Health & Medical Newswire

BRYANTOWN, MD – A 47-year-old Bryantown, Maryland nurse has won a victory in her battle with the IRS by successfully defending herself against the agency and by getting a ruling that could help thousands of students deduct the cost of an M.B.A. degree on their taxes.

Lori Singleton-Clarke, at her Maryland home. Photo credit: Melissa Golden / The Wall Street Journal

Lori Singleton-Clarke her victory in the U.S. Tax Court last month winning her case on the grounds that she had properly deducted almost $15,000 in business school tuition. This court ruling should make it easier for many other professionals to deduct the expense of a Master in Business Administration degree.

Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal.

Lynn Callister

PROVO, UT – Lynn Callister is a professor of nursing at Brigham Young University (BYU). She has been honored by the first College of Nursing professorship due to a lifetime of of dedication. She has spent the past 23 years studying women’s health and sharing that knowledge with students around the globe. Callister said that she is honored by the professorship, which allows her $5,000 for research, travel and continued mentoring.

College of Nursing Dean Beth Cole pointed out that it was Callister’s dedication that made her a perfect candidate for the professorship. In an article at the Deseret News, Cole was quoted as saying, “The university benefits from her international vision for the profession.” Cole also went on to state, “Her close relationships with nurses across the world have been the stepping stones for international learning experiences for many students.”

Lynn Callister has spent a lifetime listening to others around the globe.

She’s listened to women as they talk about childbirth from Guatemala, Finland, Russia and Jordan.

In Ecuador, women shared stories of giving birth in the slums, while women from Finland frequently chose an unmedicated route even though they have access to every modern convenience.

In the Deseret News article, Callister was quoted as saying, “All the rituals and behaviors that surround childbirth in different parts of the world are very interesting,” She goes on to state, “I think the commonality for me is that women are strong and amazing, and that they are able to accomplish more than they even thought possible.”

In 1952, BYU’s College of Nursing held its first classes and now has 30 graduate students and 337 undergraduate students, Callister said.

Thanks to money received through the Mary Ellen Edmunds’ Endowment for the Healer’s Art, which was established in 2004, Cole said that BYU was finally able to offer a professorship – which it wanted to for several years, now.

Callister has received honors in the past and has also authored and co-authored hundreds of articles on topics such as HIV in women and children, global birth rate trends, poverty and women’s health. She’s been honored as a Fellow by the American Academy of Nursing, and has also earned the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nursing.

But Callister says that she doesn’t do any of it for the accolades, rather she does it because she’s a nurse. She says that nursing means healing and caring for people and it also means listening to people.

She’s met hundreds of mothers who will never be honored for their selfless sacrifices and she also frequently reflects back on them, stating, “It’s those kind of women whose voices we don’t really hear,” she said. “In my research, that’s what I’ve wanted to do — give them voice.”

Four nurses who worked for the Lehigh Valley Health Network were arrested on the charge of stealing pain medication. Pennsylvania Attorney General, Tom Corbett, says the nurses have been charged with taking prescription pain medication from the hospitals where they worked

The accused are identified as Tracy Goetter, 48, of Coopersburg, Lehigh County, a nurse in the Cardiac Cath Lab at Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Muhlenberg campus; Lisa Citrola, 48, of Bethlehem, a nurse in the emergency room at Muhlenberg; Christopher Evans, 31, of Breinigsville, Lehigh County, a nurse at Lehigh Valley Hospital’s Cedar Crest campus; and Krista Lichtenberger, 25, of Bethlehem, an emergency room nurse at Muhlenberg.

Corbett said, in late spring 2009, Goetter started taking waste Fentanyl in her last two weeks of work in an effort to make her own Fentanyl patches for personal use.

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Corbett said that, in August 2007, Citrola began diverting significant amounts of the powerful prescription drug Dilaudid for her personal use. As Citrola’s addiction grew, Corbett said the waste was not enough to feed her addiction. She then allegedly began signing out the drug in patients’ names and using it for her personal use. According to the criminal complaint, in December 2008, Citrola started to inject herself in the bathroom at work.

Corbett said Evans began diverting Fentanyl and Midazolam once a week in May 2009, but increased to four or five times in June and then daily in July. According to the criminal complaint, other employees witnessed Evans dispose of the drug waste, but it was later determined that the waste was saline.

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Corbett said Lichtenberger accessed a Pyxis machine on her day off to obtain prescription medications for her personal use A Pyxis machine is a type of vending machine nurses use to obtain medications for patients.

“Our Bureau of Narcotics Investigation agents are very active in investigating medical professionals who are illegally using prescription pain medication,” Corbett said. “It is a potentially dangerous situation if the person you trust with your medical care is under the influence of drugs.”

Lehigh Valley Health Network released the following statement in response to the arrests:

“Discovering and reporting this type of activity requires having strong medication safety and security systems in place. Every day we assess how to achieve the appropriate balance of allowing enough access to medications to properly care for patients in a timely fashion, and ensuring proper medication security measures. That’s how we were able to identify and report each of these cases to the proper authorities and work closely with them to address these matters. Each of the individuals was terminated after we learned of and investigated each case. A review of each case indicates that patient care was not compromised.”

WFMZ.com contributed to this story.

A Brooklyn girl with epilepsy ended up in the hospital after school nurses mistakenly gave her and other students the swine flu vaccine without parental consent. Officials at Public School 335 in Crown Heights called an ambulance to take 6-year-old, Nikiyah Torres-Pierre to SUNY Downstate Medical Center when she fell ill following the flu shot.

Murray/News Nikiyah Torres, with her mom Naomi Troy, falls ill after a flu shot.

“I was outraged,” Naomi Troy, 26, told the Daily News after her daughter, had a possible allergic reaction to the shot.

“My stomach was hurting, and I was itching,” Nikiyah said after she was released from the hospital.

The snafu and a similar mixup at a Staten Island school came in the first days of the city’s in-school H1N1 vaccination program. Read full story.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – According to the Associated Press, a new state law designed mainly to crack down on Medicaid fraud, is having unexpected consequences by keeping some health care professionals from getting or keeping their licenses at a time when the state is suffering a shortage.

Nursing jobs and healthcare workers affected by Florida law designed to crackdown on fraud

A little-noticed provision in the 160-page measure is preventing doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians and others licensed by the state from working in Florida if they have old felony convictions for fraud or drugs.

The law, which went into effect July 1, prohibits applicants who’ve had such convictions – even if unrelated to Medicaid or other government programs – from getting new or renewed licenses until at least 15 years after they’ve completed their sentences, including probation. The ban also applies to no contest pleas and cases where judges have withheld findings of guilt. More than 30 license applications have been denied or withdrawn because of the law.

Here’s the irony: The provision covers only those who have violated Florida or federal laws. Applicants convicted of the same crimes in other states can still be licensed in Florida.

“To favor people who commit their crimes out of state doesn’t make any sense,” said Anna Small, legislative counsel for the Florida Nurses Association. Read full story.

Nurses Forum offers information about nursing jobs, travel nursing, forensic nursing, forums, a directory of nursing schools in the United States plus continuing education and career opportunities.

The Senate Finance Committee has approved a $829 billion health care reform bill on a 14-9 vote, with Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe the only Republican who voted “yes.”

Olympia Snowe was the only Republican to vote yes on senate health care bill

The vote moves President Barack Obama’s goal of overhauling the nation’s health care system one step closer to reality.

The bill would require all Americans to own health insurance or pay a fine of up to $1,500 per family. It doesn’t require employers to offer health coverage – as the House version of the bill does – and would create health-care co-operatives for purchasing insurance, not the publicly run health insurance option many liberals hoped for.

A 37-year-old nurse and mother of three is on life-support after going to a Weston, Fla. Med Spa for a routine liposuction reports the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

The attorney for the physician who performed the procedure at Weston Medspa said Rohie Kah-Orukotan, a nurse, did not suffer complications until the end of the procedure.

“She went in for a routine  liposuction performed by (Dr. Omar J. Brito Marin) without any complications until the very end, at which time Dr. Brito immediately administered emergency care and called 911,” attorney Brian Bieber told the Sun-Sentinel. “Paramedics arrived; they noted all emergency procedures put into place were proper.”

State officials told the newspaper that the privately owned clinic is not licensed to perform liposuctions under general anesthesia. It could perform a scaled down version of a liposuction procedure while a patient is awake, however. Bieber said he didn’t know which type of procedure Brito performed. State records show Brito is not a board certified plastic surgeon and has a background in occupational medicine.

Kah-Orukotan remained unconscious, with no brain activity, Wednesday at a Florida branch of the Cleveland Clinic, where her family is agonizing over whether to keep her on life support, the family’s attorney said. It’s been five days since Kah-Orukotan had the procedure.

Medspas across the country offer cosmetic procedures like botox, laser hair removal  and lighter versions of liposuction known as laser liposuction or Smartlipo for fat removal. Under the care of a licensed physician, these procedures are relatively safe.

Laser liposuction is still considered a surgical procedure and must be done by a qualified doctor.  If a patient is going to use general ansthesia, then the patient needs to have surgical procedures like liposuction done where there are emergency facilities  to handle complications.

Even local anesthesia such as the use of lidocaine can cause complications. If an overdose of lidocaine is given,  the patient can have seizures.

Under state rules, medical offices do not have to be licensed to perform laser iposuctions or some other procedures  that use only local anesthesia. It’s unclear which type of liposuction Kah-Orukotan had.

NY mandates H1N1 flu shots for nurses and health care workers

Nurses and health care workers in New York are being told to either get the swine flu vaccine or lose their jobs and they are revolting.

New York is the first state in the country to mandate flu vaccinations for its health care workers. They are being told that if they don’t get the H1N1  flu shots, they will lose their jobs

Is New York turning into a police state? Protesters are holding  signs reading: “The State Doesn’t Own My Body’”

A protest took place throughout the state including Albany, where hundreds of demonstrators demanded freedom of choice.

Health care workers in Hauppauge also rallied Tuesday against the state mandate screaming “No forced shots!”

Paula Small, a Women, Infants and Children health care worker said “I don’t even tend to the sick. I am in the nutrition field. They are telling me I must get the shot because I work in a health clinic setting.

Small’s concern. like many, is that the vaccine is untested and unproven, recalling the 1976 flu shots that caused many deaths from the flu vaccination itself.

Frank Mannino, a 50 year old registered nurse, said the state regulation violates his personal freedom and civil rights.

“And now I will lose my job if I don’t take the regular flu shot or the swine flu shot.”

Around 500,000 health care workers are slated to receive the vaccine.

With already a nursing jobs shortage and lack of adequate heath care staff, can New York afford to carry out its threat of firing its health care employees?

Stay tuned for more on this story.

Sarah Palin writes WSJ Op Ed on Obama Care

Tues September 8, 2009, Sarah Palin wrote an op ed piece for the Wall Street Journal called Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care. The president’s proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers.

Palin said, “Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans “talk with one another, and not over one another” as our health-care debate moves forward. I couldn’t agree more. Let’s engage the other side’s arguments, and let’s allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats’ health-care proposals should become governing law.”

She states that some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that “no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds.” Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us. Read full story.

Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor for Telegraph.co.uk reports that one million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today.

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with ‘neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel’ treatment.

Claire Rayner, President of the Patients Association and a former nurse, said: “For far too long now, the Patients Association has been receiving calls on our helpline from people wanting to talk about the dreadful, neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel treatment their elderly relatives had experienced at the hands of NHS nurses.

“I am sickened by what has happened to some part of my profession of which I was so proud.

“These bad, cruel nurses may be – probably are – a tiny proportion of the nursing work force, but even if they are only one or two percent of the whole they should be identified and struck off the Register.”

The charity has disclosed a horrifying account of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff. Read full story.