A failed treatment, a surgical complication, a medical error, a patient death. When the going gets tough, even the toughest clinicians should get help.
Physicians and nurses who feel personally responsible for a medical error or a patient’s injury face an immediate quandary—their next patient. In the midst of your angst and guilt, do you suck it up and soldier …
Physicians coping after a medical error
Eric Cropp was a pharmacist who was sent to prison for a mistake that resulted in the death of a child.
This was a high profile case, but it was just one of many examples of a disturbing trend I’ve seen in the U.S. in recent years: a person commits a mistake–with no malicious intent and without being under the …
Where do we draw the line on criminalizing mistakes?
Kimberly Hiatt was a pediatric critical care nurse who accidentally gave an infant a fatal overdose of calcium chloride last year.
By accounts, it was a calculation error. A human mistake.
After the incident, the hospital fired her.
This past April, she took her own life.
Although it cannot be concluded that the tragedy was directly responsible for her suicide, the incident clearly …
Should nurses be fired for fatal medication errors?
American Medical News published an informative essay by Kevin B. O’Reilly on December 13, 2010, about errors in diagnosis and why doctors make them.
According to Gordon Schiff, MD, associate director of the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, “The problem of diagnostic errors has gotten short shrift in the broader patient safety movement.” The article focused on …
Diagnostic errors and their role in patient safety
One of the benefits, or aberrations, depending on your point of view, of the fee-for-service model is that we surgeons are remunerated for correcting our mistakes and complications.
At first glance this seems wrong. But perspectives differ, and when a doctor has to deal with serious, undeserved complications and is self-employed he deserves to be compensated adequately. So what really is the difference between the two?
A complication may be described as …
Surgical error: The difference between mistake and complication
Should medical students receive immunity from malpractice liability?
That’s an interesting question that’s raised in a bill from Arizona.
According to the Arizona Daily Sun,
State lawmakers are moving to keep patients injured by medical students from being able to sue them.
But proponents said that won’t leave victims without recourse.
SB1429, awaiting full Senate action, would spell out that students are not liable for malpractice if they are under the supervision of a …
Medical students should not be liable for malpractice
An excerpt from The Color of Atmosphere: One Doctor’s Journey In and Out of Medicine (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2011).
We all make mistakes. To err is human—unless you are a doctor. This is a lesson that began in med school. If something went wrong, someone else was to blame. Attending physicians blamed the residents, who blamed the interns, who blamed whomever else was within range—med student, nurse, patient. We gave …
The threat of malpractice means doctors cannot acknowledge their fallibility
Primary care physicians often have to see patients with a litany of issues. Often within a span of a 15-minute office visit.
This places the doctor in the middle of a tension — spend more time with the patient to address all of the concerns, but risk the wrath of patients scheduled afterwards, who are then forced to wait.
And, in some cases, it’s simply impossible to adequately address every patient question …
Patient complaints do not fit the primary care office visit
by Daphne Swancutt
Two people in the United States just died in the last hour. Seventeen more will die in the next 7 to 8 hours. Over a year, that number will accumulate to about 7,000.
The reason? Medical errors that include misread or otherwise misinterpreted handwritten prescriptions. Believe it. This means that doctors are being sloppy, pharmacies are making mistakes and people are getting dead.
Even more …
Medical errors that involve handwritten prescriptions
Malpractice and heart catheterization have been in the news recently.
A spicy concoction for sure. An epidemiological study published in an online subsidiary of Circulation addresses the role of three major medical issues facing cardiologists today: malpractice, heart catheterization, and medical costs.
It is hard to get more controversial.
Heart catheterization, the invasive assessment of the coronary artery lumen, has always been a hot-potato topic. The “percent-normal” was the buzz word when I …
Heart catheterization worries that every cardiologist face
by Tricia Pil, MD
This is the true story of a hospitalization as told from three points of view: first, the recollections of the patient (who happens to be a physician); second, events as recorded in the medical charts by doctors and nurses; and third, the version put forth by the hospital.
FRIDAY
Patient:
It is fall 2005, and I am nine months pregnant. A healthy 33-year-old pediatrician, I am a longtime patient of …
Patient wants an apology, not money, after medical malpractice
One of the biggest emergency room problems is contacting patients after they leave.
Patients sometimes leave false contact information — which makes it difficult for the emergency room staff should problems arise after the visit.
The issue was illustrated in a piece from msnbc.com. Many times, results like blood cultures or x-ray findings take time to return. And if there’s something that needs to be acted upon, contacting the …
False patient contact information worsens emergency care
An excerpt from How to Survive a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit: The Physician’s Roadmap for Success.
by Ilene R. Brenner, MD
The most important part of your case is upon you: the pretrial deposition. If you do a poor job, you can ruin your case and make a defensible lawsuit become indefensible.
So what is a deposition? It is the sworn testimony of a witness taken before trial, in a location …
Medical malpractice deposition survival tips for doctors
The rapid advance in digital video and still camera technology has found its way into the operating room.
There is the potential to capture and record just about every minute of every surgical procedure in some way. The newest endoscopic camera systems and operating microscopes have integrated systems to record video footage. Storing all that data is just the press of a button away.
The advantages for surgeons are obvious, like the …
Issues surrounding videotaping surgeries in the operating room
Two years ago, I wrote about the case of Julie Thao, the Wisconsin nurse sent to prison for a medication error. I argued then that – although Julie bypassed some safety rules – she most certainly did not deserve jail time.
Along comes another case involving jail time for a medical mistake, this one featuring an Ohio pharmacist named Eric Cropp. I became aware of Eric’s case through the efforts of …
Should health care workers go to jail for medical errors?
Recent reports have said that Michael Jackson died from a propofol overdose. Is that really the case?
Here’s what happened, according to the published timeline.
— At about 1:30 a.m., [Dr. Conrad] Murray gave Jackson 10 mg of Valium.
— At about 2 a.m., he injected Jackson with 2 mg of the anti-anxiety drug Ativan.
— At about 3 a.m., Murray then administered 2 mg of the sedative Versed.
— At about 5 …
Michael Jackson dead from propofol, is Dr. Conrad Murray solely to blame?
Robert Ricketson is a spine surgeon who was involved in a high profile 2003 medical malpractice case in Hawaii where a surgical screwdriver was implanted into a patient’s back. This is his account of the ordeal.
by Robert Ricketson
I am writing today out of frustration and anger, as I am frankly quite tired of passively going along as my name appears year after year in malicious “medical blogs” and …
And should you assume that no news is good news?
The answer is no. According to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 7 percent of abnormal test results from primary care offices were never reported to the patient. And in a large, unnamed, academic medical center, that number ballooned to 23 percent.
That’s almost a quarter of abnormal test results from that center that patients were never …
How soon should patients receive their test results?
Would Natasha Richardson be alive today if she had gone skiing in the United States instead?
I don’t think it would have made a difference.
To recap the tragedy, Ms. Richardson died from an epidural bleed, after she fell while skiing. Her presentation was somewhat classic, with the well-described “lucid” period before she deteriorated.
According to Canada’s Globe and Mail, “ambulance workers were not …
Did the Canadian health system fail Natasha Richardson?
WSJ Health Blog: “Russert’s doctor Michael Newman said the tough-questioning but congenial host of NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ had been under treatment for asymptomatic coronary disease, but that it was under control with medication. He was carrying excess weight, Newman observed, but he got regular exercise and he performed well on an exercise stress test in April.”
GruntDoc: “I therefore propose a new sign in …
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