I was enjoying lunch at a popular midtown Sacramento restaurant recently, when two patrons walked in wearing green scrubs.  Both were wearing official badges from a large, local hospital, revealing one to be a physician, the other a registered nurse.  Concerned that these scrubs may have been exposed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, I politely asked that the healthcare workers leave the restaurant, and return only in regular attire.  Both were mildly annoyed but agreed to depart.  I took this action because I believe the use of scrubs in the community is… Continue Reading

The days of passively recruiting for outpatient clinical trials by having a research coordinator in a clinic manually review charts to determine which patients are eligible will soon be over. How soon is hard to tell, but institutions like Geisinger Medical Center in Pennsylvania, where I am Director of the Center for Clinical Studies (and an interventional cardiologist), have already demonstrated a much more efficient approach, as recently highlighted in the Wall Street Journal. Because of its longstanding use of electronic medical records (about 13 years now) and its stable… Continue Reading

Whether you’re attending ACC.11 or not, check out our coverage of late-breaking clinical trials, interviews with the authors of the most important research, and blogs from our fellows on the most interesting presentations at the meeting. VIEWS AND ANALYSIS PARTNER A: An Investigator’s View: Michael Mack, a principal investigator of the PARTNER study of TAVI versus AVR in patients with aortic stenosis, discusses the results released at ACC.11 and answers questions from CardioExchange’s Rick Lange and David Hillis. STICH: What’s the Value of CABG in Patients with LV Dysfunction?: Eric… Continue Reading