Primary care physicians could prevent unnecessary procedures by specialists

Allow me to reduce your 110 column inches on Mark Midei to the crucial one: "Reviewers saw 30 percent narrowings when Dr. Midei saw 90 percent." ("Mark Midei fights for medical license, exoneration," Dec. 10.)

The rest is rhetoric. A key role of primary care physicians is to prevent unnecessary procedures by specialists. This is impossible if the patient is sucked through an ER evaluation and stenting procedure like a goose through a jet engine, without ever calling the patient's physician.

I am aware of a patient who was ruled out for a heart attack in May 2008. The patient went to St. Joseph Medical Center three months later and had many stents placed; no one called the physician.

A third of hospitals' income is from cardiac, orthopedic and cancer treatments. Hospitals can only be so accountable, caring or organized before they succumb.

Dr. Ted Houk, Baltimore