By Jamie Satterfield http://www.knoxnews.com The legal cure for out-of-state patients suffering malpractice at the hands of interns and residents at Tennessee’s teaching hospitals rests now not with white-jacketed medical professionals but with black-robed judicial power brokers. The state Supreme Court was asked Wednesday to decide a legal principle that has far-reaching implications for the state’s […]

BY GARY S. MIRKIN http://www.newsday.com

By Ted Griggs http://acadiana.medicalnewsinc.com

http://www.stltoday.com The editorial “Trademarking spin” (Dec. 23) discussed judicial reform in Illinois. Changing the judicial selection process isn’t the only way to improve the Illinois court system. For instance, the Illinois legislature protected patients’ access to care by enacting a comprehensive medical lawsuit reform law in 2005. Prior to this, out-of-control litigation in Illinois counties […]

By Donna Danyluk HOME If you build it, they will come – doctors that is. And once they get here, they won’t want to leave. That’s the thinking behind Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital’s Family Medicine Residency Program. Beginning in June 2009, RVH will become an official teaching site of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of […]

Carol Lloyd http://www.sfgate.com

By MICHAEL McAULIFFE http://www.masslive.com The combination may not yet be lethal, but a shortage of doctors in Massachusetts, coupled with more physicians practicing “defensive medicine” out of fear of being sued, is clouding the state’s landmark health-care reform effort. In a pair of reports, the Massachusetts Medical Society has concluded the shortage of primary-care physicians […]

http://www.eurekalert.org President-elect Obama’s concern about declining numbers of primary care physicians ‘right on the mark’ Washington – At the request of the presidential transition team, ideas on advancing health care reform in the stimulus package were provided today by the American College of Physicians (ACP). ACP represents 126,000 internal medicine physicians and medical student members. […]

http://www.huliq.com In the health care and health insurance blog worlds, there’s plenty of talk about a primary care physician shortage. But I’m curious about whether the average American – not involved in the health care industry other than as a patient – knows about the PCP shortage or sees it as a problem. Like many […]