For more news from around the web, see the Satellite Edition of this week’s Update over at ER Stories.

Canadian man dies after waiting seven hours in a Montreal emergency department waiting room.

Those little hits to the head on the football field … aren’t so little. Check out this new Sports Illustrated article on how minor head injuries “chip away at the brain” and cause long lasting memory problems.

When “Mr. Happy” is bleeding and the police find you in your apartment lying in a pool of blood, yes, medical care is “really necessary.” Cussing at the medical staff and spitting at people just before they’re going to sew up your cojones probably isn’t a good idea.

Alberta Hospitals wonder which is worse - discharging admitted patients too early to make room for more emergency patients or “historic” wait times in the emergency departments for care? The President of the Calgary physician’s association calls the decision a “gamble” on who is less likely to have an adverse outcome. The president of the Alberta Medical Association’s emergency wrote a letter to the health ministercontaining an “urgent warning that if more space in emergency rooms is not created, the system could soon collapse.”

Christina Aguilera goes to emergency department after “falling down steps” and cutting her lip. Shortly thereafter, she files for divorce from her husband Jordan Bratman. In other news, JCAHO has now determined that both steps and Jordan Bratman are patient safety hazards and is requiring that all future hospitals be built on one level and that Jordan Bratman stay 500 feet away from all hospital premises.

Do you need Stadol that bad? Arkansas doesn’t mess around with prescription forgeries. Woman eligible for up to six years in prison for attempting to obtain a controlled substance by fraud and up to an additional ten years in prison for actually getting the controlled substance.

Also check out the Satellite Edition of this week’s update at ER Stories. Added bonus: No virus alerts!

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“You’d be nuts to drink this.” Growing craze drink “Four Loko,” a mix between an energy drink with caffeine and a high-alcohol content liquor, is sending many victims to emergency departments. Problem is that the concoction comes in a can that has the same colors as Hawaiian Punch.

Twelve million dollar settlement for woman who becomes paralyzed after undergoing epidural.

Twenty million dollar verdict in case where Arkansas neurosurgeon operated on wrong side of brain.

Strange legal precedent. Former Miami Dolphins receiver OJ McDuffie won an $11 million medical malpractice verdict against his orthopedic surgeon. The judge presiding over the case then threw out the verdict because he (the judge) accidentally allowed inappropriate evidence to be presented. Now they have to do another trial.
When doctors make mistakes, they are liable for millions of dollars in damages. When judges make mistakes they are liable for … um … nothing. Sounds fair to me.

I meant to do that. Leaving a sponge inside a patient after surgery might not be negligent. Just ask the Arkansas appellate court.

A little more information on why those National Practitioner Data Bank reports are bad news for doctors.

Not exactly the club drug I’d want to use. Amyl nitrate – also known as a “popper” because of the sound the drug makes when the ampule containing it is opened – increases sexual arousal … but it also kills your vision – a dangerous combination when you’re out drinking and hitting on those hotties at the clubs. The study quoted in the article detailed two patients who had significant vision impairment after using poppers and drinking at a party. The researchers tested for contaminants in the vials that the patients used and didn’t find any, so they are assuming that all of the effects came from the amyl nitrate itself.

More loopholes for the health care law. Obama administration encourages health insurers to add new children to their rolls, but just charge the families of the sicker kids more money for premiums – until 2014 when all of the people responsible for health care reform have been kicked out of office.

“It’s like a car crash in slow motion.” After the closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan, other hospitals are becoming overwhelmed. Ambulance transport time has increased for all of downtown Manhattan. Waiting rooms are overcrowded. Residents are being required to do the work of overtaxed doctors and nurses. Violence in the emergency departments has also increased. Bellevue Hospital’s ED visits increased from 8,000 per month to 10,000 a month and its ambulance runs increased from 2,000 per month to 2,685 per month. As a result, wait times for admitted patients to reach the floor increased from six hours in 2009 to eight hours now. Look for the Joint Commission to swoop in and begin issuing citations any time now.
For patients having emergencies, one paramedic summed the whole situation up as “Your life really depends on traffic patterns.”
The thing is that the same financial pressures that forced St. Vincents to close aren’t going to just go away. Now those pressures are just being spread to other hospitals. How long until the same financial pressures build up and force those hospitals to close as well?

Prophetic sign? Or a case of a nurse pushing IV morphine too quickly? Patient laying in hospital bed sees face of Jesus on the ceiling which “pulled [him] up from the hospital bed by [his] eyes, almost pull[ing] them out of the sockets.” That, the patient contends, is enough to qualify him for sainthood. The incident occurred 49 years ago, but it is vivid in the memory of “Saint” Anthony Carpentier. The doc who treated the patient a half century ago actually remembered Anthony in the ER that day (back then it was still called an “ER” so don’t give me flak) but didn’t remember Anthony’s eyeballs being pulled from his head – which would have promptly required a psych consult. Dang. As an aside, the NY Times reporter who wrote the story has a great writing style.