My top 7 blog posts of 2016

I’ve written over 700 posts since I started blogging in July 2010. Here are my seven most viewed posts of 2016.

My perspective on the notorious “study” claiming medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. Are there really 250,000 preventable deaths per year in US hospitals?

I followed up by commenting on the negative impact of naive reporting about that preventable death study in When bad research is not critically reported by journalists.

Radiologist Saurabh Jha and I discussed the risks of radiation and rationale for ordering a CT scan for the diagnosis of appendicitis in this post Irrational fear of CT scans in appendicitis.

Another post about appendicitis was my critique of a meta-analysis claiming that antibiotics were safe and efficacious for treating simple appendicitis. Needless to say, I disagreed. Antibiotics vs. surgery for appendicitis.

The issue of surgeon headgear doesn’t seem to go away. The traditional surgeon cap is being banned by some states and nursing organizations. This post, It's time to discuss surgeon headgear again, was popular. Bonus eighth post: The subject came up again when the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses and the American College of Surgeons had a dustup about it later in the year. OR head covering controversy: ACS versus AORN.

I reported on a controversial paper about the relationship between surgeons and anesthesiologists How frequently do surgeons and anesthesiologists lie to each other?

One of my favorite topics is the lack of consistency among the multitude of hospital rating systems. I gave some examples in this post Why hospital rankings are bogus.

Thanks for following my blog and reading my posts. Happy New Year.