Sure I Cut Off My Finger, But The ER Can Wait Until After The 9th Inning
from the priorities,-people,-priorities! dept
It's coming down to the final week of a fairly exciting baseball season, with very little certain about who will still be playing a week from now. Would you believe that may be good news for emergency room physicians? They might want to kick back and relax (at least in cities where teams are still in the pennant race), as new research suggests that emergency room visits drop during important baseball games. Similar research has suggested the same thing about the Super Bowl. Of course, it's not entirely clear (at least from this article) if it's just people delaying going to the ER (so, immediately following the games there would be a rush), or if they just don't go at all. In either case, if it's people who really need to be helped in an emergency situation, it would seem like this is actually a fairly unhealthy decision... On the other hand, if it turns out that people actually are healthier while watching games (perhaps they're not out getting into other trouble), then plenty sports fans now have a very good excuse for telling (perhaps) a complaining significant other why they need to plant themselves on the couch for a few hours to tune into the latest plays by the home nine.
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Left-Censored Data
But reading the article, the science is laughable. They only measured data from one hospital in one city during one season?? This Kenneth D. Mandl of Harvard Medical School will become the laughingstock of epidemiologists, and he can expect his career to be strung up high before the execution mob.
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You forgot...
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Re: You forgot...
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Re: You forgot...
Didn't forget. It says in the post: "perhaps they're not out getting into other trouble"
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Don't even bother going during a game
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Re: You forgot...
In the lab where I worked, the entrance took you through the patient waiting area where we had a color TV with cable (this was in 1986, so this was rarity on a military base) and I remember sitting there one Sunday and watched the entire Super Bowl game without a single sample being delivered for analysis, but within 20 minutes of the game being over, I was suddenly swamped with incoming work.
The only thing worse is Thanksgiving Day when around 3:00-3:30 in the afternoon you suddenly get an influx of people who ate too much and think they're having a heart attack.
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No Subject Given
Emergency rooms at hospitals are the health care of first resort for many people who cannot afford health insurance. Many people who visit emergency rooms for care are there for non-emergency reasons (such as to receive free medication, or consultation, as opposed to having a severed finger re-attached.)
It seems reasonable that people might put off these kinds of visits to emergency rooms for non-emergency care during high-profile television events.
Again, just because it says: Emergency Room ... doesn't mean all the health care that occurs in that room is "trauma" related.
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