Washington Pos Profiles Man’s Efforts To Change Medical Education After Daughter’s Death

November 30, 2006 – 11:08 pm | posted in Medical Students, Primary Care

The Washington Post on Tuesday profiled Sidney Zion, a lawyer and journalist whose daughter’s death in a New York emergency department in 1984 prompted him to seek a series of reforms in teaching hospitals “that have revolutionized modern medical education.” Zion attributed his 18-year-old daughter’s death to inadequate staffing and supervision of medical residents, as well as residents’ exhaustion from working long hours. In May 1986, a grand jury declined a murder indictment for the physicians who cared for Zion’s daughter the night of her death, but the jury did issue a report criticizing “the supervision of interns and junior residents at a hospital in New York County.” In response to the report, New York State Health Commissioner David Axelrod established a blue-ribbon panel of experts headed by Bertrand Bell of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to evaluate the training and supervision of physicians in the state. In 1989, the state adopted the Bell Commission’s recommendations to restrict resident work hours to no more than 80 hours per week or 24 consecutive hours and require senior physicians to be present at hospitals at all times. In 2003, the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education made reduced hours and other Bell Commission recommendations mandatory for the accreditation of residency training programs across the country. According to the Post, Zion also “helped set the stage for the medical-errors movement that began in the 1990s” by “championing the cause of patients and families who believed they had been harmed by the medical profession” (Lerner, Washington Post, 11/28).

ShareThis

Also Read

Study Suggests Role For Y Chromosome In Prostate Cancer

The 2008 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule issued by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) this week means an increase in payments for ophthalmology of $154 million, or approximately 2 percent over existing payments. However, the increase could be more than offset by a 10.1 percent reduction in payments under the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula unless Congress intervenes to stop the cuts.

Washington Post Reports On ‘Growing Nationwide Effort’ To Require HPV Inoculation For Middle-School Age Girls

Gene Chip Technology Shows Potential For Identifying Life-Threatening Blood Infection

Report Profiles Medicaid Beneficiaries With High-Cost Medical Needs

2008 Presidential Candidate Edwards Says Investing In Universal Health Care System, Fighting Poverty More Important Than Reducing Federal Deficit

Abstinence-Only Sex Education Report Should Be ‘Bridge’ Between Policy Extremes, Editorial Says

Differences In Cause Of Death Of Washington State Veterans Who Did And Did Not Use Department Of Veterans Affairs Healthcare Services

Washington Post Profiles Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Changing Views On Abortion

Research Shows Latino Immigrants With HIV Face Late Access To Pharmaceutical Drugs & Treatments