Patients worse off with more-experienced docs?
From a 15 July 2011 Reuters health article
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a study that flies in the face of common sense, sicker patients turned out to fare worse under the care of seasoned doctors than when newcomers to medicine looked after them.
According to findings in the American Journal of Medicine, patients whose doctors had practiced for at least 20 years stayed longer in the hospital and were more likely to die compared to those whose doctors got their medical license in the past five years.
The results highlight “issues that we have as a medical profession in keeping up to date” with the latest medical knowledge, said Dr. Niteesh Choudhry of Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the new study. It is “a quality of care problem that has been recognized for five to 10 years,” he told Reuters Health….
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