Dead By Mistake

Sometimes being a good doc means taking off the white coat

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:36:19 -0600

A local doctor passed this graduation speech along to me saying that it brought a tear to his eye. I agree. It's a moving speech from Dr. Donald Berwick, a pediatrician known for his work in patient safety. Berwick, who...

New York hospitals on the watch list

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:39:04 -0600

Mistakes, advances in New York's hospitals By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY Staff Writer ALBANY -- A middle-aged man walked around with a surgical retractor in his abdomen for five months after an operation at Albany Medical Center. A woman at Nassau...

Year after report, patients still face risk

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:35:39 -0600

Year after report, patients still face risk By Cathleen Crowley and Eric Nalder Hearst Newspapers Health care reform consumed the nation for the last 12 months but, despite all the talk, the country took only baby steps toward reducing medical...

Las Vegas hospitals fail to protect patients' safety

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:46:28 -0600

Do No Harm Hospital Care in Las Vegas By Marshall Allen Las Vegas Sun There's a running joke about hospitals here: "Where do you go for great health care in Las Vegas?" "The airport." The implication is everyone knows hospital...

Can we trust electronic medical records systems?

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:54:34 -0600

FDA, Obama Digital Medical Records Team at Odds over Safety Oversight Previously Undisclosed Hospital Mixup Underscores Challenges on Road to Reform By Fred Schulte and Emma Schwartz Huffington Post Investigative Fund Computers at a major Midwest hospital chain went awry...

Dangers of prescription drug abuse hit home

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:49:15 -0600

THE OTHER DRUG WAR Dangers of prescription drug abuse hit home in Harris County By LISE OLSEN Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle Prescription drugs have killed more than 1,200 people in Harris County since 2006 -- casualties in a deadly...

Doctors, Albany Med to pay $5.2M to settle lawsuit over death of new mother

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:49:49 -0600

Hospital also agrees to widower's demand for lectures on patient safety Friday, April 2, 2010 By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer ALBANY-- A $5.2 million settlement will be paid by two obstetricians and Albany Medical Center Hospital to the family of...

Dr. Don Berwick named to lead Medicare

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:58:25 -0600

Dr. Don Berwick may not be a household name but for those who have been following Dead by Mistake know that he is a strong advocate of patient safety. President Obama is nominating Berwick to lead the Centers for Medicare...

Government collects reports on bad doctors, but hides it from the public

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:33:47 -0600

By Jim Morris Center for Public Integrity In the mid-1980's, incompetent and negligent doctors were moving freely between states, with state licensing boards and hospitals largely oblivious to lawsuits or disciplinary actions in other locations that might have flagged bad...

Pronovost publishes book on patient safety

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:14:13 -0600

Dr. Peter Pronovost "wants to change the secrecy, shame and lack of communication within health care -- a necessary shift to avoid medical errors" according to the Waterbury Republican American. Pronovost, an anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, is...

Jury rejects criminal charge against nurse whistle-blower. Next question: Was accused doctor tight with sheriff?

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:38:41 -0600

Jury clears nurse who reported doctor By Elizabeth Allen San Antonio Express-News It's hard to keep things quiet in a small town, but two Winkler County Memorial Hospital nurses were worried enough about a local doctor to craft an anonymous...

You wouldn't fly with a dead-tired pilot. So why let a wiped-out physician work on you?

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:20:42 -0600

Patient Safety Advocates Launch Campaign to Reduce Resident Physician Fatigue, Boost Patient Safety WASHINGTON, D.C. - A coalition of public interest and patient safety groups launched a campaign today to increase public awareness and gather stories about patients who have...

Illinois woman launches campaign to reduce errors

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:35:23 -0600

Karen Curtiss' father died in 2005 after a series of preventable complications. Since then Curtiss has become a patient safety advocate and has created a website, www.campaignzero.org, to help families avoid medical errors. The web site has checklists that families...

Maybe Congress will pay attention now

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:23:36 -0600

Congressman John Murtha died from complications from gallbladder surgery on Feb. 8 and several news outlets have reported that it was caused by a medical error. Apparently, Murtha's intestines were nicked during laparoscopic surgery to remove his gallbladder. Patient safety...

NYT shines light on radiation errors

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:10:46 -0600

In Sunday's New York Times, reporter Walt Bogdanich writes an amazing piece about radiation mistakes in New York hospitals. Bogdanich found, like we did when writing Dead by Mistake, that the state is not very helpful in providing information about...