Author Joins Dr. Marty Makary In Call To Make Medical Profession Accountable And Transparent

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Barry Friedberg, M.D., has joined hands with co-author Dr. Marty Makary in calling for accountability and transparency in the medical profession as the best means to protect patients from unintentional harm.

Friedberg, an author and anesthesiologist, fully endorses the position taken by Dr. Makary in his new book Unaccountable in which he proposes that common sense solutions can fix the healthcare system by empowering patients with information to choose where to go for their medical care.

Makary, an advocate for transparency in healthcare, regularly speaks on the need for hospitals to make their outcomes available on the internet so consumers can choose where to go, based on performance. He has also called for the public reporting of annual rates of catastrophic mistakes such as retained sponges and wrong-site surgery by hospitals.

Dr. Barry Friedberg, author of Getting Over Going Under: 5 Things You Must Know Before Anesthesia (ISBN 978-0-9829169-0-2, 2010, Goldilocks Press, 116 pages, $18.95), also is a champion of keeping patients fully informed about risks they face while being treated. The book is available on the author's web site and at Amazon. http://drbarryfriedberg.com/

In his book, Dr. Friedberg reveals that every time a patient has anesthesia for surgery or a medical procedure there are the dual risks of under-medication with waking up too soon or over-medication and having your brains scrambled.

"The anesthesiologist can get close to determining the correct dose using traditional protocol that involves an elaborate piece of guesswork no more reliable than the comical huckster who guesses your weight at the carnival," writes Dr. Friedberg. "Unfortunately, almost all anesthesiologists gauge anesthesia response using the classical but, notoriously unreliable, signs of heart rate and blood pressure changes. Most do not rely upon a brain monitor, the best available technology to avoid either over-medication or under-medication."

As part of his effort to empower patients as consumers, Dr. Friedberg founded the Goldilocks Foundation http://www.goldilocksfoundation.com to educate the public about the hidden dangers from anesthesia over-medication and what can be done to eliminate those dangers.

Most patients don't know to ask for brain monitors before going under, says Dr. Friedberg, because no one has told them to do so. And because doctors and anesthesiologists have not been transparent about the dangers of over-medicating, patients are needlessly at risk.

"I fully agree with Dr. Makary that if the medical professional were held accountable, and required to be more transparent, the cost of healthcare in America would drop dramatically," stresses Dr. Friedberg. "We should do all that we can, including Dr. Makary's call to post the records of hospitals and doctors on the internet, to help patients make informed decisions."

About Barry Friedberg
Dr. Barry Friedberg has been interviewed extensively on the subject of anesthesia and propofol by FOX, CNN, True TV, and People Magazine. A board certified anesthesiologist for more than three decades, Dr. Friedberg developed the Friedberg Method for administering anesthesia in 1992 and the Goldilocks Anesthesia protocol in 1997. He has been published and cited in several medical journals and textbooks and was honored with a U.S. Congressional award for applying his methods on wounded soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Media Contact: For a review copy of Getting Over Going Under, or to schedule an interview with Dr. Barry Friedberg, please contact Scott Lorenz, President of Westwind Communications Book Marketing, 734-667-2090 or scottlorenz AT westwindcos.com or http://www.Book-Marketing-Expert.com  

SOURCE Dr. Barry Friedberg