We really don’t understand why only a handful of mainstream news organizations reported this story. (At least in what we found.)
Why is that not a story?
We applaud USA Today for finding time and space – and clearly it didn’t need to free up much space to do a good job telling the story.
The story explains that as many as 300,000 appendectomies are done each year in the US. That figure alone explains why this is an important study to report.
Although the story didn’t cite the cost of appendectomy – emergency or urgent surgery – and we wish it had, we nonetheless will give it a satisfactory score because it at least cited what the editorial writer wrote, "A secondary benefit is the savings to the hospital generated by minimizing staff and anesthesiologist presence late in the evening and during the wee hours of the morning."
As with our harms score above, although the story didn’t give absolute numbers, in this case we think it was sufficient for it to report that "The scientists found no significant difference among the groups in the patients’ condition 30 days after surgery or in the length of their operation or hospital stay."
Although the story didn’t give absolute numbers, in this case we think it was sufficient for it to report that "The scientists found no significant difference among the groups in the patients’ condition 30 days after surgery or in the length of their operation or hospital stay."
Despite running less than 300 words, this story did an adequate job in explaining the quality of the evidence, including pointing out limitations.
The story meets the bare minimum requirement for this criterion in that it at least cited what an editorial stated.
The focus of the story was on a study comparing emergency appendectomy with surgery done up to 12 hours later or beyond.
This is the whole focus of the story – and one we applaud – when it begins: "Appendectomy is the most common emergency surgery in the world, but it doesn’t have to be."
There were no claims made about the novelty of this research, and we may have wished for a bit more context on this. Nonetheless, the potential for guiding future care decisions was made clear.
Not applicable. Given that the story only pulled excerpts from the journal article and the accompanying editorial, and didn’t include any fresh quotes from interviews, we can’t be sure of the extent to which it may have been influenced by a news release.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like