A few months ago I posted a lengthy piece about Mark Midei, the interventional cardiologist from Maryland who had his medical license suspended last year following a lengthy scandal in which he became the poster-boy (or scapegoat, depending on whom you ask) for all that’s wrong with interventional cardiology in the US. Although I was highly critical…
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Mark Midei Can’t Get a Job Taking Blood Pressure At A Walmart
April 8, 2012 by 9 Comments
Earlier this year I had the extraordinary experience of spending several hours on the phone with Mark Midei, the poster-boy (or scapegoat, depending on whom you ask) for all that’s wrong with interventional cardiology in the US. I approached the conversation with some trepidation and discomfort. I’d followed his story closely– but not obsessively– and…
2011 in Review: Rivaroxaban, Sapien, Mark Midei, Conflicts of Interest, and Much More
December 31, 2011 by 4 Comments
Here’s a completely personal review of the past year in cardiology. Please write a comment if you strongly agree, disagree, or think something is missing. Drug of the Year: Rivaroxaban (Xarelto)– Despite a highly negative review from FDA reviewers, rivaroxaban gained FDA approval for the coveted stroke prevention in AF indication. The drug was approved…
The Mark Midei Cases: Patient A
July 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment
The document containing the final decision of the Maryland State Board of Physicians revoking the medical license of Mark Midei includes extensive details about 5 cases (Patients A-E) reviewed by the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), along with expert testimony about the cases by Midei himself, William O’Neill, Midei’s expert witness, and Matthews Chacko, the state’s expert…
Maryland Revokes Mark Midei’s Medical License
July 13, 2011 by 1 Comment
Mark Midei’s license to practice medicine has been revoked by the Maryland Board of Physicians. In its Final Decision and Order the Maryland Board found that Midei was guilty of unprofessional conduct, willfully making a false report, gross overutilization of health care services, violating the standard of quality care, and failure to keep adequate medical records. The Maryland board…
Mark Midei Gives A Preview Of His Defense
April 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Mark Midei, the embattled Maryland interventional cardiologist, has finally spoken. After more than a year of intense controversy and criticism, Midei has presented a preview of his defense in a commentary published by the Baltimore Sun. Midei writes that he will soon appear before the Maryland Board of Physicians where “I will have the long-awaited…
Midei’s Business As Usual Defense:”This Is the Way It’s Done”
December 11, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Mark Midei’s lawyer responded to the sensational reports earlier this week about his client’s relationship to Abbot. In defending his client he gave a preview of Midei’s defense. According to a story by Tricia Bishop in the Baltimore Sun, “it was business as usual for the medical profession.” “All of these events were legal; they were…
Senate Report on Mark Midei and Abbott: 30 Stents in 1 Day, Pig Roasts, and More
December 6, 2010 by 1 Comment
[Updated] Mark Midei, the interventional cardiologist who has been accused of implanting hundreds of unnecessary stents at St. Joseph Medical Center in Maryland, was congratulated by Abbott Labs for implanting 30 stents in one day. “I heard thru the grapevine that you had a truly outstanding day with Xience in the labs on Friday, perhaps setting…
News Briefs: Recurrent Stroke Prevention Guidelines, Vernakalant Trial Suspended, GSK Investigated, Generic Enoxaparin Takes Off, Kaul Speaks, Midei Sues
October 21, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The American Heart Association published revised recurrent stroke prevention guidelines. The new guidelines state that recurrent stroke may be prevented by carotid angioplasty or by treating metabolic syndrome….
On Cannibals And Cardiologists
June 21, 2018 by 1 Comment
Everyone knows that cannibalism was practiced widely in pre-Colombian Mexico. Go online and you will quickly learn that 15,000 to 20,000 Aztecs were sacrificed each year. This “fact” colors our view of that civilization, and makes it a bit easier to give a pass to the conquistadors who, for all their own rapacity, brought “civilization”…
The Big Dirty Secret Every Doctor Knows
August 2, 2016 by 5 Comments
–Eminence-based medicine is not the exception. It’s the rule. Lately I’ve been writing about eminence-based medicine (here, here, and here). In response to these posts Saurabh Jha, a well-known radiologist and health-policy critic, asked me on Twitter: “How do you find these utter gems?!” I was surprised by Jha’s question. At first I thought…
Should Doctors Tell Patients They Are Walking Time Bombs?
November 4, 2015 by 2 Comments
Updated– Should doctors tell patients that they are walking time bombs? We all know this is a commonly used metaphor. When it comes to the heart people are often told they have a “ticking” time bomb. Here’s one recent very public example from a story about statins by Jane Brody in the New York Times: “My friend Richard…
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly: Stents In The News
October 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Three big stent stories were in the news today. You’d never know that all 3 were about the same topic. The Ugly The ugly side of stents is emphasized in David Armstrong’s Bloomberg News story on Mehmood Patel, the Louisiana interventional cardiologist serving a 10-year prison sentence for Medicare fraud. These days Patel “leads health-conscious inmates on…
400 Patients Sue Kentucky Hospital and 11 Cardiologists Over Unnecessary Procedures
February 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
After undergoing more than two dozen cardiac procedures over a period of twenty years at St. Joseph Hospital in London, Kentucky, a patient was told by an outside cardiologist in Lexington that a recent procedure had been performed unnecessarily on an artery that was barely blocked. “I would have not carried out this procedure,” the…
2012 In Review: A Bad Year For Conventional Wisdom
December 24, 2012 by 3 Comments
This was a really grim year for anyone who thought we had things pretty well figured out. Time and again conventional wisdom was thrown out the window. 2012 forced the cardiology community to reconsider what it thought it knew about HDL cholesterol, platelet function tests, aspirin resistance, triple therapy, IABP, and more. One device company,…
Why HCA Is Like Barclays And JP Morgan
August 10, 2012 by 3 Comments
Earlier this week the New York Times reported on a pattern of seriously deficient cardiac care at a number of hospitals owned by HCA. Understandably, the most common reaction is simple disgust over more bad cardiology behavior. After the Mark Midei case, after subsequent and even worse cases in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, the easy thing is to…
And the 2012 Award For the Most Dumbass Drug Promotion Goes To…
March 29, 2012 by 7 Comments
The year 2012 is only 25% complete but it’s never too early to recognize an unprecedented and bold achievement in drug marketing. …
Prominent Interventionalists Attack Appropriate Use Criteria For PCI
February 8, 2012 by 5 Comments
A group of leading interventional cardiologists has launched an attack on the growing role of appropriate use criteria (AUC) for PCI in the US. They argue that severe flaws in current guidelines render unreliable current attempts to assess the rate of appropriate procedures. In a paper published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, Steven Marso and colleagues (Paul…
Whistleblower Lawsuit Filed Against 5 Cardiologists in Pennsylvania
January 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The US government has joined a cardiologist in a whistleblower lawsuit against Hamot Medical Center in western Pennsylvania and a group of cardiologists with whom he once practiced, Ed Palattella reports in the Erie Times-News. Cardiologist Tullio Emanuele, who now practices in Kentucky, has accused five former colleagues, members of Medicor Associates Inc. and its affiliate, Flagship Cardiac,…
Significant Declines Observed in Cardiovascular Procedures Performed in Hospitals
September 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment
More evidence is starting to emerge that the overall volume of cardiovascular procedures in US hospitals is in decline. The trend should come as no surprise to those who have been following news about cardiovascular medicine in recent years, as the field has been repeatedly struck by debate, scandal and controversy related to the potential…
Less May Be More, But Stents Are Neither Good Nor Bad
July 23, 2011 by 4 Comments
A few days ago the distinguished healthcare writer Shannon Brownlee wrote a provocative blog post about the overuse of stents. A key piece of evidence that she used was a paper co-authored by Grace Lin and Rita Redberg in which focus groups of cardiologists cheerfully admitted that they would give stents to hypothetical patients who were, according…
ProPublica: Cardiac Society Draws Bulk of Funding From Stent Makers
May 13, 2011 by 1 Comment
Editor’s note: The following post is reprinted with permission from ProPublica. It is the latest installment in ProPublica’s Dollars for Doctors: How Industry Money Reaches Physicians, an ongoing investigation. Cardiac Society Draws Bulk of Funding From Stent Makers by Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, May 13, 2011, 1:27 p.m. A Pittsburgh hospital informed 141 patients [1] earlier this year…
Pennsylvania Hospital At Center of Controversy Had Very High Stent Volume
May 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Westmoreland Hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital where 2 cardiologists have been accused of implanting stents in patients who did not need them, had an exceptionally high volume of stent procedures, according to an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review by Luis Fabregas. The hospital, with only 364 beds, implanted 1,297 stents in fiscal year 2010, the fourth-highest…
Pennsylvania Hospital: 141 Patients Received Unnecessary Stents
March 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment
A hospital in western Pennsylvania says that at least 141 heart patients received coronary stents that weren’t needed, according to an article by Luis Fabregas in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Westmoreland Hospital in Greensburg, PA has informed the patients and the 2 interventional cardiologists who performed the procedures have resigned. The hospital says that it will cooperate with…
The ACC Wants You To Know That Nothing Is Rotten In The State Of Maryland
February 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment
For more than a year now, as most CardioBrief readers undoubtedly know, a scandal in Maryland has raised troubling questions about hundreds of stent patients treated by Mark Midei– previously considered one of the top interventional cardiologists in the state. In the wake of the scandal, some have questioned whether other interventional cardiologists, in Maryland…
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