World Wide Pressure Ulcer Prevention Day
This is a press release from NPUAP dated September 18, 2015: Washington, DC - According to the Prevention and Treatment of Pressure Ulcers: Clinical Practice Guidelines; “Pressure Ulcers increase hospital costs significantly. In the US, pressure ulcer care is...
Government Data Sheds Doubt Upon Pressure Ulcers as a Quality Indicator
Nearly all organizations concerned with healthcare quality have recognized pressure ulcers as a quality indicator. This assumption has impacted reimbursement policy and facility ratings, and resulted a risk-management burden for caregivers across the healthcare...
Jean Martin Charcot’s Lecture on Pressure Ulcers: An Important Historical Document
Click here for a downloadable PDF of Charcot's Lecture on Pressure Ulcers. . Some years back while browsing in an antiquarian book sale I came across a translated collection of lectures by the great 19th century neurophysiologist, Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893)....
History Night at the NY Academy of Medicine and Vesalius’s Historiated Initials
Click here for a downloadable PDF containing all historiated initials from the Fabrica. I’ve been a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine for over two decades, and over the years this organization has been a fountain of knowledge and learning for me....
Speaking of Vesalius’s Historiated Initials at the New York Academy of Medicine
Click here for a downloadable PDF containing all historiated initials from the Fabrica. The medical profession has a long and fascinating history, and if you are interested in learning more don’t miss this upcoming event at the New York Academy of Medicine. The...
NPUAP Introduces New Clinical Practice Guideline for Pressure Ulcers
We’ve come a long way since the first version of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Pressure Ulcers was put together by the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) and released by the Agency for Health Policy and Research (AHCPR) in 1992. This resource became...
Jeffrey Levine becomes NPUAP Board Member
I am thrilled to announce that I have been elected to the Board of Directors of the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, also known as NPUAP. My three year term begins this month. Joining me as a new Board Member is Sarah Holden-Mount PT, CWS, FACCWS who is Vice...
Insights into Geriatrics from Cartoonist Roz Chast
I've never posted a book review but will make an exception for this amazing new graphic memoir. Roz Chast, a beloved and well known cartoonist for the New Yorker, has written a brilliant book that should be required reading for the geriatric curriculum. It is...
New Government Report on Dying in America has Implications for Wound Care
A recently released report on Dying in America has important implications for the standard of care for persons with chronic wounds who are approaching life's end. It was published by the prestigious Institute of Medicine and written by a panel of recognized experts on...
The Enigma of the Historiated “V” in Vesalius’s Fabrica
This post continues to mark the 500th birthday of the great anatomist Andreas Vesalius, whose masterpiece tome, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, skillfully combined art and medicine. Today I will discuss the enigma of the historiated V that was introduced in the 1555...
Pressure Ulcer Care in Hospitals: What We Can Learn from the Texas Ebola Debacle
A simple lapse in communication in a Texas hospital resulted in a patient with a deadly contagious disease being discharged home. The information regarding the patient’s travel history was recorded into the electronic medical record (EMR) by a nurse but not...
The Old Man of Lake Titicaca
In 2010 the closing of St. Vincents Hospital in Manhattan gifted me with time to indulge my wanderlust, and so I went to Lake Titicaca in the Bolivian highlands of South America to celebrate the winter solstice with the shamans. On this trip I discovered a ceramic...