How much do you trust your doctor??



(CNN) - More than five wrong surgeries every day

The Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, reports that wrong-site, wrong-side and wrong-patient procedures occur more than 40 times each week in the United States

At least six surgical errors have occurred at Rhode Island Hospital since 2001, including one where a child went in for eye surgery and the surgeons, confusing this child with another patient, took out the tonsils instead.

Another child had cleft palate surgery on the wrong side of the mouth. Another patient went in for neurosurgery, and doctors drilled holes on the wrong side of the head.

(UPH) -- Ohhh hellnaw buddy!   

Tips to prevent malpractice:

1. Say: "My name is John Doe, my date of birth is October 21, 1965, and I'm here for an appendectomy."
You might feel like an idiot, but say this to every doctor, nurse, and technician who takes care of you.

2. Say: "Please check my ID bracelet."
Hospital staff is supposed to confirm your identity in at least two ways.  One of those ways is to check your ID, or scan it if it has a bar code. Another way is to ask you for your name and date of birth.

3. Say: "Please look in my chart and tell me what procedure I'm having."
If a nurse states that you're having an appendectomy and she's right, that's not enough, because that nurse won't necessarily be there with you in the operating room.

"Make sure the nurse is looking at your chart when she tells you what procedure or test you're having," says Ilene Corina, president of PULSE, New York.

4. Say: "I want to mark up my surgical site with the surgeon present."
Hospitals these days often hand patients a pen and ask them to mark where they're going to have surgery. Corina says you should do it in front of the surgeon who will be with you in the operating room, and not just in front of the person who hands you the pen.

"If you mark it and the surgeon doesn't know about the marking, what's the point of marking it?" Corina asks.

5. Be impolite.
Foster, the executive at the hospital association, gives this example.

"If the nurse comes in and says, 'Are you Mary Jones?' and you're really Miriam Jones, you might just nod your head and say yes because you're too polite to correct her," Foster says. "Don't be polite."

(UPH) - You know we barely go to the hospital as it is.  Normally we have to be on the verge of dying or something...  So, we definitely don't need to be messed around when we do show up.  Let me know if any of you all have experienced mishaps when visiting the doctor.


Posted by urbanpeephole at 11/13/2009 12:46 AM
Categories: Health

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