(Press-News.org) While some studies suggest female patients treated by female physicians have better outcomes, there does not appear to be a relationship between operator and patient gender and outcome in patients undergoing coronary angioplasty or stenting. These are the results of a first-of-its-kind study by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium (BMC2) and published in Catheterizations and Cardiovascular Interventions.
The study looked at procedures performed by 385 male interventional cardiologists, and 18 female interventional cardiologists at 48 non-federal hospitals across the state of Michigan. Female interventional cardiologists continue to be markedly under-represented and only perform a small percentage of cases, with women accounting for only 4.5% of interventional cardiologists and performing only 3% of procedures.
Despite interventional cardiology remaining an overwhelmingly male-dominated specialty, female physicians in this field stand out as excellent practitioners. Coronary angioplasties done by female physicians were more frequently rated as appropriate as compared to procedures performed by their male counterparts, among those studied. Female interventional cardiologists also more frequently prescribe recommended medical therapies than male interventional cardiologists. No differences in death, kidney injury, major bleeding or blood transfusions were found between patients treated by male or female interventional cardiologists.
"While the overall care processes and outcomes in Michigan were great, and similar for operators of either sex, the female physicians scored higher on appropriateness and post-procedural therapy These findings would benefit female trainees who are considering interventional cardiology but are concerned about perceived barriers," says the lead author of the study, Prasanthi Yelavarthy, MD.
Gurm is an interventional cardiologist at the Michigan Medicine Frankel Cardiovascular Center, and Yelavarthy is a house officer at Michigan Medicine.
BMC2 is a collaborative consortium of health care providers in the State of Michigan comprised of three statewide quality improvement projects:
A prospective multicenter statewide registry of consecutive percutaneous coronary interventions (BMC2 PCI).
A prospective, longitudinal multicenter statewide registry of vascular surgeries and carotid interventions (BMC2-Vascular surgery).
Michigan TAVR, a structural heart quality improvement initiative focused on transcatheter aortic valve replacement in collaboration with the Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons.
All projects are designed to improve quality of care and patient outcomes. The collaboration across BMC2 overcomes the barriers of traditional market and academic competition. All projects collect, audit and organize data and report procedural variables and outcomes to individual operators and institutions.
Physician-patient gender concordance may not matter in interventional practice
2021-05-25
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
How army ants' iconic mass raids evolved
2021-05-25
Army ants form some of the largest insect societies on the planet. They are quite famous in popular culture, most notably from a terrifying scene in Indiana Jones. But they are also ecologically important. They live in very large colonies and consume large amounts of arthropods. And because they eat so much of the other animals around them, they are nomadic and must keep moving in order to not run out of food. Due to their nomadic nature and mass consumption of food, they have a huge impact on arthropod populations throughout tropical rainforests floors.
Their mass raids are considered the pinnacle of collective foraging behavior in the animal kingdom. The raids are a coordinated ...
Geology helps map kidney stone formation from tiny to troublesome
2021-05-25
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Advanced microscope technology and cutting-edge geological science are giving new perspectives to an old medical mystery: How do kidney stones form, why are some people more susceptible to them and can they be prevented?
In a new paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Urology, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Mayo Clinic and other collaborators described the geological nature of kidney stones, outlined the arc of their formation, established a new classification scheme and suggested possible clinical interventions.
"The process of kidney stone formation is part of the natural process of the stone formation seen throughout nature," Illinois geology professor ...
Does cold wildfire smoke contribute to water repellent soils in burned areas?
2021-05-25
Reno, Nev. (May 25, 2021) - After a wildfire, soils in burned areas often become water repellent, leading to increased erosion and flooding after rainfall events - a phenomenon that many scientists have attributed to smoke and heat-induced changes in soil chemistry. But this post-fire water repellency may also be caused by wildfire smoke in the absence of heat, according to a new paper from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Nevada.
In this pilot study (exploratory research that takes place before a larger-scale study), an interdisciplinary team of scientists led by DRI Associate Research Professor of Atmospheric Science Vera Samburova, Ph.D., exposed samples of clean sand to smoke from burning Jeffrey pine needles and branches ...
Algorithm to compare cells across species
2021-05-25
Cells are the building blocks of life, present in every living organism. But how similar do you think your cells are to a mouse? A fish? A worm?
Comparing cell types in different species across the tree of life can help biologists understand how cell types arose and how they have adapted to the functional needs of different life forms. This has been of increasing interest to evolutionary biologists in recent years because new technology now allows sequencing and identifying all cells throughout whole organisms. "There's essentially a wave in the scientific community to classify all types of cells in a wide variety of different organisms," explained Bo Wang, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University.
In response to this opportunity, ...
Impact of coal burning on Yangtze River is comparable to natural processes
2021-05-25
A new study finds that fly ash--particles left over from burning coal--make up between 37 and 72 percent of all particulate organic carbon carried by the Yangtze River in China, or around 200,000 to 400,000 tons of carbon per year.
The study, which is the first of its kind, shows just how big an impact fossil fuel consumption has on Earth. Beyond pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, coal burning dumps about as much particulate carbon into the Yangtze River as natural processes do.
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on May 17.
"About one-fifth of the world's coal consumption occurs along this river," says Gen Li, postdoctoral ...
Skoltech researchers proposed an attractive cheap organic material for batteries
2021-05-25
A new report by Skoltech scientists and their colleagues describes an organic material for the new generation of energy storage devices, which structure follows an elegant molecular design principle. It has recently been published in ACS Applied Energy Materials and made the cover of the journal.
While the modern world relies on energy storage devices more and more heavily, it is becoming increasingly important to implement sustainable battery technologies that are friendlier to the environment, are easy to dispose, rely on abundant elements only, and are cheap. Organic batteries are desirable ...
Prism adaptation treatment improves rehabilitation outcomes in people with spatial neglect
2021-05-25
East Hanover, NJ. May 25, 2021. A team of experts in post-stroke neurorehabilitation confirmed that including prism adaptation treatment in standard of care for patients with post-stroke spatial neglect improved functional and cognitive outcomes according to the Functional Independence Measure®. The article, "Prism Adaptation Treatment Improves Inpatient Rehabilitation Outcome in Individuals with Spatial Neglect: A Retrospective Matched Control Study" (doi: 10.1016/j.arrct.2021.100130.
was published in Archives of Rehabilitation Research and Clinical Translation on May XX, 2021. It is available open access at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590109521000343
The ...
Building a better LED bulb
2021-05-25
LED lightbulbs offer considerable advantages over other types of lighting. Being more efficient, they require much less electricity to operate. They do not give off unwanted heat the way old-school incandescent bulbs do, and the best of them long outlast even fluorescent lightbulbs.
But LEDs are not problem-free. Questions linger over suspected links between health concerns such as fatigue, mood disorders, and insomnia from overexposure to the blue-tinted light produced by today's standard LED bulbs. Plus, higher prices can prompt lightbulb shoppers to weigh other options.
A University of Houston research team led by Jakoah Brgoch, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and principal investigator in the Texas Center for ...
Incentivized product reviews: Positive to a fault?
2021-05-25
ITHACA, N.Y. - It stands to reason that the more one is compensated for performing a task, the greater the incentive to do a good job and the better one feels about doing it.
But what if the task is writing an objective review of a company or service? Does the compensation blur the lines of objectivity?
Kaitlin Woolley, assistant professor of marketing in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, wondered the same thing.
"You often receive emails after a purchase, offering you a chance to win a gift card to the company in ...
The use of couple therapy to reduce pain during intercourse
2021-05-25
One in five women experience pain during intercourse. The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of American psychiatrists, lists it under "genito-pelvic pain or penetration disorder." However, this type of pain is not purely psychological.
Provoked vestibulodynia is a condition experienced by approximately 8% of women in North America. It is characterized by severe pain at the vaginal opening during sexual intercourse or when inserting tampons. To reduce the burning sensation, many women apply lidocaine, an anesthetic ...