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Daily Rounds: Medical Device Lobby; Patient Satisfaction; Companies Keeping Coverage; Breast Implant Regrets

Venture capitalists put money on easing medical device rules (The New York Times) - "As Congress considers reauthorizing a law that sets the fees for medical device makers, venture capitalists are emerging as a rich and influential ally of device companies eager to remove what they say are regulatory roadblocks in the approval process. The push has alarmed patient advocates and some doctors, who have been calling on the F.D.A. to intensify its oversight of devices, particularly in light of some all-metal artificial hips that are failing prematurely at an unusually high rate."(nytimes.com)

Few doctors, nurses, report asking patients about what they expect in their care (boston.com — White Coat Notes) "While a majority of doctors and nurses think it is important to check in with patients about what they expect to get from their care during a hospitalization, few have the training or awareness needed to ask the right questions, a team led by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital found in a study released today in BMJ Quality & Safety."(The Boston Globe)

Employers may not rush to drop health coverage after all (NPR) - "Despite claims to the contrary, an insightful economic analysis suggests that it wouldn't be in most employers' business interests to stop providing health insurance when the main coverage provisions of the federal health overhaul kick in." (NPR-Shots)

Denise Richards on body image and breast implant regrets (Huffington Post) -- "It's not the first time Richards has talked about these regrets. This past summer she told Us Weekly, "When I was 19, a doctor put in bigger implants than what I asked for. I was in such a hurry to get them that I didn't research my doctor," Richards told the magazine. "I just thought because they're a plastic surgeon, they must be good. You have to be your advocate for your own body and ask 100 questions." Richards is far from the only celebrity who has been candid about their plastic surgery regrets."(Huffington Post)

FDA slams Viibryd: better sexual profile claim “not supported by the data” (The Carlat Psychiatry Blog) - "The September 2011 issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry created history in two ways. First, the journal published this article written by FDA staff critically reviewing the efficacy and safety data of Viibryd, a new antidepressant that the same FDA staff had just approved. Second, it was not just any journal that published the article, but the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry."(Carlat Psychiatry Blog)

This program aired on October 26, 2011. The audio for this program is not available.

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