Thursday, April 12, 2007

On the blogs: race at MIT, infection rates, what not to wear

On Nature Network Boston, Corie Lok asks why there may be more attention paid to gender equity than racial equity at MIT, in light of the February hunger strike by African-American scientist James L. Sherley. Sherley (at right in photo) alleges racism in denial of tenure. Last week MIT named a faculty committee to study the issue of race in faculty hiring and promotion.

"It’s a shame that Sherley had to go to such extremes to get the university to seriously study the issue of race," she writes. "While there was an existing committee on faculty diversity at MIT, it wasn’t able to come together to do a comprehensive study on minority faculty the way women faculty did successfully in the 1990s."

On Running a Hospital, Paul Levy posts the latest central line infection rates for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, measured in cases per thousand ICU patient days.

"The average over the last several months remains better than for the previous year, but the rate for February comes from two actual cases, worse than January and with 100 fewer patient days," he writes. "We treat them as sentinel events and try to learn what went wrong and why."

Kevin, M.D., links to an American College of Physicians story about how physicians dress.

"A patient suing over a post-surgical error said that she knew her surgeon wasn't focused on her because he came to her room in jeans, a T-shirt and athletic shoes," the story said.

Posted by Elizabeth Cooney at 10:49 AM

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