivalent of a hanging offense.
Bhatia [...]
Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article.
This is what happens when legitimate studies are reported sensationally:
Bad doctors most likely to be men, report shows
Women make safer doctors than men, Britain’s largest study of medical performance has found.
They are less likely to be investigated over concerns about [...]
The Herald has an article about a GP who has been accused of scamming $1.3 million from the taxpayer by faking the number of patients on his books. Two observations:
This illustrates that scamming the system is simply too easy. This particular doctor was only caught because he was investigated by the HDC for serious medical [...]
