For instance, Westby Fisher, a widely followed electrophysiologist and blogger, mourns that House-like independence will disappear from medicine as individual practices merge into large groups.

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The company even went so far as to request a retraction of an article that raised questions about Riata in Heart Rhythm by Robert Hauser, a distinguished electrophysiologist.

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Karen has seen an internist, a neurologist, a neurosurgeon, an anesthesiologist, a cardiologist, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, an electrophysiologist and an integrative medicine specialist, not to mention countless other physicians during three hospital stays, and she's still fainting.

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Instead of getting ahead of the news and taking a proactive position, thereby demonstrating to its core electrophysiologist customers that it was doing everything possible to fully understand and address the problem with its leads, the company consistently ignored or downplayed the cascade of bad news.

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